According to this ad on a Comcast customer bill, a new “Extreme” tier of Comcast’s cable internet, err, Xfinity service could roll out within the next week. More »
Comcast – Cable television – Television – United States – Cable
Gregory T. Huang wrote:
How did Geoff Entress become Seattle’s go-to tech investor and startup guru? For those outside the local technology community, Entress is an angel investor who has put his own money to work in more than 35 startup companies, most of them software-based and in the Northwest. They range from firms that are now well-established like Isilon Systems (NASDAQ: ISLN), Seadragon Software (bought by Microsoft), and The Coffee Equipment Company (bought by Starbucks), to fast-rising stars like Bonanzle, Cheezburger Network, Dashwire, Swype, and Elemental Technologies.
But that only scratches the surface of the impact Entress has had in the business community. He is a trusted advisor to scores of local entrepreneurs. He’s also well-known and trusted by the VCs on the other side of the table, having worked as a venture partner at two of Seattle’s premier tech VC firms, Madrona Venture Group and Voyager Capital.
Just yesterday, Entress, 46, found another way to weave himself deeper into the fabric of the Seattle startup community. He announced he has joined Seattle-based Founder’s Co-op as a managing partner. This means he will help run the seed-stage investment fund and startup mentorship program as an equal partner along with co-founders Chris DeVore and Andy Sack. Entress had been a limited partner of the firm for the past couple of years. As if his new role won’t keep him busy enough, Entress is also retaining his position at Voyager Capital, where he will continue to advise startups and evaluate investment deals.
Overall, the move solidifies Entress’s standing as one of the most connected and successful early-stage tech investors in the country. He has been called the “Ron Conway of Seattle” (after the Silicon Valley early-stage angel investor in Google and PayPal) often enough that the comparison feels like a cliche. But to understand what Entress’s move to Founder’s Co-op really means—and what the long-term impact could be on the startup and venture capital ecosystem—you need to know more about where he came from, and where he’s going in life.
Entress is one of those guys whose track record as a boy wonder boggles the mind. He grew up in Pittsburgh, the son of an oral surgeon with the U.S. Navy who “pulled the wisdom teeth of all my friends in high school,” he says. He went to college at the University of Notre Dame, and returned to his hometown to do a master’s in industrial administration at Carnegie Mellon University. Fresh out of business school in the mid-1980s, when he was in his early 20s, he ran a hedge fund with his father. The fund was successful enough that its sale to Duquesne Capital Management helped launch Entress’s career as an angel investor.
But before he found his golden touch for startups in Seattle, he had to complete a couple more steps in the journey. He learned the ways of Wall Street in various jobs in finance, sales, and …Next Page »
Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:
It’s been a week since Google announced a new open-source video project called WebM at its I/O Developers Conference in San Francisco, with the online media giant arguing that streaming video—like nearly everything else on the Internet—just wants to be free. So it seemed like a good time to see how some digital video technology companies are reacting to the move.
In announcing its WebM project, Google (which owns YouTube) said it was joining forces with roughly 40 other companies, including Japan’s Sony, Intel, Adobe, and Logitech to promote the use of WebM under a permissive free software license. Conspicuously missing from the list were Microsoft and Apple. In its statement, the Mountain View, CA, company said, “With Google TV, consumers will now be able to search and watch an expanded universe of content available from a variety of sources including TV providers, the web, their personal content libraries, and mobile applications.”
The WebM technology includes the VP8 video codec, which Google acquired as part of its $140 million buyout of On2 Technologies earlier this year, and Ogg Vorbis, an open source audio codec that’s already widely implemented. A wrinkle that drew much media attention, however, is that Google’s plans to freely license WebM technology could run afoul of MPEG LA—the licensing body for the rival H.264 video codec.
So what was the reaction among digital video leaders from coast to coast?
—At Qualcomm, the vice president of product management in CDMA Technologies, Rag Talluri, writes in a blog post that the San Diego wireless giant is “a strong supporter” of WebM and openly available standards. “This is why we are excited that the company behind the biggest online video portal is enabling the VP8 initiative,” Talluri says. “We thus continue to collaborate with On2/Google’s engineering teams to support VP8 codec on our mobile platforms and deliver a rich video experience on Qualcomm-powered mobile devices. “
—In Cambridge, MA, Brightcove marketing vice …Next Page »
UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS
The prevailing wisdom about young people is that they are not savvy when it comes to managing their on-line reputations — but a new study by the Pew Internet and American Life project says that the opposite is true. Young people are actually much more likely to actively restrict what information they share and with whom they share it.
“Contrary to the popular perception that younger users embrace a laissez-faire attitude about their online reputations, young adults are often more vigilant than older adults when it comes to managing their online identities,” said Mary Madden, Senior Research Specialist and lead author of the report.
This, of course, simply confirms what everyone already knows — that your mom is more likely to post something embarrassing on your wall than you are.
Reputation Management and Social Media [Pew Internet]
Gregory T. Huang wrote:
Rob Glaser, the founder, chairman, and former CEO of Seattle-based RealNetworks (NASDAQ: RNWK), announced yesterday that he has joined Accel Partners, the Silicon Valley-based VC firm, as a part-time venture partner. Glaser will focus on digital media, social media, and mobile service investments—and he’ll do it from the Seattle area.
Accel invested in RealNetworks back in 1995, so the two have a longstanding relationship. In an interview with Kara Swisher of All Things Digital, Glaser gushed, “I have never seen a more entrepreneurially aligned venture firm.”
In a more in-depth chat with Dan Primack of PE Hub, Glaser said, “My sector focus will be on social media and the social intersection of mobile with physical location and other characteristics. The second element of my focus is that I’m Seattle-based, so I hope to introduce Accel to lots of great local entrepreneurs. There are four major mobile companies here—T-Mobile is headquartered here and AT&T is about half here—and we have a great tradition of mobile entrepreneurship like McCaw and others. Plus Microsoft—of which I’m an alum—Real, and Amazon.” (Check out the interview for tidbits on Glaser’s departure from Real, VC pitfalls, and political aspirations.)
In any case, hiring Glaser seems like a shrewd move by a venture firm that, like all its competitors, needs to bolster its entrepreneurial talent, connections, and horsepower in a very challenging time for VC returns. If there’s anyone who might have a unique take on the opportunities at the intersection of mobile technology, physical location, and social media, it’s Glaser.
Prior to RealNetworks, Glaser was a 10-year Microsoft veteran and, before that, the founder of Ivy Research, a maker of games for IBM personal computers (in 1981, while he was an undergrad at Yale University). Glaser has also been an early-stage angel investor in companies including TellMe, PlanetOut, and SmileBox.
This afternoon, Facebook will announce the privacy changes they’ve been promising over the past several weeks. And while all we know so far is that the fix involves simplified settings, here are the adjustments they’d be crazy not to make. More »
Facebook – Privacy – Social network – Security – Online Communities
Erin Kutz wrote:
Biotech companies occupied the majority of the deals news in the last week, but we also saw headlines on smaller transactions and acquisitions for some transportation, Internet, and software companies.
—Darien, CT-based Cytogel Pharma, a biopharmaceutical development firm, pulled in $2.2 million in equity and rights-based funding. The company, which aims to license drugs to ultimately sell to larger drug firms, is a portfolio company of Stamford, CT-based Centripetal Capital Partners.
—Terrafugia, the Woburn, MA-based company that’s out to make the first practical flying car (or “street legal airplane,” as the company prefers), raised $2 million in Series B funding. The money will go to development of Terrafugia’s next-generation vehicle, which will be publicly discussed in July, company CEO Carl Dietrich said.
—Watertown, MA-based biotech startup Arsenal Medical grabbed $10 million for the second tranche of its Series C financing, bringing the round’s total to $18.2 million. North Bridge Venture Partners, Polaris Venture Partners, and Durham, NC-based Intersouth Partners invested in the latest round for Arsenal, which was founded by MIT inventor Bob Langer and Genzyme (NASDAQ: GENZ) co-founder George Whitesides.
—OurStage, a Chelmsford, MA-based company that promotes indie bands through online audience voting in monthly contests, nailed $2.63 million in a mixed offering of equity, options, and warrants, an SEC filing revealed. All told, the company has raised about $19 million, including $3 million in Series B money last year that came from a group of 100 angel investors and Portland, ME- and Austin, TX-based Signature Capital.
—Diagnostics company LightLab Imaging was acquired by St. Jude Medical (NYSE: STJ), the St. Paul, MN-based cardiac devices giant, for about $90 million in cash. St. Jude is purchasing the Westford, MA-based company from Goodman Co., a Japanese medical devices firm that has owned LightLab since 2002.
—Waltham, MA-based Logical Therapeutics nabbed $10 million of a planned $16.9 million round, an SEC filing showed. The company, which is developing anti-inflammatory drugs that are safer on the stomach, didn’t disclose its backers for the most recent financing. SV Life Sciences, Burrill & Company, Novo A/S, Sigvion Capital, and PA Early Stage Partners were behind the $30 million the company raised in June 2007.
—NormOxys, a Wellesley, MA-based drug developer, raised $17.5 million in a venture financing led by new investor Princeton, NJ-based Care Capital. The round also included NormOxys’ original backer, Switzerland-based Index Ventures. The money will go toward …Next Page »
UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS
An excerpt from the Nightline interview of Jesse James came out. This is his first interview since the Academy Award winning actress Sandra Bullock filed for divorce.
James claimed that he never wanted to harm Sandra or his kids. But as like the previous videos of Jesse James, people around the world were not swayed from their “absolute dislike” of him.
At one point of the interview, Vicky Mabrey asks James about his feeling towards the fact that he is one of the most hated men in America. James replied the he thinks he is the most hated man not only in America, but in the world.
A footage from James’ Nightline interview leaks to the internet. The video includes Jesse James claiming that he wanted Bullock to catch him cheating on her. The scandal effectively ended the five-year relationship between the two.
James will also answer questions regarding the “Nazi salute” photo which is quite a topic on the web for days. There were comments regarding racism because of the said photo.
James talks about the pain of losing about Louis, the child that he and Sandra adopted.
Related posts:
AT&T’s latest idea is actually kind of brilliant on multiple levels: totally free Wi-Fi in Times Square. And it could be how they save their network. More »
Wi-Fi – Wireless – Data Communications – 802.11 – Television
Wade Roush wrote:
Boxborough, MA-based Lightower Fiber Networks, which owns and operates 4,500 miles of data-transporting fiber stretching from New England to Long Island, said today that it is acquiring Veroxity Technology Partners of Westford, MA. Veroxity operates about 2,000 miles of fiber in New England and New York City. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed. Lightower Fiber was formed in 2008 from the splitup of National Grid Wireless into Lightower Wireless and Lightower Fiber; it’s been on a buying spree for the past couple of years, also acquiring the fiber assets of companies like DataNet Communications and KeySpan Communications.
Erin Kutz wrote:
What do an online music marketing service, a maker of a platform that helps employers target job ads to potential candidates based on what they read, and a developer of treatments for Alzheimer’s disease all have in common? They’re all New England companies that pulled in financings worth less than $1 million in April, or what we like to call under-the-radar deals.
We got the data on their financings from our private company intelligence platform partner CB Insights, who also supplies us with a list of bigger monthly venture transactions. (Massachusetts companies pulled in $203 million across 21 of these $1 million-plus equity deals in April.) The under-the-radar deals are often too small for us to write about when news first breaks of them, but we think rounding up the deals as a group each month helps to paint a richer picture of what startup investing looks like in the region. And often the companies that make the list are the ones that are ramping up to exit stealth mode and hit the market.
There were five equity deals on April’s under-the-radar list, with the biggest financing, at $502,512, going to Waverx, a Waltham, MA-based maker of dermatological treatments. Two other companies brought in funding with options-based transactions. The April under-the-radar list shrank from March, when there were 16 such transactions, but it still includes a dynamic mix of life sciences companies, software makers, and Internet startups.
One interesting company on the April list was Hire Reach, a Cambridge, MA-based tech startup that’s revamping the employee search process. The company is using algorithms to get a picture of engineering job candidates based on the blogs and articles they read, and provide more targeted job ads to them. It pulled in $401,000 in equity-based funding last month.
Meanwhile, a $265,000 equity deal went to Playsmrt, a stealthy Bedford, MA-based company led by Beth Marcus, a serial entrepreneur who sold her joystick technology company EXOS to Microsoft in 1996. The company doesn’t have a website, but I actually caught up with Marcus last week to discuss the women’s CEO group she’s a member of. She told me that her venture is working on making the Internet safer for kids to browse.
We did happen to report on one of the financings on the list when it happened: the $376,950 that went to Nimbit, a Framingham, MA-based online music marketing service. (Earlier this year, the company also donated a year of its retail service as a prize for our Battle of the Tech Bands event). The April transaction capped off a $1.75 million Series A-1 round of funding, the company’s CEO Bob Cramer told me.
Read below for the full list of April’s sub-$1-million transactions in New England:
| Waverx |
Waltham, MA |
A company developing fast, non-invasive treatments for dermatological disorders | Equity | $502,512 |
| Hire Reach | Cambridge, MA | A developer of a platform that enables employers to find candidates based on what they read | Equity | $401,000 |
| Nimbit | Framingham, MA | An online portal for directly connecting musicians, managers, and music labels to fans | Equity | $376,950 |
| Satori Pharmaceuticals | Cambridge, MA | A company developing therapies for Alzheimer’s disease | Option To Acquire | $315,000 |
| Playsmrt | Bedford, MA | A company working to make the Internet safer for children to browse | Equity | $265,000 |
| AdelaVoice | East Falmouth, MA | A maker of technology for enabling voice applications in social media | Equity | $250,000 |
| Whaleback Systems | Portsmouth, NH | A developer of hosted voice services for small and medium-sized companies | Option To Acquire | $122,216 |
There’s a campaign brewing on Twitter that really ought to be highlighted, if only because it shows the power (well, potential power) of the site. Dave McDonald, a producer on the Ron and Fez show on Sirius XM (and part-time inventor), needs a raise. He needs a raise because he has a growing family to support. But let’s not even bring up personal reasons. The man deserves a raise because he’s a fantastic asset to the Ron and Fez show and to Sirius XM as a whole. Without a raise, Dave will have to leave the show, which is incredibly disappointing. He’s a producer of the highest caliber—competent producers don’t grow on trees, otherwise terrestrial radio might not be as dead as it is today—and yet he earns little more than an intern. If this were 20 years ago we might see picket lines forming outside the Sirius XM studios in New York, but because this is 2010, fans have turned to Twitter to send Sirius XM management a very clear message: Save Dave, Pay The Man.
The rallying symbol for the Twitter movement is the above illustration, created by the eminently talented dregman. It evokes memories of the iconic Hope poster of candidate Obama and the equally moving I’m With Coco campaign from earlier this year. While candidate Obama eventually became President Obama, Conan O’Brien can now look forward to a solid one-hour block of time on basic cable. There’s different degrees of success.
The Save Dave campaign, after an initial period of waywardness and disorganization, seems to have found its footing under the superintendency of Mikey Boy, a longtime friend of the Ron and Fez show. Random, misguided tweets along the lines of “hey sirius, you jerks, pay dave or else!” gave way to standardized hashtags and work-friendly—and re-tweetable—slogans. These includes the titular tweet of the campaign in Save Dave as well as We Are Loud, We Are Proud, We Love ESD [for East Side Dave, his nickname].
The role of the Davepound should not be discounted. The Davepound, for those unaware, refers to McDonald’s more vociferous fans—analogous to co-host Fez Whatley’s Whatley Posse. The Davepound has bombarded Twitter with messages of support. Distinguished Davepound member Opie, of the Opie and Anthony show, also on Sirius XM, tweeted the following two days ago:
Completely agree with @DavePound :Sirius needs to give @eastsidedave a raise. He’s a valuable asset to the Ron & Fez Show. #savedave
opie radio
OpieRadio
This tweet has been re-tweeted numerous since then. With any luck, Sirius XM brass will have noticed it, and others like it.
#savedave #esd #sirius #siriusxm #davepound #paydave are all part of the Save Dave campaign.
Is the campaign working? That’s something only Sirius XM management knows for sure, but the trends look promising. Early last week, when McDonald announced that Thursday, May 27, would be his final day unless his requests were met, the mood on the show and its affiliated online outposts could be described as bleak. When asked today where he put McDonald’s chances of being given a much deserved raise, fellow producer Pepper Hicks (and winner of the 2009 CrunchGear Satellite Radio Award for Personality of the Year) put the odds at 6.5 out of 10. Given Hicks’ generally glass-half-empty disposition, I think we should feel confident with that number.
Twitter’s a fine tool to let the world know that you’re eating lunch, but can it affect people’s lives? Can it help ensure the continuation of excellent, excellent radio and the stabilization of one man’s situation tenuous? Here’s hoping.
Erin Kutz wrote:
Swaptree, a Boston-based website enabling users to trade used books, DVDs, CDs, and video games, announced today that it has hired Jeff Bennett as its CEO, and said it has completed a $6 million round of funding. Bennett comes from NameMedia, a domain name marketplace, where he served as founder, president, and chief operating officer. Swaptree’s newest funding round, led by Safeguard Scientifics, will go to new hires and marketing, and brings the company’s total capital raised to $11.95 million. We wrote about the first $4.8 million of the round that the company pulled in during March.
Erin Kutz wrote:
If you’re in an industry where you depend on suppliers from across the globe, searching the Web for a part or a collaborator isn’t exactly as easy as trying to figure out where you should eat dinner. Josh Green discovered this around 2005 when he was a Harvard Business School student interning at E Ink, the maker of the screen behind Amazon’s Kindle, and needed to find a supplier for an electronic component.
It wasn’t easy. So he started talking to MIT computer science student Jim Psota, who he had already been working with on putting together a startup. In 2006 they incorporated Panjiva, a Web company that aims to simplify the supplier search process for businesses of all sizes. Their product is out to tell manufacturers and retailers everything from who they can order parts from, to whether or not a potential supplier is stable enough to work with, to what their top competitors are shipping.
“We’ve built a Google-like product, but we’re organizing information specific to the global trading space,” says Psota, the co-founder and chief technology officer, who I spoke with at the company’s Cambridge, MA, headquarters (CEO Green leads the operations in New York).
Panjiva (a play on the name of the supercontinent Pangea) is based on a system of data mining algorithms, machine learning, and natural language processing that culls numbers from more than 10 sources, like U.S. Customs. After Green and Psota found their initial inspiration for the business, they spent a few years developing the product, and raising angel and venture financing. Its backers include Battery Ventures and angels like eBay veteran and Stanford professor Michael Dearing, fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, and David Frankel of the Founder Collective, Psota says. Panjiva’s Web-based, industry-comprehensive search tool launched in April 2009. Home Depot was its first customer.
The core of the Panjiva product is its search engine, where users can find suppliers by searching for parts, or get more information on a particular supplier they have come across by searching their name. Panjiva’s database has more than 1.5 million companies (including suppliers and customers) from more than 190 countries. Its interface is made to allow users to sift through that deep set of data to find a short list of potential partners. Panjiva customers use drilldown menus based on variables such as country, certifications, shipping date, or the health of the supplier’s business.
“The raw data that we get in is very messy, it provides disparate data points that are not that interesting in and of themselves to helping the user,” explains Psota. “The secret sauce is taking the disparate and messy data sources and boiling them down and cleaning them up.”
Once users get a manageable list of suppliers they could potentially purchase from, they can select a particular company to view a complex profile, which includes information such as …Next Page »
Gregory T. Huang wrote:
What happens to a scrappy, profitable startup after it decides to take its first round of venture funding? Cynics might say the founders will give up too much control to venture capitalists, focus on growth while sacrificing profits, and try to make a splash in a bigger market before it’s ready.
Seattle-based Appature would say none of the above.
So far, at least, the healthcare marketing software company doesn’t seem too fat and happy with itself. On a recent visit to Appature’s offices in downtown Seattle, chief executive Kabir Shahani and chief technology officer Chris Hahn gave me the lowdown on how the company is working closely with its investors to grow responsibly. That includes adding some key new staff members (see below), and finding ways to attract new customers without spending huge amounts of cash.
What makes Appature unusual is that it was already a successful, bootstrapped company when it decided to pursue a dream of capturing a bigger market, which required taking venture capital. But that kind of experience is starting to become the norm in venture-backed software startups. Gone are the days of pre-revenue companies getting fat Series A checks, just because VCs want in on a fad. In Appature’s case, first came the profits, then the Series A check. And it has used the cash wisely. Appature has doubled in size over the past year, growing to about 20 employees. The company hit a rough patch in 2009, like most, but now appears to be back on track for major growth.
Here’s the quick back story. Shahani and Hahn founded Appature in early 2007. They had met previously at Seattle-based social networking startup Blue Dot. The basic idea behind Appature was to make marketing and customer relationship management more efficient in the healthcare industry through software. They quickly found paying customers and became profitable in their first year, while growing slowly. Then, last December, the company raised $3.5 million in first-round funding from Seattle-area investors Ignition Partners, Madrona Venture Group, and Founder’s Co-op.
Appature’s software helps companies in healthcare, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and consumer health and wellness deliver targeted marketing campaigns, track marketing activity and performance, and learn about their customers via sophisticated business intelligence and analytics tools. As Shahani explained at an Xconomy event earlier this month, Appature can help healthcare companies reach doctors and other customers more directly and effectively through the Web, social media, e-mail, direct mail, trade shows, and other marketing channels. “It’s about building the right workflow around the doctor’s day,” Shahani said. “How do I streamline all that information that’s coming in? For big companies, how do you get the right message to [doctors and healthcare providers]?”
What he means is that many doctors are under pressure to see more patients per day, and spend less time with them, to get the kind of insurance reimbursement they need to run their offices. Then there’s the deluge of clinical data and medical publications that they need to keep up with. It’s all made doctors busier than ever, and has made it hard for healthcare sales reps to spend much time to get to know them and what their patients really need. So, healthcare companies need to be more strategic …Next Page »
UNDERWRITERS AND PARTNERS
Internet tethering — over USB and as a wireless hotspot — is one of the bigger features built into Android 2.2 Froyo. And it’s stupidly easy to set up and use. Just dive into the main wireless settings, tap the appropriate button, and connect your computer.
Check out the video after the break as we walk through the process and do a couple of very basic speed tests.
Google is now on Tv! Introducing to you the new television of the century, Google TV.
Google TV is a combination of TV and the internet. In the past, we were just watching movies in the TV and if we don’t like the show, we just change channels. But now, TV became difficult to manipulate. As stated in , “These days, TV can be very complicated. Figuring out what you want to watch is hard enough, but that’s only the beginning. Once you’ve chosen a program, you have to figure out when it’s playing, and which of hundreds of channels it’s on. Its like you have to change your schedule to fit your TV’s schedule” and after that, they now introduced the Google TV. Google TV is like a Google search placed in TV. Everything works just like using the computer, where right on the TV screen, you simply type in what you are looking for, and Google Tv will search for it. You can search for the movies you want to watch like in You Tube and you can watch it with your entire family since it is on TV. Not like in the computer monitor because only few people can enjoy watching in the small screen. Also, if you find something you like, you can add it to your home screen where you will always see your favorite channels, shows, websites, music, play lists and albums. This is really quick just like in the computer. You can get unlimited access to the internet so you can also update your status and even browse photos. It’s amazing isn’t it? Good thing that they had invented Google TV, because not only it will make life easier, but it will also bring fun entertainment to all family.
However, will Google TV play continuously as the broadcast version? Or you will still wait for it to buff? It will be a good question for the company if they will make Google Tv a success. But, Google TV will not be real without the help of developers according to a conference. Google’s mobile operating system wouldn’t be interesting unless there were applications. Its success will depend on these applications.
Related posts:
Durante o evento Google I/O têm sido reveladas várias novidades que terão um impacto significativo para todos nós, utilizadores da Internet, no que toca à visualização de conteúdos multimédia através da web, nomeadamente Video.
O Google, que detinha os direitos do VP8, um codec de vídeo semelhante ao H.264, anunciou a disponibilização do mesmo de forma gratuita e opensource, complementado com o codec de áudio Vorbis.
WebM é o nome do novo formato aberto de vídeo de alta qualidade com estrutura baseada no Matroska que certamente se tornará um standard no que toca a vídeo para a Web. Browsers como o Chrome, Opera e Firefox já estão a implementar o suporte deste novo formato para HTML 5 Video.
Uma vez que o YouTube é uma das maiores fontes de distribuição de conteúdos multimédia, a implementação deste novo codec nos browsers, vai certamente acelerar o processo de distribuição deste novo formato por todo o mundo.
Estamos a atravessar um momento de mudanças no que toca a Standards para a Web.
De lembrar que hoje em dia o uso de dispositivos móveis como smartphones para navegação na web é bastante comum e como existem browsers com suporte a HTML 5 disponíveis para estes dispositivos, é um grande avanço existirem este tipo de codecs.
É também de louvar que hajam alternativas para visualização de vídeos na web que de outra forma só poderiam ser vistos com Flash ou outros plugins que iriam gastar bateria e consumir recursos em excesso, tornando os dispositivos menos eficientes.
Poderá encontrar mais informação acerca deste novo formato no site do projecto WebM.
WebTuga – WebM – Novo standard de vídeo para a Web
I love good advertising and I think Porsche just hit the jackpot with this $180,000 Porsche Crash and has just taken the top spot of being my best ad of 2010! Best ad? Well, let me explain.
To me, the best ads are those you don’t pay a dime for the medium and don’t even plan (but you need to handle it well and have a bit of “luck”). The next best ads are those that you don’t pay (or don’t pay much) but plan meticulously (see VW’s Fun Theory ads). The least favourite type of ads for me are those that you pay mega big bucks to get the obvious “best coverage” (front pages in newspapers, TV prime time slots, etc).
If you think about it correctly, the purpose of any ads are to get our attention. The following accidental $180,000 Porsche crash by Globe journalist’s son costed Porsche a tiny $11,000 (initial body shop estimate) and this is a “cost” with profit built-in, so it will cost Porsche likely much less than $11,000.
I am happy that Mr. Rick Bye (manager of the Porsche press fleet) and Porsche made the right decisions. Congrats to Porsche for your injury-free $180,000 crash!
In my chart, your “ad” has just beat Alec Brownstein’s $6 Google reverse job ad for its Canadian and worldwide potential impact and because yours had the added advantage of not being planned at all!
Congrats Porsche, you’ve earned a free link from this blog!
“Some moments are lived backwards. The great ones run through your mind like a favourite movie. Then there are the other kind, where you try to roll back the clock – like the afternoon my teenage son launched a brand new Porsche Turbo through our garage door.
So far, I have not managed to invent a time machine, go back, and snatch the key from his hands (and in case you were wondering, the car goes for $180,000, not including freight, tax or a new garage).
That day began with deceptive perfection. I woke up in a sunlit bedroom next to my beautiful wife. We had celebrated 26 years of marriage just the day before. Our cherry tree was in full blossom, and in the garage, locked away like a crown jewel, was a 2010 Porsche 997 Turbo, the latest (and costliest) in a long series of test cars.
[… And here come the funny bites. …] Will stuck his head into the office and asked me if he could show his buddy the Turbo. I told him to go ahead. He and his friends always checked out my cars. Their main focus seemed to be the interior and stereo systems – details I barely cared about.
I went back to my computer. My car buddies knew I’d been at the track with the Turbo, and they wanted my verdict. I told one it was like a tiger in an Armani suit – killer chassis, unbeatable power, but suave and comfortable, too.
I shut down my computer and prepared to head to the office, smiling at the thought of a few minutes in the Turbo. As I headed out the back door, I saw my son running toward the house. His eyes were the size of dinner plates. He sputtered: “Dad, the Porsche … the Porsche …”
I thought the Turbo had been stolen. Our garage has a full security system, but this is one of the most desirable cars in the world, so you never know. Will tried to speak again. “The Turbo rolled into the door….” I walked past him into the garage.
For nearly a minute, I was too dumbfounded to speak. The Turbo hadn’t rolled into the door – it had launched itself through the entire structure. In a distance of approximately four feet, the Turbo had developed enough kinetic energy to blow the entire door apart. Parts of the roller mechanism were scattered through the alley. Dazed, I picked up a bent metal piece – it looked like a Crazy Bone, a toy Will had collected as a little boy.
When I parked it, the Turbo had been pristine. Now it looked like the car from Dukes of Hazzard after a chase through the southern backwoods. Stunned, I surveyed the damage. The hood was raked with gouges, the top of the right front fender was flattened, and the driver’s door (which is made from aluminum to save weight) had taken a beating. Worst of all was the rear fender, which had hit the concrete door frame as the Turbo launched itself into the alley – it looked like a giant blacksmith had smacked it with a sledge hammer.
[…] Postscript:
My son has agreed to do a minimum of one week’s labour for Mr. Bye
Initial body shop estimate for the 2010 Porsche Turbo – $11,000 plus taxes.
My garage door was replaced last week, along with the door tracks, opener and door frame. I spent seven hours working alongside the installer. Total cost was $2,700. My insurance deductible was $500. I lose my no-claims insurance discount for three years.
Later this summer, based on his schedule, my son will attend Apex driving school, where he will be trained in advanced car control and learn to drive a standard transmission.”
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