Constant Contact Labs Developer Blog

• Techcrunch Disrupt Posted Wednesday, September 29, 2010 Dave Berard 4 Comments

  All this week, Constant Contact will be at TechCrunch Disrupt.  Throughout the week (Mon-Wed), I’ll be updating the presentations and what the buzz is through our blog.  Stay tuned for updates if you aren’t able to be there!  I’ll be commenting on the technology and how it will impact Small Businesses and Organizations.

  *** Views expressed by Conference speakers are in no way a reflection on Constant Contact, Constant Contact Labs or myself (unless I say they are my views ) ***

  Wed - 9/29/2010

  7:32
  TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield Winner - Qwiki (http://www.qwiki.com)
  
  
  7:26
  Microsoft Bizspark Audience Choice Award - Badgeville (http://www.badgeville.com)
  
  
  7:23
  Greylock Partners Award - Most Disruptive Business Model -  pinger (http://www.pinger.com)
  Greylock Partners Award - Most Disruptive Product - Qwiki (http://www.qwiki.com)
  
  
  7:21
  Perkins Coie Innovation Award - Cloudflare (http://www.cloudflare.com)
  
  
  7:19
  Media Tropic Investment Award - Sumazi (http://www.sumazi.com)
  
  
  7:18
  Best Marketing Strategy (Presented by Yume) - Checkpoints (http://www.checkpoints.com)
  
  
  7:16
  All the companies are going up on stage that competed in the final competition.  They’re giving out awards and a winner, but honestly, all these companies have such great ideas and concepts that I see most of them getting funding and becoming players.
  
  
  7:15
  Award ceremony starting.  I do have to leave at 8 so here’s hoping everything goes well and quickly!
  
  
  5:48
  That’s the end of the battle.  Cocktail time and then the awards.  Be back in an hour or so!
  
  
  5:31
  Up Last: Qwiki - A new information experience.  Searching now is visual, audio and interactive.  Searching for any term will bring up a dynamic video that tells you about your search.  The search itself is interactive so you can drill into more details.  Really cool stuff.  http://www.qwiki.com for the alpha invite list
  
  
  5:12
  Up Next: Cloudflare - Free website optimization (serving speed) and security platform to protect you from having security holes or needing a major security team.  It also has geo location optimization features so it’s like you have datacenters all over the world, even though you only have one server in your closet.  http://www.cloudflare.com (this is possibly my favorite company this week, fits a need that almost every website has but generally doesn’t know.  That could be their only downfall)
  
  
  4:56
  Up Next: DataSift - Real Time Curation Platform.  Social media has too much information, which is important to you?  DataSift finds ways to aggregate data, not search it, to find topics you want to know about and get you all the data on that topic from all the different sources.
  
  
  4:40
  Up Next: Opzi - Building a forum for the internet.  It combines a Q&A site with the flexibility of a wiki.  Company employees register for the platform.  Users ask questions, other users answer them and the interaction is archived forever. 
  
  
  4:23
  Up Next: Game Crush - A website where guys pay to play girls in video games.  Instead of buying a girl a drink to meet here, you buy a game and get introduced.  http://www.gamecrush.com
  
  
  4:07
  Up Next: Pinger - Free text messaging platform for any device.  Provide you with a free phone number.  Adding in voice as well, to go along with your free phone number.  This year they have given out 1.4million phone numbers (more than AT&T).  You can buy minutes or earn them by doing online advertising offers.  http://www.pinger.com
  
  
  3:50
  Up first: Badgeville - Loyalty and Rewards platform to drive engagement.  White label product for creating badge, points and leaderboard features for websites.  Open platform with API to define any behavior and reward against those behaviors.  (Our own @RyanQuintal had this idea about 4 months ago and I thought it was great then.  Good to see a company nail this type of service).  http://www.badgeville.com
  
  
  3:49
  Startup Battlefield Finals starting now
  
  
  3:26
  Short break - coming up: Startup Battlefield Finals
  
  
  3:26
  What would you do if you left Google?  Melissa - I really like web products and organizing information. 
  
  
  3:24
  There’s been a lot of talk about Facebook becoming a more powerful competitor in terms of search, why not acquire them for like $100billion?  Melissa - We think that Facebook is impressive but it’s different than what Google is focusing on.  (Followup) So you don’t think Facebook is a competitor in search?  Melissa - So Google is about the open web and there’s a lot of content that is hidden.  But you should be able to find the content that is relevant for you and it shouldn’t be hidden.
  
  
  3:23
  Is Google coming up with Google Music?  Melissa - I can’t answer that Mike - I can, they hired an attorney who only does record deals and Melissa promised back stage she’d tell everyone about it. 
  
  
  3:22
  Do you have advice on how to develop on Google TV and Android?  Melissa - Stay tuned.
  
  r
  3:20
  I’ve deleted my Orkut profile and switched to Facebook.  Why didn’t it work out in the United States, if you aren’t going to buy Google or Twitter, what is your solution?  Melissa - Orkut started fast in the US but we weren’t ready for the numbers.  The US users weren’t willing to use a service that was slow and had bad latency.  Once we solved the scaling issue, we were popular in Brazil and we’re proud of that.
  
  
  3:19
  Audience Questions
  
  
  3:17
  Mike - You were number 9 or 11 Google, it’s been over 9 years.  Why have you not retired or moved on to be the CEO of another company?  Melissa - There is still a lot we can do with search.  Overall in technology, all the ways we can organize information.  There’s always new technologies and products. 
  
  
  3:17
  Mike - Are you worried about the Windows phone for competition?  Melissa - Overall we see smart phones as an opportunity.  We have so many services to deploy, specifically around location.  We really think overall all these phones and developments are an opportunity. 
  
  
  3:15
  Mike - How is Android doing?  Melissa - Searches are double year over year.  Numbers are great.  Interesting is how people use it.  1 in 4 searches are done in voice.  Turn by turn directions by Android are over 1million miles driven. 
  
  
  3:13
  Mike - It seemed your focus was on killing Microsoft; if you had focused on Orkut, would that be the Facebook of today instead of Facebook?  Melissa - We’re proud of Orkut and Microsoft is doing good things.
  
  
  3:12
  Mike - So $2.5Billion? Mellisa - Hahahahaha
  
  
  3:12
  Mike - How much would you pay for Twitter?  Melissa - I’m not going to answer that
  
  
  3:12
  Mike - Thoughts on Social?  Melissa - We think social is great, we launched Social Search last year.
  
  
  3:12
  Mike - Is this hurting you with revenue or is it revenue neutral?  Melissa - We’re working with shortcuts and making it easier to click. 
  
  
  3:10
  Melissa - Most important innovation is the predictive search.  (Isn’t this exactly what the search box auto-complete has been doing for years?)
  
  
  3:09
  Instant Search?  Melissa - It’s saving lots of time for people.
  
  
  3:08
  Mike - tell us about image search? Melissa - We like it, you can see the images and get them all by scrolling.
  
  
  3:06
  Interesting feature, once you type your search and hit “enter”, you get the ability to use up and down to go through the search results.  Click Enter and it will bring you into that result.  I am still hoping they can find a way to bring this to the search box in browsers, I don’t know how many people who would use these features who still use an actual search page.  Fingers crossed that it’s coming soon!
  
  
  3:05
  Sneak peak at two new features.  Keyboard Navigation, ability to navigate through the results without having to leave the keyboard.  Instant within many of the search features on the left panel.
  
  
  3:03
  Marissa - Updates on Google Instant Search, added 12 additional countries.
  
  
  3:03
  Fireside Chat: Marissa Mayer, VP Search Product & User Experience, Google
  
  
  2:54
  GroupMe - Free group texting and conference calling for everybody (NY Disrupt competitor). 
  
  
  2:45
  Judges Choice: J’aime Ohm - Wisedame “A Black Box for Real Life” - App for women.  Let your emergency contacts know where you’re going, when you’ll be back and set up automatic notifications to let them know where you are when you said you would.  Automatic message sending in case you forget.  Can send information like battery life, location, etc. via SMS. http://www.wisedameapp.com
  
  
  2:44
  GroupOn Award - Hack Most Likely to get Arrington out of a Jam with Tim Armstrong: SongCupid - Send a message and attach a song directly to someones phone.  Did something bad?  Send an apology message with an I’m sorry song.
  
  
  2:43
  Highlights from the Hackathon and sponsor awards. 
  
  
  2:39
  Apple made a mistake by not allowing in app purchases for free apps until this year.  It really stunted the app market.  People don’t want to pay for apps they don’t know they will like, but they would purchase premium content in free apps they like.  - CEO SGN
  
  
  2:38
  Not sure how you do it, but they are talking about growing networks of 20million+ friends
  
  
  2:34
  New iPhone game.  Let’s you create a casino.  Seems very similar to FarmVille or CafeWorld in terms of how it flows and works.  Plays just like them.  Only difference appears to be that it’s mobile social instead of Facebook social. 
  
  
  2:33
  Game Announcement (didn’t see this coming): SGN - New social mobile game… Mini Tycoon
  
  
  2:23
  Are you going to be with Digg in 6 months?  Kevin - Ummm, you get burnt out, though I’m not going to sell to AOL.  By the way, congrats, $15million is a nice number.  (Nice dodge with no answer!)
  
  
  2:18
  Old Digg: Democratizing news; New Digg?  Kevin - never liked the “Democratizing news”.  One liner of what we are, good question.  That will change over the next few months.  Going forward we need to find a nitch for ourselves. 
  
  
  2:17
  We focused on revenue too much and didn’t focus on new features.  In the end, that hurt us.
  
  
  2:16
  Did you blame Jay when Digg had problems and did you unfairly kick him to the curb?  Jay was ready to move on to something else and so were we. 
  
  
  2:15
  Power Play: Kevin Rose, Founder, Digg
  
  
  2:06
  Expanding into Seattle market and creating an embedded widget for websites.  Allows them to choose what type of services to display on your website as well.
  
  
  2:01
  Background info - Redbeacon won the last Techcrunch50 startup competition.  They focus on making it easy to schedule jobs, such as flights, online. 
  
  
  2:00
  Back for the afternoon session.
  Product Announcement - Ethon Andreson, Co-Founder & CEO, Redbeacon
  
  
  1:11
  Lunch break here.  Checking out some great Startup Alley companies.  Will be back at 2 with more live blogging. 
  
  
  11:38
  How can you combine the FourSquare experience with sales experience?  Holger - We haven’t gotten much interest in that. 
  
  
  11:36
  Why use Square?  There are lots of businesses that don’t have a POS system.  Many can’t afford it or don’t need a full POS system.  We offer convenience and simplicity.  We also offer analytics that aren’t available through other channels, especially inventory and sales statistics. 
  
  
  11:34
  What is Square?  We allow the processing of credit cards anywhere by anyone.  We’re the PayPal for everyone else. 
  
  
  11:31
  There has been a lot of movement in the field of mobile payments and social commerce, how big is this?  Laura - Paypal has always been a mobile company.  2 years ago $25million, last year $141million and we’re expecting nearly $500million this year.  Trending is great, but it’s still a small portion of our overall sales. 
  
  
  11:30
  New Mobile Frontiers
  Laura Chambers, Senior Director, Mobile, PayPal
  Holger Luedorf, VP Mobile&Partnerships, FourSquare,
  Keith Rabois, General Manager, Square
  
  
  11:27
  What are you ideas on buying adds that don’t drive purchases by drive awareness?  John - That’s the business I’m in and mobile has been an amazing platform for that. 
  
  
  11:27
  Audience Questions
  
  
  11:24
  John - 4 C’s are the drivers for anything: Communication (phones have it), Content consumption (phones are growing here), Creation and Commerce (this is the next frontier that phones will grow)
  
  
  11:16
  John - The initial iAdd numbers are partial novelty.  People are watching them to see what they’re about.  The numbers will naturally decline over time as people get used to them and the novelty wears off. 
  
  
  11:15
  What do brands think about iAdds?  John - I’m in the business of buying impressions that make an actual impression.  We want to create desire.  No one cries over static banners.  Steve Jobs is right, he’s offering a platform to do this.  He’s not the only one, but he’s one of them. 
  
  
  11:11
  Mihir - Let’s use a real example for the audience: app, SMS and mobile web.  App - may have location data (if you’re lucky).  Maybe you can use that, maybe you can’t.  Mobile Web - you don’t have location data so how can you give location data that is useful?  SMS - maybe you have the phone number and you can get access to the GPS, but you need permission and recurring updates.
  
  
  11:09
  We’ve heard the future is hyperlocal adds and deals will be pushed to phones, what is keeping this back?  Mihir - What is holding that back is scale.  How can you find the hyperlocal people with a million dollar budget and make that work?  John - Need, I don’t want to market to no one who has bought or has interest in my clients.  That’s a waste of money.  I don’t need to offer to everyone who pops out of their car near where my clients are selling.  Zaw - What % of your inventory actually can even benefit from this.  Most companies it’s only 5%. 
  
  
  11:08
  John - Agency that buys advertising space on these mobile platforms. 
  
  
  11:06
  Mihir - We have an iPhone app that is top 25, we have an Android app and we have a touch site.  It basically allows them to get a Groupon and use it immediately without printing. 
  
  
  11:05
  Give an overview of 4INFO and Brand In Hand: Zaw - We are a mobile advertising and publishing platform.  We deliver content and advertising and we have 45million active uniques on the SMS side. 
  
  
  11:03
  Mobile Advertising & Marketing
  Zaw Thet, Co-Founder & CEO, 4INFO
  Mihir Shah, VP Mobile, Groupon
  John Hadl, Founder & CEO, Brand in Hand
  
  
  11:02
  What do you think of Grouspawn and will it be a competitor to Match.com?  What did you say?  Did you say goospawn?  I don’t know what you’re talking about but at the risk of saying something I don’t know what I’m talking about, no.
  
  
  11:00
  Is AOL going to win?  It’s speculation, but for the first time in more than 10 years, real things, good things, are happening.  There’s direction, there’s a plan, it’s under a real leader, it’s independent.  It’s restored an enormous amount of value.  It has a real chance. 
  
  
  10:52
  Carol Bartz, will she leave before the end of the year or after the end of the year?  I would say I have nothing to say about it, no opinion whatsoever.  I have no interest in owning Yahoo, I have no interest in the subject.
  
  
  10:50
  *rumor from a napkin handed to Michael Arrington from offstage* You are going to be resigning from LiveNation?  No, we had a meeting with the board.  I said that I wasn’t going to be doing this live term.  I want to get this working but I’m on 5 boards.  2 of them I have significant interest in, neither of those were LiveNation.  Towards the end of the year, we should have a new chairman. 
  
  
  10:48
  Is this like desktop in 95?  It really feels like that. 
  
  
  10:47
  What are the things people should be worrying about or thinking about?  Mobile, wifi, smartphone, whatever it is.  That is a greenfield that over the coming years it is the next big revolution.
  
  
  10:45
  Groupon, permanent force or just a trend?  You say this about lots of things, like when HBO and Google came.  There’s no question that what Groupon does will grow.  It’s a great system to get group deals.  Will Groupon keep it or will someone else take it?  Who knows.  They’ve done a great job so far but they are getting increasing competition. 
  
  
  10:43
  Match.com, does it compete with Facebook?  I’ve been thinking about this lately, what is the ultimate in social network?  It would be Match.com, dating leading to whatever.  What is more social than that? Mike Arrington - I have no response
  
  
  10:42
  Would you own Twitter?  No, not that it won’t generate revenue.  I just wouldn’t own anything I’m not interested in.
  
  
  10:39
  Cable Television, 3-5 years left or longer?  I don’t think it’s going away.  Online TV will increase the competition.  The data shows very early trends across the board with Cable sub losses. 
  
  
  10:36
  Talk about the iPad?  I think there is an early mythology that the content of the net is free.  Premium content is worth what the consumer will pay for it.  The iPad and devices like that are enablers for that. 
  
  
  10:34
  What do you think about search neutrality?  Search neutrality is not about the good of people, it’s about Google continuing to use their search in new areas and verticals they traditionally left to other people.  This is an issue of anti-trust laws if it keeps going that way, if it gets that there.
  
  
  10:33
  Why does it matter? There are two parts of this, we have to unleash the FCC, it’s too bogged down.  It has to get broadband developed to make us more competitive.  We are 16th in the world on broadband access (not to mention we’re also one of the slowest broadband backbones in places that even have it). 
  
  
  10:32
  Google or Facebook, who is the bigger threat to internet freedom?  Neither, biggest threat to internet freedom is net neutrality.  (Great words, if only we could get something done about this!)
  
  
  10:31
  Barry Diller, Chairman & CEO, IAC
  
  
  10:30
  “Why don’t you get to the punchline and ask me how much money we make?” - “How much money do you make” - “We don’t talk about that” -  (Audience laughs).  I’m wondering if anyone talks about how much money they make anymore.
  
  
  10:27
  Is there any way to combine Groupons model and FourSquares model to make a new product that is best of both?  We’ve thought about it but we’re focusing on what we already do very well. 
  
  
  10:24
  Groupon has been going through their own growing pains, how have you been dealing with them?  Some merchants are having a hard time dealing with the demand, how do you help with that?  Most Groupon merchants get through the process fine.  It’s interesting that this is the first advertising channel where merchants can have too much success.  We’re trying to be more involved before Groupons go live to make sure the merchants are more educated and ready.
  
  
  10:23
  Is this another way to buy Groupons? This is a new feature to ease what we see people already doing. 
  
  
  10:20
  Grouspawn.com also has a dating service to help make Groupon babies.  This is pretty entertaining!
  
  
  10:19
  Grouspawn.com - Up to 2 Scholarships per year to babies that came out of Groupon dates.  $60,000 put into a fund for your baby. 
  
  
  10:19
  Intro is about Groupon in groups, this should be interesting.  “People would use Groupon to go on dates, they’d have intercourse and have babies.  We of course feel responsibility towards those babies.”  Best quote of the week?  Could be!
  
  
  10:18
  Special Guest - Andrew Mason, Founder, Groupon
  New feature announcement, launching today
  
  
  10:07
  How does visual search help when you aren’t searching for images?  Visual search is more than just images.  In other areas, like geo location, it makes a lot of sense to have visual search as well.  Text doesn’t make sense for locations.  I think they’re forgetting one of my favorite “visual search” items that no one thinks about.  The visual data summary for most searches at the top.  Rather than have to drill to 100 pages to get the high level details, the summary of information at the top is usually what I’m looking for.  Saves me ever having to click off to any other pages. 
  
  
  10:06
  Demo of “infinite search” on images, old feature they’ve had for months but I don’t know if everyone in the audience has seen it yet. 
  
  
  10:05
  Google and Bing are both advancing search, but using different strategies.  Google is faster to information.  Bing is about faster to task completion.  Definitely interesting takes by both companies, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.  I see the future of search and it is bright!
  
  
  10:02
  All the searches now are animated.  Everything loads smooth on the same page, no refreshes like on older search engines.  You search/nav bar is pinned to the top when you’re scrolling on the search results so you don’t need to scroll back up to navigate.  Finally, the Bing page can also have video backgrounds!  IE9 is the only browser that can currently support these realtime features due to it’s hardware acceleration features, but other browsers may be able to catch up and run this.
  
  
  10:01
  Using IE9 and Bing combines all the new features of HTML5, CSS3 and the new JavaScript engine with hardware acceleration, you can interact with you search page and drdill into everything.  They demoed an image of a plane flying over Mount Rushmore.  They kept drilling into the image until you saw the plane had “Bing” on the side and the trailing banner was an add for IE9.  Really cool.
  
  
  9:59
  Demo - Search is “TC Disrupt Startups”.  It places all of the start ups from this week in a visual search with queries to filter them into different groups.  Live filters are like “mini-queries” to get the actual data you want.  Includes total market value of the companies, can filter based on where they are, what they’re doing.  Internal search within your query on the left.  Incoming new feature!
  
  
  9:58
  What are you doing with Bing with all the filters on the side, such as when you search for cars you get filters to refine your search?  1 out of 2 queries don’t provide the information you want.  Out of that 50%, many of them provide the information you want, you just can’t find it.  With our filters and visual elements, we’re trying to make it easier to get the information you want (Demo incoming)
  
  
  9:56
  Bing is now built out to be the number 2 search engine in the world, hardware and software are all in place and investing is now only into refining the offering and growing the use.  Key objectives: continue to grow share (win new fans), bring to beer in the market how search will change.
  
  
  9:54
  Bing - with the switch of Yahoo! Search to Bing, they now have a 25% market share.  This gives them more power with advertising and more research in how people search and how results display.
  
  
  9:53
  Product Announcement - Bing! (As everyone who knows me, this is my favorite search engine and I’ve completely switched on all my devices, I’m really excited about this)
  
  
  9:49
  Once you find people, it tells you who could warm introduce you if possible (for 2nd/3rd degrees).  This will really make the power of LinkedIn networks go to the next level. 
  
  
  9:48
  Can now search for any person and get their information live.  Dynamically changes the filters and options.  Really cool stuff. 
  
  
  9:46
  Can now click into each network and your followers to see what they’re talking about quickly.  Can do searches that pull in all that information.  There’s also basic categories that are pre-defined you can click into to see things, demo was Computer Scientists from Argentina.  Second demo was TechCrunch (big surprise, search theme of the week lol).  He actually demoed by showing what AOL employees are saying though, which is pretty cool. 
  
  
  9:44
  Live Demo of the new product, first people in the world to see this!  Their new homepage is very interactive.  Everything is real time updates and real time interactions. 
  
  
  9:44
  Esteban Kozak - Principal Product Manager
  
  
  9:43
  Big news: new LinkedIn product annoucnement!! Signal - It’s based around trying to pull a “signal from the stream”.  How can they make people better at what they currently do.
  
  
  9:40
  If you were the CEO of a major technology, what would you do to make it work (hint hint, if you were CEO of Yahoo)?  Yahoo needs to apply their engineers for search to other areas of their technology.  They have the ability to do for browsing what Google did for searching.  Curation at scale is still their most powerful asset.
  
  
  9:37
  What is the “4th Wave”? Media seems to be an interesting area for growth.  Search operating systems to generate content for the users.  Social networking and going viral.  Curation.  No one in this century has mastered putting that all together. 
  
  
  9:34
  Talk about the “3rd wave” of the Internet: Wave of the portal, Wave of the search engine and Wave of the social network.  Relevancy is key to the development in each wave.  The reason the 3rd Wave is taking off is that search engines can’t answer the question “what Chinese restaurant is best for ME?”
  
  
  9:33
  LinkedIn has evolved over the years, but not as quickly as other companies.  Should we expect acquisitions in the future?  We’re increasingly investing in new technologies to help manage the information in LinkedIn.  You can continue to see us looking for the right kind of talent and technology fits.
  
  
  9:32
  Is LinkedIn ready to go public?  Going public and funding are tools we use to grow. 
  
  
  9:31
  Fireside Chat: Jeff Weiner, CEO, LinkedIn
  
  
  9:22
  Last day, agenda includes all the big companies plus the final Startup Battlefield.  It’s been a great week.  Last night, MC Hammer played the after party and everyone had a great time.  We also got to check out our new San Francisco office being built now, what a view!  Looking forward to seeing what happens today and if we have any big announcements left.
  
  
  Tues - 9/28/2010

  12:25
  Break for lunch now.  Afternoon Startup Battlefield looks interesting, but I’ll be visiting our new office in San Francisco!  Sorry to not be providing the details, but I’ll be there all afternoon tomorrow for the finals and awards.
  
  
  11:33
  Product design and keeping with the DNA of the company, how does it work?  Jason - You shouldn’t start a company or product without knowing the exact experience you want to bring to the consumer.  It has to be concrete and you need to stay within that experience. 
  
  
  11:31
  Quora: Success is directly related to the quality of the users, how do you keep this up?  Charlie - There are lots of examples of sites that are successful, such as wikipedia.  It’s all about setting up the structure so the best stuff rises to the top and provides good content.
  
  
  11:28
  Twitter: Tension between Twitter ecosystem and the applications.  What is the plan going forward with this tension and the ecosystem? Jason - 78% of the Twitter users are accessing from the website (big surprise there, didn’t think it was close to that high).  Clients will continue to be used and they are consolidating into a few leading candidates.  Twitter will continue to evolve the web experience to be best in breed. 
  
  
  11:28
  Audience Q&A
  
  
  11:23
  How does Google learn from their social media mistakes?  Bradley - We learned from the various mistakes and stubbles.  Some of what you learn is how to get better and some of what you learn is better directions.  Google Buzz was a great learning tool mostly for the later. 
  
  
  11:20
  How do you inject money making features into Twitter while maintaining the product feel? Jason - It’s very important that everything injected into the product has the same feel as everything in Twitter
  
  
  11:13
  Twitter had feedback on how Google releases new products, can you talk about that process?  Bradley - Google is in a lot of areas with a lot of products.  Because of this diversity, different products are released differently.  Some is driven by metrics, others are more disruptive and creative.
  
  
  11:08
  How much of the redesign was what the design team wanted and what was fixes?  CEO came up with the idea, decided to not do incremental but do it all at once.  (Fairly risky to do such a big change with an emerging product, I really like their redesign and the conviction it takes in your product to do that.)
  
  
  11:06
  Twitter redesign: Jason - 50% of users have it already.  Users are giving really good feedback and enjoying it.  Every time you redesign, you run the risk of backlash.  Twitter decided to keep what worked and make everything else better.
  
  
  11:05
  Design vs. Engineering
  Charlie Cheever, Co-Founder, Quora
  Jason Goldman, VP Product, Twitter
  Bradley Horowitz, VP Product, Google Apps, Google
  
  
  10:48
  Short break, should be back with more live content in 10-15 minutes.
  
  
  10:42
  Gavin Newsom - Mayor of San Francisco
  Thank you notes and plugging of the city.  Definitely an interesting city that I’ve had some great stories from my time here.  If you’re interested, hit me up on the side!
  
  
  10:36
  How does Google feel about Twitter as advertising platform and is Google going to buy them? Eric - No comment on the latter.  Twitter is very important towards the internet ecosystem.  Followup: Is Google concerned about losing talent to startups and other companies like Twitter and FourSquare? Eric - It’s a concern of all large companies.  It’s important to keep that in mind but it’s not a crisis.
  
  
  10:34
  Google’s universal search allows Google to plug their own search products at the expense of others? Eric - That’s not how they see it.  It’s done to give the best user outcome.  You should use a mixture of sources to do search.
  
  
  10:32
  Google says “don’t be evil” and they want to be open, what does that mean? Eric - Easiest way to talk about this is Apple.  To develop there you have to use their hardware, software and submit it to them for approval.  Google would be the inverse of that. (Audience laughed).  Google loves flash, flash is on Android.  Let the user decide if they want Flash or HTML5 and have access to both. 
  
  
  10:31
  When is mobile search important? Eric - The revenue is not there yet but it’s growing very quickly.  No specific answers on numbers.
  
  
  10:30
  What does Google offer for the 500 million small businesses?  Eric - Email, Calendar, salesforce automation, vertical specific programs.  Google offers all of these.  Google is signing businesses up millions at a time, but it will take a lot to get the 500 million (I’m not sure those numbers work, but you get the point)
  
  
  10:27
  Health industry - 3-5% of the queries that Google gets are health related.  Google has hired doctors to help optimize search results to give better answers and are building out architecture optimize health searching.  Legacy industry architecture is slowing that down.
  
  
  10:26
  If you could focus on one thing, what would it be? Eric - Search (Was this even a legit question?)
  
  
  10:24
  How do you make search more serendipitous - Scoring algorithms evolve the more you search.  If you’re logged in, Google can keep history of what you search and what results you like and use that to categorize what other people like you might like.
  
  
  10:22
  Audience Q&A with Eric Schmidt
  
  
  10:12
  Future of search, with our permission, is autonomous search.  You walk down the street and your phone tells you things about where you are.  Requires monitoring users to find what they find useful and aggregating that information.
  
  
  10:08
  Cloud computing is the magic behind the phones.  It’s real benefit is in the way it can make your life “just work”.
  
  
  10:06
  Korea will have 1gb internet to every citizen by 2015, Finland has a law that states every citizen is required to have access to 100mb.  Amazing how far ahead other countries are than us.
  
  
  10:03
  Technology is about making life better.
  
  
  10:00
  Up next - Eric Schmidt, Google
  
  
  9:51
  Mike Arrington is discussing the market strategy of Green Dot, which is to fill a need no one had previously identified.  Also talking about how they make decisions on revenue. 
  
  
  9:42
  Green Dot (greendot.com) - Quietest $2billion IPO ever.
  
  
  9:41
  The Road Less Traveled
  Michael Mritz, Sequoia Capital
  Steve Streit, Founder & CEO Green Dot
  
  
  9:40
  Michael Arrington will retain all the editorial power going forward. 
  
  
  9:37
  Big news here, looks like TechCrunch will be replacing many existing AOL properties.
  
  
  9:34
  Actually, it looks like TechCrunch and AOL did merge.  Terms of the deal are not being disclosed.  Looks like AOL just made a big acquisition!
  
  
  9:33
  AOL on stage with Michael Arrington, talking about AOL buying TechCrunch.  I don’t think this is real but it’s sure entertaining!
  
  
  9:27
  Some questions about when to IPO that are really specific about companies, not really useful to SMBs and Orgs.  Bill - 40-50 IPOs in 2011.  (Big year!)
  
  
  9:21
  What about Facebook?  Bill - There’s always scrutiny; if you want to play with the big boys, there will be scrutiny.  Facebook can do whatever they want; if you have 500 million users, you can do whatever.
  
  
  9:18
  Bill - You don’t need to be a $100million quarterly revenue to have big IPO.
  
  
  9:16
  Why are Silicon Valley companies not going public?  Michael - It is both discriminating and not.  The problem is with IPOs that require a “leap of faith” assumption that they will be profitable.  25 of the 30 IPOs this year were profitable on average for 8 quarters and the other 5 had good faith reasons to believe they would be profitable soon.
  
  
  9:14
  Bill - There will be IPOs that will make billions of dollars and have been 14 billion dollar companies this year.  Press is focusing on the negatives of LinkedIn and Facebook.
  
  
  9:12
  We are still waiting for the Google of our generation, where is it? Michael - Companies normally go public to get capitol to acquire other assets.  There have been over 30 IPOs this year for tech companies and many will be very successful. 
  
  
  9:11
  First Panel: To IPO or not to IPO
  Bill Gurley, Partner, Benchmark Capital
  Michael Grimes, Managing Director of Global Technology, Morgan Stanley
  
  
  
  
  Monday - 9/27/2010
  
  
  4:53
  Unfortunately, I have to leave the demo floor.  Can catch the last few startups on http://www.techcrunch.com.  Will be back tomorrow.
  
  
  4:52
  Session 3 today starting now: Cloudflare - Starting off with some issues with monitors on the MacBook (can’t get the display to go to the second screen). 
  
  
  4:36
  Another 15m break.  Should be back for the final round today.
  
  
  4:27
  Snapdragon allows users to scan bar codes to be scanned for “product check ins”.  These check ins will allow you to see what your friends are saying and thinking about the product.  In addition, they have leader boards for who are the biggest fans of each product.  After checking in, you get a new piece of sarcasm from the pink dragon, Snapdragon.  Sadly, we’re left with great lines such as this for checking in on Grape Nuts - “Because Wine Balls was already taken”. 
  
  
  4:26
  “Snapdragon will fundamentally change how the advertising industry works” - bold quote!
  
  
  4:23
  Last in Group 2: Snapdragon - Product Checkin system with “a twist”
  
  
  4:20
  Judges aren’t enthused about this company.  Feedback is generally that it’s too “gamey” to even fit in with the push towards games now.  I’m getting a feeling that no matter who takes off in this space, websites will be much more interactive and social. 
  
  
  4:13
  Interesting twist, they are pulling in data from Twitter currently and soon to add other social sharing sites.  Allows for seeing a more complete picture. 
  
  
  4:11
  Allows developers to add code to websites and users to add a browser plugin.  The game allows you to check into websites and gain points.  The person with the most points on each website in some period of time is the “One True Fan” for that website.  Even better, you get points for sharing content.  Great way to entice viral spreading of content. 
  
  
  4:09
  Next up in Group 2: OneTrueFan - Customer Loyalty program for website
  
  
  4:07
  This is already launching now, we’ll see if this takes off.
  
  
  4:01
  Wow, user rewards program for this is great.  You get Checkpoints Coins for scanning products and using the app.  You can turn the Coins into tangible rewards with all sorts of amazing products from airline miles to apple products to food.  This could be a great advertising and user reward program with geo-location software. 
  
  
  3:59
  Checkpoints is store agnostic that allows advertisers to use the service like a “virtual endcap”.  Customers can scan items in stores to gain points.  Advertisers then get the ability to generate a “iAdd” like experience right there. 
  
  
  3:57
  Next up: Checkpoints - Marketing company to introduce consumers to products using mobile
  
  
  3:55
  Judges are eating this idea up, though they’re suggesting the ability to use virtual gift certificates and other currency models rather than just cash.  I’d love to see restaurants doing things like “random guest each night eats for free” and setting it up so that the 50th or 75th checking to FourSquare that night gets a free dinner.  Interesting start to an idea that could be huge.
  
  
  3:49
  Their idea is that businesses can use this to drive traffic to locations, reward people for loyalty, reward employees for service.  Really interested in what people think about this one, I don’t see it as anything I’d use. 
  
  
  3:47
  You can set up how much of a “gift” to leave, a clue for where the “gift” is and the note for when they get the gift. 
  
  
  3:44
  Next up: Gifi - iPhone application that lets you hide real world money at real world locations, your friends who check into FourSquare at those locations to claim the money.
  
  
  3:40
  Judges are asking some great questions on how to gauge how this is useful, how can users see that this is driving customer loyalty and engagement.  They’re not sure, but they say they’ll keep trying to figure that out.
  
  
  3:38
  Costs are fairly upscale, starting at $1000 per month depending on website user numbers.  May be cost prohibitive for many SMBs, though some larger ones and larger organizations may still find this interesting.
  
  
  3:34
  Well, it does go to social media channels.  Allows viral marketing of websites based on these achievements and badges.  For SMBs and Orgs, analytics to see what your customers/users are doing, where they’re lost and how you can improve.  Fits with the theme of today: customer feedback and listening is key to success.
  
  
  3:32
  This one could go over real well with business and websites.  They have an easy to use platform for providing badges, points, trophies and leaderboards directly into your existing websites.  Users can define what behaviors are rewarded and what you get for doing them.  I kind of hope this doesn’t post to facebook, I’m still trying to stop Farmville…
  
  
  3:30
  Battlefield Part 2: Badgeville - Use feedback to the user to drive their behavior.  Online loyalty and rewards program.
  
  
  3:16
  Taking a 10m break.  Part 2 of Startup Battlefield is coming up soon.
  
  
  3:12
  This is going over really well with the judges, they really like this idea.  I can see this being incorporated with tools for all sorts of reasons, from Social Media Monitoring tools to just for fun tools (judges mentioned a more powerful Flipboard, I’d love to have this type of power in the format of Flipboard).  This could be a big idea that is used everywhere and no one knows about.
  
  
  3:09
  Live demo of following techcrunch disrupt actually makes more sense.  Users smart searching to pull together tweets for a variety of terms and attempts to filter out unrelated spam (which you get a lot of with hashtags).  Seems pretty useful in the context.
  
  
  3:08
  They’re calling this a platform that can be consumed by 3rd party devices.  Wonder what they’re use cases are for why this would be useful. 
  
  
  3:05
  Demo: tracking the San Francisco 49ers game last Sunday.  Not sure I completely understand what this does.  It seems to just be a snap shot of the tweets that went on during the game. 
  
  
  3:03
  Last Session 1 Startup: Datasift.  Real Time Curation.  Solving the data overload of social media.
  
  
  2:59
  Check it out at http://www.gunzoo.co.jp. 
  
  
  2:56
  Well, have to give them credit for a great idea.  They combine all of the videos of the search results together into one H.264 video (tech talk) that can be viewed on any mobile or computer platform.  All the videos will play, letting you get previews of them and allowing you to drill into them for bigger views.  I can’t imagine how complicated their server code is that does this. 
  
  
  2:54
  Technical difficulties for the first time, surprised it took this long for a slide show to not work!
  
  
  2:53
  Next up: Gunzoo - Shape your video experience.  Goal is to redefine video browsing. 
  
  
  2:49
  And within 5 minutes the judges asked how acceptable it was to use Tweets and Facebook for your sources in a story.  Good answer by the team on verifying sources. 
  
  
  2:47
  Their website: http://storify.com (closed beta right now, code was given out at the conference.  Sorry for not being able to provide it!)
  
  
  2:46
  I thought we got the full demo, but they just brought out some additional features.  When you’ve published your story, it embeds all the social sharing features into your article, has updates on retweets and likes and allow API support for pulling the stories into other products.  Nice way to flush out the features with functionality that makes life easier and their service more useful.  This definitely feels like a service SMBs and Organizations could use for writing content for their blogs, emails and websites.  Look like a subject matter expert by pulling in content from all over the web. 
  
  
  2:44
  Interesting twist on content creation.  Gives you a basic block style editor on the right, left allows you to search social networks (twitter, facebook, flickr, youtube, etc.).  If you find something you like on the left, you can drag it to the right and it will format it to a “quote block”.  Allows you to now have auto-quotes + research all in one place.  I wonder though, how accurate is a story based completely on social media?  Let’s see what the judges say!
  
  
  2:41
  Next up: Storify.  Their concept: make stories with social media.  Problem: social media overload, especially for writing stories and using social media as sources. 
  
  
  2:40
  Qwiki is calling themselves the future of search.  Will be interesting to see how they fit themselves in going forward.
  
  
  2:34
  Qwiki platform looks really cool.  They just demoed an alarm clock version of it that woke you up while reading your daily schedule and telling you about the weather in your area that day. Live demo of the service which can be found at http://www.qwiki.com.  Can’t wait to play with this!
  
  
  2:29
  Qwiki - Information Experience

  Qwiki will be solving the problem of “information overload”.  Search engine for learning that provides a way to view information as videos.  Searching for topics brings you to a “qwiki” and the website will present you with a computer narrated video. 
  
  
  2:24
  Stage is being changed over for the Battlefield.  Will be updating as we go on what each company is about and their website, if possible.
  
  
  2:07
  TechCrunch - Estimated that in Sept alone, Chegg.com generated $50million in revenue.  Dan - Those numbers are close, they’re short if anything.
  
  
  2:05
  Dan - Chegg allows students all over the world to rent books, reducing costs for college students all over the world.
  
  
  2:00
  Coming up:
  2:00: Dan Rosensweig, Chegg
  2:15: Startup Battlefield 1
  
  
  12:13
  What is a tech company?  Microsoft, IBM, Intuit: not technology companies since they’re more interested in keeping it status qua.  Facebook is still trying to innovate.  Google is inbetween and moving away from innovation and trying to keep their search monopoly.
  
  
  12:08
  Are we in a new web bubble now?  Facebook is not overvalued currently, it’s relatively undervalued still.  The Internet as a whole is not overvalued currently, however it’s hard to invest in new industries.  People think the new Facebook of mobile will be Facebook, the new Google of mobile will be Google.
  
  
  12:06
  What is the most “Star Trek” technology you’ve worked on?  Russian rockets!  (Now we’re talking technology!!  Moon bases next?)
  
  
  12:05
  Is it Silicon Valley’s job to do basic science?  No, it’s not our jobs to do that.  There are ways that technology can drive innovation. 
  
  
  12:03
  Is Silicon Valley still the center of technology and innovation?  Yes, it’s still the best area for this in the world.  But it seems disconnected with the rest of the US and sometimes the world.  The Recession is affecting the rest of the world but the Valley is still growing.  Outside of computers and the internet, everything has been really slow for awhile.
  
  
  12:00
  Coming up: Fireside chat with Peter Thiel, President of Founders Fund
  
  
  11:57
  Advice for founders/entrepreneurs: Beth - They want to hear from startups, they want more partnerships.  Doing more innovation challenges, especially in the clean energy and health fields.  Scott - Get the right people on the bus and make sure you’re careful.  Have a big dream, be out to change the world.  Get there one step at a time, rapid iteration. 
  
  
  11:53
  Where is Intuit and GE going with the cloud? Scott - QuickBooks Online, worlds largest cloud accounting software.  Cloud system for QuickBooks 2011 that you can install (launched today!) for your corporation but still have cloud services without being on “The Cloud”.  Intuit store for apps and software that works with QuickBooks. 
  
  
  11:46
  This is a late post of an earlier announcement (11AM announcement) - Microsoft announced partnering with Wordpress to move all Microsoft Live Blogs to Wordpress.  Big news for Wordpress developers, opens up a whole new market for selling services.
  
  
  11:43
  Scott - Tackling this problem is similar to working with SMBs.  Most doctors function the same way.  How can they make the benefits of technology high enough to make people want to change?
  
  
  11:41
  Healthcare innovations - how can we make the healthcare industry more digital and modern?  Beth - barriers are technology and behavioral.  What’s the motivation to make people use this?  Very difficult space to modernize. 
  
  
  11:40
  Cultures of Innovation
  Beth Comstock - SVP and CMO of GE
  Scott Cook - Co-Founder of Intuit
  
  
  9:46
  Break for about an hour for product announcements.  I’ll be back in the late morning/afternoon sessions and fireside chats.
  
  
  9:45
  Wrapping up: Big challenge in social games is to maintain significance in the daily grind.
  
  
  9:40
  Micropayments vs. advertising: Mark - I believe in a user-pay economy.  Going forward, the user-pay economy will be bigger than the advertising industry.  Total advertising industry is only 50 billion dollars, which is a really small number in terms of the total internet economy.  Bing - You don’t want a CFO who only thinks about advertising dollars.  Virtual goods are the way of the future.
  
  
  9:36
  Vision of the AppEconomy: Mark - every major consumer category/behavior will become an app and a new kind of industry.  Consumers will expect that they can use an App to interact with the industry and think of it as part of their phone or platform.
  
  
  9:31
  Mark - When you’re getting investors for your company, even if you have to use half the evaluational, keep control of you company.
  
  
  9:25
  What is next for the web? Mark - who is going to “own” relationships, such as travel, health, shopping?  No one is on all devices, the iPhone desktop, the web, etc. 
  
  
  9:21
  What is Disruptive about social games? The fact that everything about them is disruptive (Bing).  The idea that games weren’t a mainstream activity because there was something wrong with them, not the lack of interest from people.  Most disruptive is taking down the barriers of entry such as learning curve and entry costs (Mark).
  
  
  9:20
  Bing - Talking about how hard it is for companies to let go of the reigns when thinking of what is successful and giving them over to your customers.  In the world of instant feedback and everyone is a publisher, it’s incredibly important to pass the reigns to them and instead control how you react to that.
  
  
  9:18
  Mark is talking about the importance of constantly surveying your customers and using Net Promoter Score to make sure you’re always providing what your customers want.  His take is on bugs, defects and features, but the concepts are the same for all businesses.  He’s crediting constant surveying of his customers with directly affecting their success.  Great words of wisdom for businesses!
  
  
  9:16
  Bing and Mark: Internet Treasures.  Our generation is being defined by the internet, especially our “internet treasures” like facebook and other cultural iconic websites.
  
  
  9:12
  Mark Pincus (founder of Zynga) and Bing Gorder (former head of EA development) being introduced to answer the questions from the audience.  Really looking forward to their takes on the future of the web!
  
  
  9:10
  John Doerr is taking Q&A from the audience with a panel of internet experts to answer.  Variety of topics being raised, couple of questions on how social media will affect organizations and how the future of social media will be.  Of course, HTML 5 and Groupon brought up as well.  This should be a great discussion!
  
  
  9:06
  Opening comments by TechCrunch: Big week, lots of stuff.  Short intro, I like it
  
  
  9:02
  This weekend I spent the night at the TechCrunch Hackathon.  The energy there was amazing!  Over 400 hackers in a room together, trying to pull ideas together and get it running.  Looking forward to seeing the presentation by the winners on Wed and what they bring.

   

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Comments (4) +comment on this post

 

• Ryan Quintal | 1:18 PM September 27, 2010

  Great live blog, I wish I could hear the fireside chats.

• labsAdmin | 1:55 PM September 27, 2010

  Agreed, this is very interesting stuff!

• jewelrytendency | 2:53 AM October 7, 2010

  Great website man…thanks for the post…this article was really great…keep on posting such stuff…great work…. http://www.jewelrytendency.com

• Aaron | 1:45 PM February 15, 2011

  The 11:46 announcement is interesting. Being a huge fan of Wordpress, and being forced to use Sharepoint internally, I find it interesting that even Microsoft won’t use it when given the option.

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