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The Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator Finals

newyorkreview — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:46:52 -0700

Tuesday’s Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator Finals sponsored by Elance brought together a very talented and differentiated group of businesses. After thirty-two finalists went through the two minute-pitch round on Monday only twelve moved onto the finals. The presentation format jumped to five-minutes per presentation with ten minutes of question and answer. The categories and semi-finalists were:

Innovative Web Technologies: Skimble, RecycleMatch and Siri
Entertainment Technology: PocketTales, BandCentral and ShopSavvy
Business Social Media: MobileRoadie, SpredFast and GuruStorm
Personal Social Media: Bump Technologies, FoodSpotting, NutshellMail

The judges in the finals took the liberty to dig deeper into issues like scalability, competition and revenue. I had the opportunity to talk to one of the guest judges after the panel. When asked, “what makes a successful business pitch?” Famed author, social media guru and marketing expert Guy Kawasaki said, “Businesses need to address revenues.” Online social companies need to have one of two things, “either boatloads of users or a strong revenue model.”

Another word to potential pitch-contestants next year, if you have a really cool demo of your product, show it in at the beginning. Siri, the interactive personal assistant company made a 2-minute pitch before showing a real example of what their application provides. After the “oohs” and “aahhhs” of the crowd quieted down, a panelist asked the obvious question “why didn’t you start with that?” If you’re going to pitch a room full of tech-savvy entrepreneurs, demo eye-candy never hurts.

The Buzzword Of The SXSWi Festival Is Monetization

Stamary — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 11:10:59 -0700

Anyone remember the dot.com crash? When the speculative bubble of the late nineties (inflated largely due to the advent of the internet) popped with a cataclysmic bang that shook the financial world like a terrier does a rat? In the days after March 10, 2000, when the “oh no” factor became biblical, economists scrambled to figure how just what the heck went wrong.

Confidence in technology was high. So high, that investors would hurl money at any startup business prefixed with an “e” or suffixed by a “.com”, gambling that the rate of exponential technological growth would buoy their invested premiums. Traditional business models and established concepts such as the P/E ratio (price-to-earnings ratio) were thrown out with the bathwater.

Like a rowdy classroom of teenagers been told to “settle down” by a stern schoolmaster, real businessmen advocating sound, practiced business models began to apply themselves to the realm of internet commerce. One of the chief words they would bandy is “monetization”, which describes the adaptation of assets that are not producing revenue into ones that do. This is particularly applicable to the current status of growth in apps for smartphones and websites looking to gain a foothold in today’s crowded marketplaces.

You’ll notice that many apps have a free version to be downloaded as a taster. The problem most developers battle is balancing the line between what features are free, and what aren’t. Too many resources and features offered for free negates the purpose of the paid upgrade. Too little, and the consumer doesn’t acquire enough information about the product to generate a confident purchase.

Publishing On The iPad

newyorkreview — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:56:16 -0700

On March 12th, Apple started the iPad pre-order sales for the iPad, which was coincidently (or not) the first day of the South by Southwest Interactive festival. The entire weekend technology attendees were asking, “Are you getting an iPad? Did you pre-order yet?” Beyond the tech geeks, the buzzed about new product is raising questions in a number of industries. Today in a panel entitled “Could the iPad have saved Gourmet? The (New) Future of Magazines” the panel explored the impact new technology is having on publishing.

New media experts Rachel Sklar, the Editor-at-Large for Mediaite.com, and Jacob Lewis, CEO of Figment-a mobile platform for reading and writing young-adult fiction, took the audience through a great discussion of how advertisement-sponsored media will need to evolve in order to survive. The magazine industry is currently in crisis. In the last three years over 1500 magazines have folded. Gourmet magazine’s close rocked the industry, as the marketplace didn’t foresee that an institution like Gourmet would fail. Growing news readership on the internet in combination with a weak economy has left publishers scrambling to adopt new strategies and new mediums to survive. Mobile publishing is a whole new ballgame. We will likely see a lot of trial and error in how content is shared but the future is bright for those who have interesting content.

Business Social Media Competitors at Microsoft BizSpark

newyorkreview — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:43:21 -0700

Today kicked off the first round of events for the Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator at SXSW sponsored by Elance. The BizSpark Accelerator was setup to showcase emerging technology companies through a format of a two-minute presentation followed by Q&A by three of the most tech savvy experts in the business. I attended the Business Social Media presentation where eight companies pitched their websites, applications and digital services to land one of three spots in the finals.

Out of the highly competitive field I've chosen to highlight two of the competitors – MobileRoadie and GuruStorms.

MobileRoadie. Quality Android and iPhone apps customizable for anyone.
MobileRoadie makes it easy for anyone to "create a high quality app on the iPhone or android in 20 minutes." Applications are fully customizable and allow the owner to update content in real time. Applications include updates from RSS feeds, Twitter, YouTube and other popular social media sites already baked in so it's easy to update information from across the web. MobileRoadie even offers an option for users to buy music off of iTunes directly through the app. In addition to a great experience for their customers, app owners gain knowledge about their fan base through the use of analytics on how customers interact within the app and overall app performance. MobileRoadie is an easy to use, informative tool that brings anyone's business or brand to the mobile world.

To date, MobileRoadie is already heavily adopted in the entertainment and music industry, especially after the launch at last year's SXSW Music conference. Word spread about MobileRoadie's popularity among top entertainment brands and soon leaders in other industries wanted iPhone and Android apps built for them- including churches, athletes, restaurants, hotels, conferences and bloggers. The company took note and expanded their reach across different industries. Today MobileRoadie's client list includes Taylor Swift, Madonna, the Beer in Hell movie, blogger Taryn Southern and the Golden Globe Awards, just to name a few. The company's dedication to delivering quality features and focus on creating solutions for emerging mobile platforms has well positioned them for great. For more information, visit http://mobileroadie.com/.

GuruStorms. Using the world's best and brightest to brainstorm answers to your complex questions.
GuruStorms provides "The world's experts at your fingertips." They are an Austin based company that offers a unique crowdsourcing solution by recruiting some of the world's top talent to solve answers to complex questions. Users log onto the website and choose a prize amount up to $5,000 to reward the experts for finding a solution to their problem. The company's key benefits is giving users the opportunity to access and collaborate with some of the best minds in technology to find a solution. GuruStorms is geared to bring a new meaning to crowdsourcing by using the best of the crowd, not just the available.

GuruStorms current list of experts include Sam Decker, Marc Nathan, Jonas Lamis and many more. GuruStorms is a part of Melior Technologies which is a company specializing in the fusion of ecommerce and social networking technologies. GuruStorms is the second of the company's unique brainstorming sites that use crowdsourcing to generate great ideas, and to reward their online communities. For more information, please visit http://www.gurustorms.com/.

Although only one of the companies will take home the Business Social Media prize, all competitors in the field have really exciting outlooks on the future of business tech. Make sure to check out SpredFast, Daily Grommet, HyveWorks, KnowEm?, Mobspot, and PitchEngine for some great examples of business innovation.

Check back tomorrow for coverage of the finals of the Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator at SXSW sponsored by Elance.

The Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator Finalists

Stamary — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 13:30:56 -0700

The second annual Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator is a two-day competition where companies in four categories compete for thousands of dollars worth of prizes and, of course, the prestigious SXSWi Conference recognition.

The four categories are Innovative Web Technologies, Entertainment Technologies, Business Social Media, and Personal Social Media. A spokesperson for each of eight new companies in each category pitch their business to a critical panel of internet business luminaries who grill the representatives mercilessly about the advantages, benefits and shortcomings of their product. I was quite surprised at how aggressive the panel was. But such rigor is probably the best option, because it at least keeps the interviews entertaining.

Sponsored by Elance, Microsoft BizSpark, Level 3, Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, and .BIZ Domain, the whole idea is to uncover and promote creative new ideas and talent in each category.

I attended the Innovative Web Technologies and Entertainment presentations, which ran concurrently with the two social media categories.