Roundup, deals, VC Rebecca Zacks wrote: The theme for the week was definitely video, with four different deals cut around different aspects of the technology (five, if you count all the video-playing gizmos that cycle through Second Rotation’s reselling system). Those, and the rest of the week’s Boston-area tech and life sciences deals news, below. —Second Rotation circled $6 million in second round of funding led by RockPort Capital Partners of Boston and joined by Venrock Associates and angle investors Austin Ligon and Henry Vogel. The Waltham, MA-based startup runs Gazelle, an online service that gives consumers cash for their old electronics and resells or recycles the goods. —Cambridge, MA-based online video firm Brightcove inked a deal with publishing juggernaut Conde Nast Publications to launch new advertising-supported video channels for a host of publications’ websites, including Wired.com, Portfolio.com, Glamour.com, Parade.com, and Self.com. —LoJack technology developer MicroLogic of Lowell, MA, will be acquired by the StarTrak Systems division of Scottsdale, AZ-based Alanco Technologies (NASDAQ: ALAN) for an undisclosed sum. StarTrak makes cellular- and satellite-based tools for tracking refrigerated trucks, trailers, and shipping containers. —Molecular Biometrics, a Chester, NJ-based startup developing diagnostic tools for in vitro fertilization (and planning …Next Page » Comments | Permalink | Share |  E-mail Less

Jerry Yang, after a tumultuous reign as the chief executive officer of Yahoo, the company he co-founded with David Filo, announced today that he is stepping down from the top slot. The news was first reported by Kara Swisher and later confirmed by Yahoo in a press release. He is going to make way for someone else, but will stay on the board of Yahoo and will be known as Chief Yahoo. More important, however, is the question of what Yahoo needs to do in order for Jerry to hang on to the title of Chief Yahoo! Yang’s decision to move on isn’t a surprise – it was clear from his talk at a recent industry conference that he was tired and perhaps a little out of his depth. His choice to head the company that was looking down a deep abyss a while back was an ineffectual one, and a total and absolute failure on the part of Yahoo’s board of directors. In June 2008, I wrote about the systematic rot inside the company. What hasn’t been discussed is that the company isn’t really facing up to the fact that its layers of management have resulted in a state of masterful inactivity, masked perhaps as a culture of consensus. This starts at the top - from the company’s board and senior management down to VP level where people are prone to organizing and attending twenty meetings before deciding the fate of a project. Some senior managers including the ones who are deserting the company are skillful players in this game of hiding ennui behind grandiose plans and a great future that never happens. Yang was never able to address these core issues. He isn’t the inspirational tyrant (like Steve Jobs) who can save the company he co-founded. And because he’s a nice guy, he has failed to make the hard decisions needed in order to save the company. Even as an inspirational leader, he couldn’t bring a sense of single purpose to the company, which at times reminds me of the last days of the great Mughal empire. With Yang gone, and the company actively seeking his replacement, the big question is what should Yahoo do next and whom should they hire to replace him? Kara Swisher has a lot of names on her short list, though I don’t think any one of them will prove to be Yahoo’s knight in shining armor. (You can play the Next Yahoo CEO game and leave your suggestions in the comments.) Regardless of the company’s final choice, here is what Yahoo shouldn’t do: Not hire from within, for the current senior management has proven too ineffectual and shares the blame for Yahoo’s current misfortunes. Sell out to Microsoft at today’s prices. ($20 a share would be something the company should seriously consider.) Merge with AOL, for that would be like tying together two bricks with a spider web and hoping that they will float. What it should do: Look outside for someone with spark. Replace the current senior team with executives. Refocus Yahoo on the very qualities that made it great – building technology products for the common people. Focus its energies on Yahoo News, Yahoo Sports, My Yahoo, Yahoo Mail, Flickr, Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Search, as well as Yahoo’s e-commerce platform. Keep building on its Mobile offerings, for this is one area where its independence can help it win friends amongst operators who are worried about Google, Microsoft and Apple.  Yahoo’s ad-serving platform needs to become more real-time, with a drastic improvement in customer service. These are tough choices for Yahoo, but these are also desperate times. And while it might sound crazy, it is time for Yahoo to start entertaining the idea of going private — at today’s stock price that should cost about $15 billion, though it might take more than that to get the deal done. Technology-oriented guys like Roger McNamee could be good private investors because they would ensure that the dollars-and-cents approach doesn’t stall Yahoo’s innovation engine. Hopefully they will bring on a no-nonsense, [HP CEO] Mark Hurd-style executive who can stabilize and revive the company by making it leaner, simpler and have it focus on its core competencies. For PE investors, there is also comfort in the fact that Yahoo can at anytime sell its Asian holdings for a ton of cash. They might be able to find some takers for their European properties as well. Instead, Yahoo could take its roughly $6.36 billion in cash and focus solely on its core U.S. businesses, purging anything that isn’t core. This would mean job cuts for thousands of people, but unfortunately Yahoo doesn’t have much choice: It is either that or slow, lingering, painful irrelevance. Much as we laughed at the Peanut Butter manifesto when it was leaked to the media, the fact is that it still remains a blueprint for saving Yahoo. All someone has to do is read it. Update: Just after I hit publish, I got a note from UBS Investment Research’s Internet analyst Ben Schachter, who writes … We expect the Board will ultimately opt for an external candidate as Decker would likely not be considered a significant enough change by investors. The news may also indicate the Board will push for a more meaningful restructuring of YHOO. Finally, the news will clearly reignite speculation around a potential deal w/MSFT (for a search-only deal or full acquisition) as well as potential other M&A activity. …We still believe MSFT will eventually own YHOO. Jerry moving out of the CEO role may accelerate this. YHOO is a key strategic asset in the online space and given the scarcity of key players of size, we see value here not reflected in the stock’s current valuation. Television is being revolutionized. What are the business opportunities for you in net video? Attend NewTeeVee Live (at special $450 rate) to find out. Less

A study out on Sunday from the Pew Internet and American Life Project took a look at a computers, Internet access and cell phones to figure out how often such devices failed in the last 12 months and what people do when those failures happen. Unsurprisingly, such failures were pretty common, with 44 percent experiencing some kind of web connection failure, 39 percent experiencing a computer failure and 29 percent experiencing a cell phone issue within the last 12 months. Surprisingly, reboot was not an option for fixing the problem, although that pretty much solves whatever issue I happen to encounter. So how did people deal with tech breakdowns? Almost 40 percent called customer support, while 28 percent fixed it themselves and 15 percent called on friends or family. Only 2 percent found help online, and 15 percent couldn’t solve the issue. Most people found such failures to be frustrating as they went through the steps to figure out how to fix the issue: 72 percent felt confident that they were on the right track to solving the problem. 59 percent felt impatient to solve the problem because they had important uses for the broken technology (who are the other 41 percent?!). 48 percent felt discouraged with the amount of effort needed to fix the problem. 40 percent felt confused by the information that they were getting. If, on top of the high percentage of failures, two out of five people are confused by the information they’re getting as they try to solve service issues, this is a problem for everyone — especially as companies and startups are using these devices and services as platforms to launch revenue-generating services. The more time a device is broken, the less time a consumer is clicking on ads, shopping or downloading applications. The Conference for Video Entrepreneurs and Influencers (at special $450 rate) Meet the creators of Heroes and CSI, the CEOs of Hulu and Netflix, and the digital VPs of ABC and FOX. Less

Frank Gruber of SOMEWHAT FRANK & co-founder of TECH cocktail is introduced to some animated business cards created by Snapily. Frank talks to Snapily CEO, Duby Hodd about the various products from business cards to t-shirts. Distributed by Tubemogul. Frank Gruber of SOMEWHAT FRANK, must-read tech-talk, offers in the field video interviews with startup founders, authors and other social media and web technology related experts. Less

Some two years ago, it started to become clear: The web was going to change the way we consume video. So in December 2006, in order to closely track and monitor the growth of online video, we launched NewTeeVee. Since then, Liz Gannes and Chris Albrecht have developed deep insights into the online video industry. Today the two of them will get on stage for our second NewTeeVee Live conference, where they will talk to dozens of industry experts, insiders, movers and shakers to help guide the conversation around the future of online video. (full story below the fold) Some two years ago, it started to become clear: The web was going to change the way we consume video. So in December 2006, in order to closely track and monitor the growth of online video, we launched NewTeeVee. There we have chronicled the massive influx of venture capital investment into literally hundreds of startups — some of whom dream of being the next YouTube, others that hope to come up with the magic potion for video advertising. In the process, Liz Gannes and Chris Albrecht have developed deep insights into the online video industry. And they have done a great job of separating the noise from the signal. Today the two of them will get on stage for our second NewTeeVee Live conference, where they will talk to dozens of industry experts, insiders, movers and shakers to help guide the conversation around the future of online video. The world of video finds itself in a pretty awkward place – watching videos on the web has become as natural as sending email. When recovering from my heart attack, I turned to Hulu to provide on-demand fun. Today, I don’t think twice about spending $20 a month on TV shows from Apple’s iTunes store or $10 for a couple of movies from Jaman. My video-watching habits, while extreme, are precisely what is scaring cable companies into taking the self-destructive and short-sighted approach of imposing metered broadband on their customers. Phone companies are following suit. Meanwhile, the broader economic downturn and subsequent advertising slowdown is threatening the vibrancy of this business I love so much. Layoffs have started to mar the online studios producing eclectic independent content, and a lack of advertising dollars is poised to plunder the meager treasuries of startups that are finding that the VC spigot has run dry. But just as when you think the (online video) world is coming to an end, you have companies like Netflix, Blockbuster and others introducing devices that marry the web video to the living room experience, and in the process, inventing a whole new dynamic. Today we will hear from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who is going to share his vision of the future, while Sling CEO Blake Krikorian is going to talk about the future of our living room in a fireside chat with yours truly. The success of Hulu has awakened the Hollywood studio system to the possibilities of online video, among them the riches that don’t need to be taxed by cable companies and other gatekeepers. With that in mind, Jason Killar, CEO of Hulu, is going to be sharing his story. CSI creator and executive producer of the CSI franchise, Anthony Zuiker, seems to have figured out the magic formula for cross-platform storytelling and he is one of our keynote speakers. The online video industry is transitioning from being a gangly teenager to a grown-up; what remains unclear is exactly how it will evolve. I’m confident that by the end of the day we will have a better sense of what that will involve, allowing Liz, Chris and I to bring you the stories that will help all of us prepare us for this new future. We hope to see you there. And if you can’t be present in person, we will be streaming the conference, thanks to the efforts of our partners, Ustream. We will also be posting to NewTeeVee Live’s Twitter stream, and will be live-blogging the conference over on NewTeeVee. Television is being revolutionized. What are the business opportunities for you in net video? Attend NewTeeVee Live (at special $450 rate) to find out. Less

Some two years ago, it started to become clear: The web was going to change the way we consume video. So in December 2006, in order to closely track and monitor the growth of online video, we launched NewTeeVee. Since then, Liz Gannes and Chris Albrecht have developed deep insights into the online video industry. Today the two of them will get on stage for our second NewTeeVee Live conference, where they will talk to dozens of industry experts, insiders, movers and shakers to help guide the conversation around the future of online video. (full story below the fold) Some two years ago, it started to become clear: The web was going to change the way we consume video. So in December 2006, in order to closely track and monitor the growth of online video, we launched NewTeeVee. There we have chronicled the massive influx of venture capital investment into literally hundreds of startups — some of whom dream of being the next YouTube, others that hope to come up with the magic potion for video advertising. In the process, Liz Gannes and Chris Albrecht have developed deep insights into the online video industry. And they have done a great job of separating the noise from the signal. Today the two of them will get on stage for our second NewTeeVee Live conference, where they will talk to dozens of industry experts, insiders, movers and shakers to help guide the conversation around the future of online video. The world of video finds itself in a pretty awkward place – watching videos on the web has become as natural as sending email. When recovering from my heart attack, I turned to Hulu to provide on-demand fun. Today, I don’t think twice about spending $20 a month on TV shows from Apple’s iTunes store or $10 for a couple of movies from Jaman. My video-watching habits, while extreme, are precisely what is scaring cable companies into taking the self-destructive and short-sighted approach of imposing metered broadband on their customers. Phone companies are following suit. Meanwhile, the broader economic downturn and subsequent advertising slowdown is threatening the vibrancy of this business I love so much. Layoffs have started to mar the online studios producing eclectic independent content, and a lack of advertising dollars is poised to plunder the meager treasuries of startups that are finding that the VC spigot has run dry. But just as when you think the (online video) world is coming to an end, you have companies like Netflix, Blockbuster and others introducing devices that marry the web video to the living room experience, and in the process, inventing a whole new dynamic. Today we will hear from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who is going to share his vision of the future, while Sling CEO Blake Krikorian is going to talk about the future of our living room in a fireside chat with yours truly. The success of Hulu has awakened the Hollywood studio system to the possibilities of online video, among them the riches that don’t need to be taxed by cable companies and other gatekeepers. With that in mind, Jason Killar, CEO of Hulu, is going to be sharing his story. CSI creator and executive producer of the CSI franchise, Anthony Zuiker, seems to have figured out the magic formula for cross-platform storytelling and he is one of our keynote speakers. The online video industry is transitioning from being a gangly teenager to a grown-up; what remains unclear is exactly how it will evolve. I’m confident that by the end of the day we will have a better sense of what that will involve, allowing Liz, Chris and I to bring you the stories that will help all of us prepare us for this new future. We hope to see you there. And if you can’t be present in person, we will be streaming the conference, thanks to the efforts of our partners, Ustream. We will also be posting to NewTeeVee Live’s Twitter stream, and will be live-blogging the conference over on NewTeeVee. Television is being revolutionized. What are the business opportunities for you in net video? Attend NewTeeVee Live (at special $450 rate) to find out. Less

A review of the top news, links and websites discussed on Twitter for the week of October 24th. Blog post associated with this episode here. Show Notes: Twitter Grader - http://twitter.grader.com/ Magpie - http://be-a-magpie.com/ 16 Great Twitter Moments - http://mashable.com/2008/10/31/great-twitter-moments/ Real Women Respond to Palin - http://womenrespondtopalin.com/ Obama's closing argument in Canton, OH - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_K8SvhItZg Obama 30-minute special, "American Stories, American Solutions" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtREqAmLsoA Synchronized Presidential Debating - http://www.236.com/video /2008/watch_synchronized_presidentia_9857.php Ninja Cat - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muLIPWjks_M Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/bb288534.aspx Educause - http://net.educause.edu/conference/annual/ Web 2.0 Expo Berlin - http://en.oreilly.com/webexberlin2008/ Worth the Follow Award - http://twitter.com/hackerforhire Hilarious Tweets 1. http://twitter.com/twoname/statuses/982722148 2. http://twitter.com/bentleycat/status/983930465 3. http://twitter.com/matthewbaldwin/statuses/982496421 Less

Over the years we have seen the gradual separation of phone numbers from geographical location. To date, Skype’s SkypeIn service has been the best demonstration of this trend; even though I live and work just outside Toronto, Canada, I have a Palo Alto, Calif., SkypeIn number for historical family reasons, and I recently acquired a San Francisco number for Truphone. The same separation can apply to most VoIP-based voice services. Over the past couple of years Belgian-based Voxbone has also developed an international numbering service which offers its clients a “local” phone numbers in any of 5,000 cities in 45 countries. OnState has used Voxbone’s “local” numbers as access points to its virtual call center service; its clients’ businesses can offer customer service and support centers with worldwide “local” access. However, it would be even more convenient for businesses selling into multiple countries if they could simply offer one universal number worldwide. Now, they can. Yesterday, three months after the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) made available the +883 “global” country code, Voxbone announced the launch of its country-agnostic iNum service. I first learned of Voxbone at last spring’s eComm 2008 where Voxbone CEO Rod Ullens first mentioned the iNum concept. This announcement starts to realize his vision of enabling low cost conversations with worldwide access by taking advantage of the technology around IP-based communications: “iNum is a new kind of phone number for a new kind of world — a world with a new geography that’s about local presence and global relationships, not about distance or national borders,” said Rodrigue Ullens, CEO and co-founder of Voxbone. “We believe the new geography is defined by the markets, customers and vendors that businesses need to connect with most. We need ‘local’ communication with these people — whether calls originate on public-switched or VoIP networks, whether they are truly local or ‘virtually’ local.” In practice, that means a Voxbone iNum Service Provider Partner will supply a customer, whether an individual or a business, with a number that has an 883 country code. Once the service is fully rolled out to Voxbone’s 5,000 local points of presence worldwide, that iNum number will be accessible for, at most, the cost of a “local” phone call from any PSTN or VoIP service. “At most,” because fundamental to Voxbone’s services is that they are IP-based and therefore calls amongst iNum Partners’ services are free. Currently Voxbone has 10 iNum Service Provider Partners, including Truphone, Mobivox and Voxeo, who either have made iNum numbers available today or will do so in the next few weeks. (For those callers who don’t use an iNum partner’s service, iNum numbers can be called through 55 “local” access points in 45 countries for the cost of a call to these access points.) Ullens, in a SquawkBox conference call yesterday, said that Voxbone will be negotiating with carriers and service providers worldwide to build out their service to become universally available. Voxeo has set up a demonstration iNum service example; call +883 510 001 800 024, give their virtual operator a U.S. postal code and you will get local weather reports. This call can be made via the iNum Partners’ services today; it will become available via the local access points as they are set up over the next week. Another example: iotum’s Callflower Conference Call service will be using iNum numbers in a few days. Jim Courtney is an Associate Editor of Skype Journal. Television is being revolutionized. What are the business opportunities for you in net video? Attend NewTeeVee Live (at special $450 rate) to find out. Less

Over the years we have seen the gradual separation of phone numbers from geographical location. To date, Skype’s SkypeIn service has been the best demonstration of this trend; even though I live and work just outside Toronto, Canada, I have a Palo Alto, Calif., SkypeIn number for historical family reasons, and I recently acquired a San Francisco number for Truphone. The same separation can apply to most VoIP-based voice services. Over the past couple of years Belgian-based Voxbone has also developed an international numbering service which offers its clients a “local” phone numbers in any of 5,000 cities in 45 countries. OnState has used Voxbone’s “local” numbers as access points to its virtual call center service; its clients’ businesses can offer customer service and support centers with worldwide “local” access. However, it would be even more convenient for businesses selling into multiple countries if they could simply offer one universal number worldwide. Now, they can. Yesterday, three months after the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) made available the +883 “global” country code, Voxbone announced the launch of its country-agnostic iNum service. I first learned of Voxbone at last spring’s eComm 2008 where Voxbone CEO Rod Ullens first mentioned the iNum concept. This announcement starts to realize his vision of enabling low cost conversations with worldwide access by taking advantage of the technology around IP-based communications: “iNum is a new kind of phone number for a new kind of world — a world with a new geography that’s about local presence and global relationships, not about distance or national borders,” said Rodrigue Ullens, CEO and co-founder of Voxbone. “We believe the new geography is defined by the markets, customers and vendors that businesses need to connect with most. We need ‘local’ communication with these people — whether calls originate on public-switched or VoIP networks, whether they are truly local or ‘virtually’ local.” In practice, that means a Voxbone iNum Service Provider Partner will supply a customer, whether an individual or a business, with a number that has an 883 country code. Once the service is fully rolled out to Voxbone’s 5,000 local points of presence worldwide, that iNum number will be accessible for, at most, the cost of a “local” phone call from any PSTN or VoIP service. “At most,” because fundamental to Voxbone’s services is that they are IP-based and therefore calls amongst iNum Partners’ services are free. Currently Voxbone has 10 iNum Service Provider Partners, including Truphone, Mobivox and Voxeo, who either have made iNum numbers available today or will do so in the next few weeks. (For those callers who don’t use an iNum partner’s service, iNum numbers can be called through 55 “local” access points in 45 countries for the cost of a call to these access points.) Ullens, in a SquawkBox conference call yesterday, said that Voxbone will be negotiating with carriers and service providers worldwide to build out their service to become universally available. Voxeo has set up a demonstration iNum service example; call +883 510 001 800 028 024, give their virtual operator a U.S. postal code and you will get local weather reports. This call can be made via the iNum Partners’ services today; it will become available via the local access points as they are set up over the next week. Another example: iotum’s Callflower Conference Call service will be using iNum numbers in a few days. Jim Courtney is an Associate Editor of Skype Journal. Television is being revolutionized. What are the business opportunities for you in net video? Attend NewTeeVee Live (at special $450 rate) to find out. Less

So much for the Obama bump. The markets have resumed their downward spiral, making clear that our economic conditions aren’t going to improve anytime soon. The impact of this sustained selling is even being felt by companies that were, until recently, deemed bulletproof — among them, Google. Shares of the Mountain View, Calif.-based company have dropped below $300 for the first time since 2005, indicating that the company might not be immune to the downturn in consumer spending (and thus advertising) after all. Nick Denton, publisher of Gawker Media, makes a very compelling case as to why online advertising is in for some stormy weather. Citibank Internet analyst Mark Mahaney earlier today cut his fourth-quarter profit and net revenue estimates on Google, saying he’s picking up all sorts of negative data points. “We have conducted two dozen+ checks with SEMs (Search Engine Marketers), Online Ad Agencies, large brand retailers, high ASP retailers, travel companies, etc…Conclusions aren’t uniform, but Search marketers almost universally expect Q4 to be the weakest they have ever experienced,” he writes in his morning note. While these might be transitory issues for Google — the company continues to increase market share in search and has a monopolistic control of online advertising — as Mahaney points out, even it has nowhere to hide as the planet gets hit by this economic comet. This downturn poses another challenge for Google as well: To date, it has been able to spending liberally on attracting talented folks to its team. But many of those options are now under water, leaving those employees to resent some of their predecessors. Maintaining its talent — and attracting new blood — is going to be that much harder going forward. And that will leave the company even less time to play with its new toys, such as its newly acquired fighter jet. Television is being revolutionized. What are the business opportunities for you in net video? Attend NewTeeVee Live (at special $450 rate) to find out. Less

Software, Web, personal information management Wade Roush wrote: Boston’s Spring Partners, a venture-backed Web software startup founded by five former executives from mobile marketing firm Third Screen Media, announced today that it’s opening beta testing of its first product, Springpad, to the general public. Springpad is a Web-based personal information management system that helps users create annotated lists or “notebooks” around dozens of themes such as pet care, prescriptions, holiday gift planning, receipts, and recipes. Comments | Permalink | Share |  E-mail Less

blogs, Software, Web Wade Roush wrote: File this under “Only in Cambridge.” Before my interview last week with the founders of Crimson Hexagon, a startup using statistical methods to comb the blogosphere for the latest opinion on brand-name products, I had assumed that the company’s name came from its affiliation with Harvard, where its technical founder, Gary King, is a professor of government. Nope—turns out it’s an allusion to a single line in a short story in Spanish by the late avant-garde Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. The “Hexágono Carmesí” in Borges’ 1941 story “La Biblioteca de Babel” (”The Library of Babel”) is the hidden central chamber in an infinite library; it’s the room containing the single magical book that serves as a perfect compendium and guide to all the other books. The room is supposed to be a metaphor for the company’s search algorithm, which is magical in its own way. As King explains it, it’s able to gather precise summaries of the blogosphere’s sentiment on given products or personalities, but without actually having to understand or accurately classify each mention of said entities. Or maybe the Borges allusion is just a diversionary tactic. Harvard, after all, is notoriously jealous of its own brand identity. “If we said it was crimson because of Harvard they wouldn’t want us to use it,” jokes Candace Fleming, Crimson Hexagon’s CEO. I talked last Friday with Fleming and King, who have been working behind the scenes to launch the angel-funded company since 2007 and had their official coming-out on October 14. While a number of other publications have taken note of the startup, I wanted to know what makes King’s algorithm tick, and how the company plans to make it pay. King’s algorithm, called ReadMe, mines the deep vein of public opinion represented by blogs (about 1.5 million of which are updated at least once a week, according to Technorati). This is a different, and much more focused, variety of opinion than what classical public-opinion polls can get at, the company argues. “Polls are very good for certain purposes, but essentially they are pop quizzes about subjects the respondents may not know anything about,” says King, who directs Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science. “But if you’re interested in what digital camera to buy, you want the opinion of your Uncle Max, who spent a lot of time figuring it out. The opinion of ‘the American public’ is not interesting to you.” Brand-monitoring agencies have long been aware that the blogosphere is a treasure trove of consumer opinion, and there are a number of Web-analytics companies (including some here in Boston, like the Cymfony and Compete divisions of TNS Media Intelligence) that purport to automate the process of distilling that opinion. But for the most part, these companies’ tools for measuring blog-based sentiment are clumsy, inexact, and labor-intensive, King and Fleming say. “With current online brand monitoring solutions, you can find out how many people are talking about your product, and how many people are saying positive and negative things,” says Fleming. “But it’s a little bit like going to the doctor, and having the doctor say ‘You’re sick,’ but then he doesn’t tell you what’s wrong. It can be frustrating.” Crimson Hexagon’s technology lets the company go several layers deeper, according to Fleming, who walked me through a quick example using the Apple iPhone—a product Crimson Hexagon was asked to study by a client (not Apple). “We can tell you not only how many people are saying positive things about the iPhone, but we can tell you that 30 percent are saying that they love the third-party apps, and 15 percent are complaining that …Next Page » Comments | Permalink | Share |  E-mail Less

At last week’s Web 2.0 Summit — the annual convention that has come to represent the new web boom –- a leading web industry journalist asked me if green technology was here to stay, or if it is just another fad that would die at the hands of dropping gas prices and a recession. “I think it’s one of the world’s biggest opportunities,” I responded, and what I wish I’d have added is this: It’s also trumping the web in terms of excitement, innovation and inspiration for the next generation of entrepreneurs. That cleantech is, at the very least, what people are excited about was obvious at last week’s Summit. Green startups — even those that had little to do with the web — took over large parts of the show. Former Vice President, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Kleiner Perkins cleantech investor Al Gore received a standing ovation for his keynote. The CEO and Chairman of high-profile electric vehicle startup Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, and the CEO of electric vehicle infrastructure startup Better Place, Shai Agassi, both had long fireside chats with the conference-organizers. And half of the startups in the launchpad section of the show were green companies — Carbonetworks, GoodGuide and Sungevity. Perhaps the biggest indicator at the show, though, was when John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, declared green technology to be “the growing thing in Silicon Valley” and said kick-starting energy research will be President-elect Barack Obama’s most important task. Kleiner was responsible for Internet investments like Google (GOOG) and has now allocated a third of its fund to green investments — equal to the amount it’s pumping into digital media/web plays. Doerr even told the audience that Kleiner partner Bill Joy would be a good choice for Obama’s Chief Technology Officer; Joy has stated for the past year that he is staying away from most Internet investments and focusing entirely on innovations to fight climate change. So far, the overall venture dollars have started to follow this path, too. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers and National Venture Capital Association, while venture funding for the third quarter of 2008 was down 7 percent from the second quarter to $7.1 billion, cleantech’s portion of that investment grew 14 percent over the second quarter to $1 billion. Internet companies accounted for $1.1 billion of those venture dollars, a 36 percent drop from the second quarter. Back in 2006, cleantech became the third largest venture category, under biotech and software, and remained the third largest in the latest quarter. That’s not to say that cleantech investing won’t be affected by the current financial crisis. Analysts with the Cleantech Group are expecting that in the next quarter later-stage green firms that need to raise a lot of capital –- e.g., to fund biofuel plants, solar thermal farms or green car factories — could find trouble. Tesla Motors already couldn’t raise a planned $100 million financing round on the terms it wanted and turned to an internal round of $40 million, with Tesla CEO Elon Musk carrying half the load. Large clean power projects like T. Boone Pickens’ wind farm are also getting cut back. But the overall cleantech industry will survive a downturn. The opportunity for entrepreneurs and innovation is large — and just starting to be realized. Energy alone is a $6 trillion market, compared to $100 billion for the Internet. And the industries that cleantech entrepreneurs are trying to tackle — power generation, the power grid, the water system — have been largely neglected in terms of technology innovation. As Thomas Friedman points out in “Hot, Flat, and Crowded,” paraphrasing GE’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt: Over three decades GE has sold eight or nine generations of medical devices, but only one generation of energy technology. There’s also the fact that the underlying problems that have lead to the ascendancy of cleantech are still persistent. The price of gas might fluctuate wildly, but the planet is still growing increasingly warm, and the population is still expected to boom to more than 9 billion people in the next three decades — largely in developing countries like India and China. Cleantech is about figuring out smart, sustainable ways to allocate resources like energy, water, and raw materials; the need for which won’t disappear in the face of temporarily cheap fuel. The recession could also turn federal legislators green in the coming months. President-elect Obama is calling for the creation of 5 million green jobs in a decade and has pledged to provide more support for renewable energy than any other previous administration. Josh Green, managing partner at MDV thinks that Obama’s cleantech plan will make up part of the economic recovery package, as does Al Gore. If green jobs really can help ease the pain of the recession, the cleantech industry would find even more government and private sector support when we eventually get to better financial times. This article also appeared on BusinessWeek.com Photo Courtesy of Brian Solis via Flickr. The Conference for Video Entrepreneurs and Influencers (at special $450 rate) Meet the creators of Heroes and CSI, the CEOs of Hulu and Netflix, and the digital VPs of ABC and FOX. Less

At last week’s Web 2.0 Summit — the annual convention that has come to represent the new web boom –- a leading web industry journalist asked me if green technology was here to stay, or if it is just another fad that would die at the hands of dropping gas prices and a recession. “I think it’s one of the world’s biggest opportunities,” I responded, and what I wish I’d have added is this: It’s also trumping the web in terms of excitement, innovation and inspiration for the next generation of entrepreneurs. That cleantech is, at the very least, what people are excited about was obvious at last week’s Summit. Green startups — even those that had little to do with the web — took over large parts of the show. Former Vice President, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Kleiner Perkins cleantech investor Al Gore received a standing ovation for his keynote. The CEO and Chairman of high-profile electric vehicle startup Tesla Motors, Elon Musk, and the CEO of electric vehicle infrastructure startup Better Place, Shai Agassi, both had long fireside chats with the conference-organizers. And half of the startups in the launchpad section of the show were green companies — Carbonetworks, GoodGuide and Sungevity. Perhaps the biggest indicator at the show, though, was when John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, declared green technology to be “the growing thing in Silicon Valley” and said kick-starting energy research will be President-elect Barack Obama’s most important task. Kleiner was responsible for Internet investments like Google (GOOG) and has now allocated a third of its fund to green investments — equal to the amount it’s pumping into digital media/web plays. Doerr even told the audience that Kleiner partner Bill Joy would be a good choice for Obama’s Chief Technology Officer; Joy has stated for the past year that he is staying away from most Internet investments and focusing entirely on innovations to fight climate change. So far, the overall venture dollars have started to follow this path, too. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers and National Venture Capital Association, while venture funding for the third quarter of 2008 was down 7 percent from the second quarter to $7.1 billion, cleantech’s portion of that investment grew 14 percent over the second quarter to $1 billion. Internet companies accounted for $1.1 billion of those venture dollars, a 36 percent drop from the second quarter. Back in 2006, cleantech became the third largest venture category, under biotech and software, and remained the third largest in the latest quarter. That’s not to say that cleantech investing won’t be affected by the current financial crisis. Analysts with the Cleantech Group are expecting that in the next quarter later-stage green firms that need to raise a lot of capital –- e.g., to fund biofuel plants, solar thermal farms or green car factories — could find trouble. Tesla Motors already couldn’t raise a planned $100 million financing round on the terms it wanted and turned to an internal round of $40 million, with Tesla CEO Elon Musk carrying half the load. Large clean power projects like T. Boone Pickens’ wind farm are also getting cut back. But the overall cleantech industry will survive a downturn. The opportunity for entrepreneurs and innovation is large — and just starting to be realized. Energy alone is a $6 trillion market, compared to $100 billion for the Internet. And the industries that cleantech entrepreneurs are trying to tackle — power generation, the power grid, the water system — have been largely neglected in terms of technology innovation. As Thomas Friedman points out in “Hot, Flat, and Crowded,” paraphrasing GE’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt: Over three decades GE has sold eight or nine generations of medical devices, but only one generation of energy technology. There’s also the fact that the underlying problems that have lead to the ascendancy of cleantech are still persistent. The price of gas might fluctuate wildly, but the planet is still growing increasingly warm, and the population is still expected to boom to more than 9 billion people in the next three decades — largely in developing countries like India and China. Cleantech is about figuring out smart, sustainable ways to allocate resources like energy, water, and raw materials; the need for which won’t disappear in the face of temporarily cheap fuel. The recession could also turn federal legislators green in the coming months. President-elect Obama is calling for the creation of 5 million green jobs in a decade and has pledged to provide more support for renewable energy than any other previous administration. Josh Green, managing partner at MDV thinks that Obama’s cleantech plan will make up part of the economic recovery package, as does Al Gore. If green jobs really can help ease the pain of the recession, the cleantech industry would find even more government and private sector support when we eventually get to better financial times. This article also appeared on BusinessWeek.com Photo courtesy of Brian Solis via Flickr. The Conference for Video Entrepreneurs and Influencers (at special $450 rate) Meet the creators of Heroes and CSI, the CEOs of Hulu and Netflix, and the digital VPs of ABC and FOX. Less

Cisco today announced a new edge router capable of moving 6.4 terabytes of data — the equivalent of 200 full length movies — per second. Om anticipated the product last week, pointing out that the influx of data traveling over the Web requires better and faster equipment to manage such complexity and traffic growth. What we also need is a different type of chip. Routers have to process a lot of data really quickly. They are the air traffic controllers of the Internet: Each time someone types in a URL, the router has to figure out how to get the request to the correct end point. Since the number of possible routes grows every year, as does the number of times a router is consulted, old processors just can’t cut it anymore, especially at the edge where this Cisco router will sit. Instead of making chips for such devices more powerful (and more power-hungry), engineers are following in the footsteps of the server world and adding more cores. Multicore chips are gaining in use in the embedded world for networking gear, set-top boxes and other applications. In recent routers Cisco had turned to Tensilica, a maker of specialized embedded multicore chips that can take tasks such as routing and video encoding and speed them up without requiring a lot of power. Tensilica calls its products data plane processors or DPUs. Cisco used those DPUs on its QuantumFlow processor. Cisco is still using the QuantumFlow processor, but has its own custom-designed cores replacing the Tensilica core, inside this latest router, according to sources. However, Intel uses Tensilica cores for audio processing in its new line of systems on a chip built for video players). Other chipmakers, such as Freescale, which in June announced a new family of processors called QorIQ (say “Core IQ”), are tackling the problem of dealing with real-time data in low-power environments with more flexible, multicore embedded processors. As real-time data processing becomes more important in areas such as reading routing tables and video and audio processing, Tensilica’s DPU cores and Freescale’s chips offer a way to process that information using less power than a general purpose CPU or even a graphics processor that might also be used for the task. Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab are even using the Tensilica cores to try to build an energy-efficient supercomputer. In a connected world where devices have to do more but consume less, this type of design may be the way to go. Television is being revolutionized. What are the business opportunities for you in net video? Attend NewTeeVee Live (at special $450 rate) to find out. Less

Cisco today announced a new edge router capable of moving 6.4 terabytes of data — the equivalent of 200 full length movies — per second. Om anticipated the product last week, pointing out that the influx of data traveling over the Web requires better and faster equipment to manage such complexity and traffic growth. What we also need is a different type of chip. Routers have to process a lot of data really quickly. They are the air traffic controllers of the Internet: Each time someone types in a URL, the router has to figure out how to get the request to the correct end point. Since the number of possible routes grows every year, as does the number of times a router is consulted, old processors just can’t cut it anymore, especially at the edge where this Cisco router will sit. Instead of making chips for such devices more powerful (and more power-hungry), engineers are following in the footsteps of the server world and adding more cores. Multicore chips are gaining in use in the embedded world for networking gear, set-top boxes and other applications. In recent routers Cisco had turned to Tensilica, a maker of specialized embedded multicore chips that can take tasks such as routing and video encoding and speed them up without requiring a lot of power. Tensilica calls its products data plane processors or DPUs. Cisco used those DPUs on its QuantumFlow processor. Cisco is still using the QuantumFlow processor, but has its own custom-designed cores replacing the Tensilica core, inside this latest router, according to sources. However, Intel uses Tensilica cores for audio processing in its new line of systems on a chip built for video players). Other chipmakers, such as Freescale, which in June announced a new family of processors called QorIQ (say “Core IQ”), are tackling the problem of dealing with real-time data in low-power environments with more flexible, multicore embedded processors. As real-time data processing becomes more important in areas such as reading routing tables and video and audio processing, Tensilica’s DPU cores and Freescale’s chips offer a way to process that information using less power than a general purpose CPU or even a graphics processor that might also be used for the task. Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab are even using the Tensilica cores to try to build an energy-efficient supercomputer. In a connected world where devices have to do more but consume less, this type of design may be the way to go. Television is being revolutionized. What are the business opportunities for you in net video? Attend NewTeeVee Live (at special $450 rate) to find out. Less