Mereja

Category: Internet

  • Flurry of Early Stage Internet Deals Highlight Q4 VC Activity; Investments Slip to $5.5B

    Five Quarter Trend
    Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

    Venture investing settled in a bit during the fourth quarter of 2009, but the analysts at ChubbyBrain, the New York firm providing the data, are encouraged by the overall mix, saying, “optimism, albeit of the cautious variety, seems to have found its way back.”

    While the total amount of venture capital investments during the quarter declined to $5.5 billion nationwide, compared with $5.9 billion during the fourth quarter of 2008 (and $6.1 billion in Q3 2009), ChubbyBrain counted 687 Q4 deals nationwide, the highest number in five quarters. (That data tracks well with figures released last week by Dow Jones Venture Source.) Total VC activity for the year amounted to $20.8 billion invested in 2,461 companies, according to the company, an information services startup that tracks the entrepreneurial economy.

    ChubbyBrain did not characterize the decline in total VC dollars invested during Q4 as a big concern. While the last three months of 2009 saw venture investments decline nearly 7 percent year-over-year and almost 10 percent from Q3, the fourth quarter still showed a steady, month-over-month increase in deal volume. ChubbyBrain notes that a handful of very large deals increased the Q3 totals significantly.

    VC investments in green and cleantech startups also fell 38 percent in dollar terms in Q4 versus Q3; energy sector investments plunged by more than 50 percent. But the overall rise in Q4 deal activity reflects an increase in VC investments in early stage companies, especially in the Internet sector—where early stage investments accounted for 49 percent of the deal volume. As ChubbyBrain notes, this seems to put to rest concerns voiced earlier this year about VCs fleeing riskier early stage investments. Nearly 21 percent of the capital and 37 percent of the deals involved early stage companies during the quarter.

    California Quarterly Trend

    Among the top cities for VC deals and investments, ChubbyBrain ranks San Francisco No. 1, with 50 deals totaling $430 million during the fourth quarter, followed by …Next Page »

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  • Jive Posts Record Revenue

    Gregory T. Huang wrote:

    Portland, OR-based Jive Software, a maker of social business software, posted an 85 percent increase in full-year revenue in 2009 as compared with the previous year, according to a blog post today from CEO Dave Hersh. That made 2009 “the most successful year in Jive’s history,” and the company was cash-flow positive for the year, he writes. Its customers include Booz Allen Hamilton, EMC, Kaiser Permanente, and Qualcomm. Back in October, Jive announced a $12 million Series B financing from Sequoia Capital.

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  • Geist: Ottawa pulls its own Internet hoax

    Interesting Torstar article by Michael Geist “Ottawa pulls its own Internet hoax“,

    While the sites were obviously an embarrassment, there were several avenues to address the issue. Officials could have filed a complaint with the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, which manages the dot-ca domain (both sites used dot-ca addresses). Alternatively, they could have turned to the courts for an order to either shut down the sites or suspend the domain name registrations. Instead, the phishing claim effectively substituted one hoax for another and, in the process, undermined the trust in a global system designed to guard against identity theft.

    Posted in Canada, Law, politics, World, World Affairs

  • Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s Unique Take on Startup Hiring and Culture

    Zappos
    Gregory T. Huang wrote:

    What’s more annoying than a 24-year-old who sells his company to Microsoft for $265 million and never has to work another day in his life? Easy. When that same guy sells his next company to Amazon.com for more than $1 billion.

    OK, so it took 10 more years of hard work, but Tony Hsieh, now in his mid-30s, seems to be in pretty good shape. The CEO of Zappos, the Las Vegas-based online shoe retailer bought by Amazon last summer, was the subject of a Q&A in the New York Times yesterday in which he talked about startup culture and hiring practices. In particular, Hsieh (pronounced “shay”) touched on things like why he sold LinkExchange to Microsoft back in 1996 (“the culture just went completely downhill”), and the one question he would ask a prospective hire today.

    I came away with two things from the interview. First, Hsieh has a very interesting hiring style. Assuming a candidate has the right skills and experience, then the most important thing, Hsieh says in the piece, is “are they going to be good for the culture?” CEOs always say that, but Hsieh seems to mean it in a more personal way. “We’ll invite them to barbecues on weekends and they bring their families,” he says—it’s a way to tell “whether you feel like you can actually get to know them on a personal level or if they’re very professional and standoffish.”

    What’s interesting is that he’s trying to gauge “how self-aware people are and how honest they are,” he says. “I think if someone is self-aware, then they can always continue to grow. If they’re not self-aware, I think it’s harder for them to evolve or adapt beyond who they already are.” To this end, the one question Hsieh says he’d ask in the interview is, “What would you say is the biggest misperception that people have of you?”

    My second takeaway, related to the first, is that culture is everything to Zappos. The company values “a little weirdness” in its employees—something that works for some startups better than others. So Hsieh says he also asks candidates how weird they are on a scale of 1 to 10. The number isn’t as important as “how candidates react,” he says.

    Just for the record, here are Zappos’s 10 cultural tenets, according to Hsieh (and there are typically interview questions for each one):

    1) Deliver WOW Through Service
    2) Embrace and Drive Change
    3) Create Fun and A Little Weirdness
    4) Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded
    5) Pursue Growth and Learning
    6) Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication
    7) Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit
    8) Do More With Less
    9) Be Passionate and Determined
    10) Be Humble

    What Hsieh didn’t talk about in the NYT interview was Amazon and the cultural fit there—probably because nobody seems to talk about Amazon after being acquired by the Seattle giant. We’ll be watching to see how the integration goes…

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  • Sleeptalkin’ Man

    Maybe the best new site of the new year. Wife records husband’s unconscious utterances, brilliance ensues.

    Jan 4 2010

    “Let me hold you in my arms. Feel me squeeze the living fucking breath out of your bastard body. Bliss. Lovely.”

    “Skipping to work makes everything better.”

    “I haven’t put on weight. Your eyes are fat.”

    “I’d rather peel off my skin and bathe my weeping raw flesh in a bath of vinegar than spend any time with you. But that’s just my opinion. Don’t take it personally.”

    “Elephant trunks should be used for elephant things only. Nothing else.”

    “Lentils are evil. Pure fucking oozing evil. Take them away from me.”

    “My vision of hell is a lentil casserole.”

    “By the way, washing in rose water doesn’t stop you smelling like a piece of shit.”

    “Avocados? You can shove them up your ass as well.”

    “Be happy happy happy happy.”

    “Now fuck off and let me bask in the glory of being me.”

    Wife’s note: Wow. This was a goldmine of a night. Eleven entries, a new record!

    I apparenly sleep SHOUT and say things of similar hilarity on a regular basis. Fortunately, all records of this (and witnesses) are instantly destroyed by the awesomeness of my speechifyin’.

    (link via tr)

  • SlideFinder – motor de busca de Apresentações PowerPoint

    SlideFinder

    SlideFinder é assim por dizer um motor de busca para apresentações powerpoint, sendo uma das suas vantagens a possibilidade de filtrar os resultados por língua.

    Podem-se encontrar vários trabalhos académicos de várias universidades espalhadas por todo o mundo, mas também apresentações empresariais.

    O mais engraçado é a possibilidade de fazer o embed da apresentação no seu site ou blog em apenas alguns seguintes. Veja o exemplo abaixo de uma apresentação que tem o nome “Portugal – More than You Imagine“:

    PortugalMoreThanYouImagine.ppt

    WebTuga – SlideFinder – motor de busca de Apresentações PowerPoint

  • Sarkozy Goes for Google in Attempt to Claw Back Piracy Revenue [Sarkozy]

    President Sarkozy, that small man with the excellent peripheral – wife Carla Bruni – could be going for the Internet giants in order to claw back some of the revenue he claims that creatives are losing through piracy.

    In his traditional new year speech outlining his plans for the next 360 or so days, Sarkozy announced plans to tax overseas search engines, Web portals and ISPs such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Aol) despite the fact that Google doesn’t pay tax in la belle, fromage-y France (its european tax is paid in Ireland.) The thought behind it is that the companies should pay tax on the revenue generated by French Internet users when they click on an ad banner or sponsored link.

    Despite the fact that his three-strikes law is now on the statute book, my money’s on Google and the other behemoths telling Sarkozy to stick it where the Google Street View don’t shine. In fact, they’re probably developing plans for Google Colonoscopy. Coming to a head of state near you soon. [CNET News]







  • The FCC Calls for a Standard Set-Top Box: Open Box, Open Market, Open Mind?

    Keith Kocho wrote:

    I may be in the minority, but I think the FCC’s recent call for an open, retail-ready set-top box standard could be a boon for incumbent service providers, their technology partners, and consumers. The cable companies, who charge a nice little fee for set-top box rentals, may say that regulation will cost them the revenues that drive innovation and support network build-out and that the current market is fine as it is. That said, it’s a mistake to assume that video service providers aren’t also embracing the Internet video revolution–all you have to do is look at Comcast’s Excalibur announcement. Either way, no one in the industry expects to wake up anytime soon to a world where the majority of their existing customers have “cut the cord” in favor of over-the-top internet delivered video services.

    The reasons for this are articles on their own, but a new era of scalable Internet video services from cable/telco/satellite providers is absolutely coming. Why? They realize that Internet technologies are more flexible than their existing closed technology offerings, that they can deploy competitive offerings to consumers much more quickly, and that making these investments now prepares them delivering their services outside their traditional network footprint. They also know that Apple/Google/Microsoft will nibble away at their subscribers as broadband speeds grow and the FCC continues its current support of net neutrality. As this evolves, they are preparing to change their model to head off this new competitive threat.

    In this light, the wide availability of a consumer-friendly Internet set-top box should be music to their ears. While it won’t convert meaningful numbers of existing pay-TV customers on day one, it will allow these companies to compete with other organizations who can amortize a hardware investment against a much larger target customer base (e.g. Apple/Google/Microsoft). If a standards-based set-top box allows the incumbent service providers to bridge competitively into the new world order, they’ll readily embrace it. Meanwhile, if traditional providers of proprietary set-top boxes can preserve their lucrative service provider contracts and also pursue a new, global retail opportunity, they will build them too. Finally, if these new devices provide a compelling feature set, tied to a competitive content offering, the consumers will come as well.

    I look forward to the day when I can purchase my set-top box at retail and freely choose a la carte service offerings from existing providers who are today hemmed into their own geographies as well as a new slate of competitive upstarts. That said, whether or not we see a regulated, open set-top box standard, the world of truly a la carte Internet-delivered video services is coming. This week at the Consumer Electronics Show, we will undoubtedly see another wave of connected TVs and consumer boxes from folks like Boxee, Blu-ray player manufacturers and others. A successful reference design set-top box would dramatically accelerate this inevitable shift by lending itself to incorporation into even more devices.

    Far from the competitive nightmare some would suggest, a standards-based set-top box will allow service providers to focus on their real assets and differentiators—multiple customer touch points (TV, mobile, broadband), recurring billing relationships, customer service, and the massive scale to deploy and deliver multi-screen video to millions of users. So I don’t think it is a stretch to think this scenario can become a reality fairly soon. And when it does, it could make a lot of people happy.

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  • Three Questions on Hyperlocal Advertising with Satbir Khanuja, CEO of DataSphere

    DataSphere
    Gregory T. Huang wrote:

    In the world of news media these days, there’s no getting away from two things: online advertising, and hyperlocal sites. Where they meet is a company called DataSphere in Bellevue, WA.

    On Tuesday, we reported that DataSphere had raised $10.8 million in Series B funding. The investors in the new round are Ignition Partners, also based in Bellevue, and two unnamed publicly traded companies, which are strategic investors. Ignition and one of the public companies previously invested in DataSphere’s $6.5 million Series A round back in July 2006.

    DataSphere, which was called SecondSpace until last year, has been collaborating with media companies like Fisher Communications and Cowles California Media to help them roll out hyperlocal (neighborhood) websites, about 150 of them across five states: Washington (including 46 sites based in and around Seattle), Oregon, Idaho, California, and Rhode Island. DataSphere’s technology platform organizes website information, makes it searchable, and connects local advertisers with local sites and consumers. (You can check out the DataSphere-powered search capabilities and hyperlocal sites and ads at KOMOnews.com, for example.)

    One outside observer thinks DataSphere is pretty interesting, but wonders about the size of the market from a VC’s perspective. “It’s a smart group of guys and investors,” says Lucinda Stewart, a managing director at OVP Venture Partners who focuses on online advertising, among other sectors. “They need to prove out the business model a bit more.”

    The company currently has more than 70 employees and is led by chief executive Satbir Khanuja, a seven-year Amazon.com veteran who holds a PhD in ceramics engineering from MIT. (He has been in the business world long enough that he doesn’t sound like a PhD—probably a good thing.)

    I had a good chat with Khanuja earlier this week about his company’s technology and business strategy. Here are some edited highlights:

    Xconomy: Can you explain how DataSphere is new and different, in a nutshell?

    Satbir Khanuja: The overall idea for us is to create a compelling hyperlocal experience for users and advertisers. We are collaborating with local media companies and leveraging their brand equity they’ve built, and applying our technology platform. In a traditional site, the [ad] inventory is accessible only to medium and large advertisers.

    What we do is, let’s take all your news and show it in a contextually relevant way to all of the user base. You choose your neighborhood as a default site. We show that user a specific user experience. Now we have the ability for local advertisers from that neighborhood to show ads to only those users.

    X: How does your platform and revenue model work? And how are these hyperlocal sites doing?

    SK: If you work with one of the media companies, they already have the resources. We’ve created a forum and platform with them to have a conversation with their user base throughout …Next Page »

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  • Seesmic adquire Ping.fm

    Seesmic PingPor estes dias a “startup” Seesmic liderada pelo francês Loic Le Meur acaba de adquirir o serviço Ping.fm, que é essencialmente um serviço que nos permite publicar conteúdo  em simultâneo via web, sms, email, em mais de 30 diferentes Redes sociais , blogs etc.

    Não foram avançados até agora os valores desta aquisição, no entanto foi revelado que Adam Duffy e Sean McCullough fundadores do Ping.fm iram ser integrados na estrutura do Seesmic de modo a continuarem o desenvolvimento do serviço e integrações com o Seesmic. Para terminar de realçar que o Ping.fm conta com mais de 500 mil utilizadores registados.

    Video com algumas explicações sobre esta aquisição:

    WebTuga – Seesmic adquire Ping.fm

  • 10+1 commandments of a blogger

    10 + 1 commandments that every blogger should obey.
    10 + 1 commandments that every blogger should know by heart (yeah, I know, I’m still practicing them)
    Okay, maybe not all of them are as usefull, or may be debatable, but they do give you the whole idea. The most important thing in blogging is blogging for your audience, your readers. That’s what these commandments are all about.
    Too bad, I didn’t write these commandments myself, but you can check out Remarkablogger’s post here: ten steps to rock your business blog in 2010
    So what do you think about these ten plus one steps, these commandments? Do you agree/disagree? Looking forward to read your opinion in the comments!

    Related posts:

    1. Helping others is what blogging is all about Do you know what blogging is all about? It’s about…
    2. 8 most read iCan’t Internet articles of 2009 The end of the year is typically the time for…
    3. We DoFollow! What does DoFollow mean? On most blogs, when someone comments…


  • OVP Leads $9M Investment in Aggregate Knowledge, Gets Serious About Online Ads

    OVP Venture Partners
    Gregory T. Huang wrote:

    Kirkland, WA-based OVP Venture Partners is leading a new $9 million Series C financing round in Aggregate Knowledge, an online advertising and analytics firm in San Mateo, CA. Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, DAG Ventures, and original angel investors are also participating. In connection with the deal, OVP managing director Lucinda Stewart is joining the board of Aggregate Knowledge.

    Although it’s a Series C investment in a company founded in 2005, Stewart says it was priced like an early-stage deal, with the existing investors cooperating in a recapitalization of the firm. (That means the previous investors’ stakes aren’t worth what they used to be.) “We came in to create a fresh new company,” Stewart says. The deal signifies OVP’s emerging interest in the online advertising and marketing sector, where it does not yet have many investments.

    Aggregate Knowledge, led by CEO and founder Paul Martino, currently has 26 employees. The company’s vision is to enable major publishers and retailers to personalize their display ads in real-time. Aggregate Knowledge does this with machine-learning algorithms that make sense of huge amounts of data that publishers and retailers have on their customers. The company counts The Washington Post, Cablevision, and Sam’s Club among its customers and partners. Aggregate Knowledge plans to use its new cash infusion to take its technology a step further, in part by offering it to advertising agencies and marketers who want to run more precisely targeted ad campaigns.

    The Seattle connection to this company came in the form of David Jakubowski, a former Microsoft veteran who joined Aggregate Knowledge about two months ago as its chief revenue officer and general manager. Jakubowski was most recently senior vice president at Specific Media, an Irvine, CA-based ad technology firm which has a Seattle office. He previously worked at Quigo Technologies, a search marketing firm, before becoming general manager of Microsoft adCenter and Search Strategy. Jakubowski has also been an advisor to Seattle-based Lucid Commerce, another OVP-backed startup in the analytics and marketing field.

    It took me a while to see how Aggregate Knowledge is any different from Seattle-area online ad firms like BlueKai, AdReady, and Mpire. As I understand it, BlueKai would sell its consumer data to companies like Aggregate Knowledge. AK (and other firms) then use that data to predict audience behavior, and help advertisers and publishers craft and place ads that change based on precise demographics like gender and age. One key difference is that Aggregate Knowledge is generally focused on bigger customers than AdReady is, for example, although both firms share the goal of making display ads as effective at generating sales as search-engine ads (like those from Google).

    “AK provides transparency into the value of inventory for the demand side, the guys who own the websites, the retail companies,” Stewart says. “For 30 years, the ‘buy’ side has never had these tools…Whoever has the data wins now.”

    As for the broader significance to OVP, Stewart adds, “We have a strong interest in deals that leverage ‘big data.’ That’s the thrust behind our entire computational biology strategy, and a lot of our cleantech and advertising and IT deals.”

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  • DataSphere Raises $10.8M to Help Media Companies Manage Hyperlocal Websites (and Make Money)

    DataSphere
    Gregory T. Huang wrote:

    Bellevue, WA-based DataSphere, an Internet software and advertising sales company, has raised $10.8 million in equity and options, according to a filing with the SEC. The investors in the round were not disclosed, but the company is backed by the venture firm Ignition Partners, also based in Bellevue. John Connors of Ignition is listed on the form as a director of DataSphere.

    DataSphere and Ignition Partners could not immediately be reached for comment. According to the regulatory filing, “The total offering amount reflects $8,805,382 of the issuer’s Series B preferred stock, and warrants exercisable to purchase up to $1,999,999 of the issuer’s Series B preferred stock.”

    In the past few months, DataSphere’s technology has been used by Fisher Communications and Cowles California Media to launch a large number of “hyperlocal” neighborhood news websites—some 43 in Washington (Seattle area), 38 in Oregon (Portland and Eugene), and 40 in California (Monterey and Santa Barbara).

    DataSphere was founded as SecondSpace in 2006 and changed its name last year. The company makes an online platform to help media, real estate, and retail firms do things like manage websites, track audience behavior, and do search and information discovery. It is led by CEO Satbir Khanuja, a seven-year Amazon.com veteran who holds a Ph.D. in ceramics engineering from MIT, according to his biography on the DataSphere website.

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  • The 12 Days of Xconomists: Leading Innovators Give Their Top Advances of the Past Decade

    Gregory T. Huang wrote:

    Over the last few weeks, as the holiday season heated up and the decade wound down, we reached out to our distinguished network of Xconomists—who include many of the top technologists, scientists, and business innovators in our three cities—and asked them (and a few more tech and life sciences leaders) to describe the most important innovations of the past 10 years in their respective fields.

    We figured we’d get two or three who could take time out during this busy season to write for us, but we were wrong. The response was staggering. We received so many thoughtful posts about the last decade (more than a dozen) that we’ve only just begun to look forward and process their responses to the other question we asked—about the biggest advances they think will come in the next decade.

    Beginning today, with Boston Xconomist Michael Greeley’s Venture Capital Oscars piece about the films that best represent the economic and investment climate of the next few years, we will be running a series of posts about the coming decade. But before we dive deeply into those, we thought it would be useful to take a minute—pause—and actually think some more about what these experts have told us so far. So here is a rundown of 12 Xconomist Forum reflections on the 2000s, noughties, or whatever you want to call them:

    Top Five Robotics Hits of the 2000s (Rod Brooks)
    Highlight: “Thousands of remotely piloted and autonomous aircraft in the U.S. military.”

    Top Five Biotech Innovations of the 2000s (Jay Lichter)
    Highlight: “Genentech’s ranibizumab (Lucentis)—The first treatment of its kind for the ‘wet’ form of macular degeneration.”

    Top Five Global Health Innovations of the 2000s (Christopher Elias)
    Highlight: “New recombinant, platform-based [vaccine] technologies may greatly speed vaccine production, decrease manufacturing costs, and increase production in developing countries.”

    Top Five Medical Innovations of the 2000s, and One Big Concern (James Topper)
    Highlight: “The development of novel mechanisms and combination therapies in HIV, which have turned a universally fatal disease into a chronic one.”

    Four Groundbreaking Innovations from the 2000s, and One More Life-Changing Event (Chad Waite)
    Highlight: “A night that I was in NYC (home of the ENEMY) in October 2004 when the Red Sox FINALLY won the World Series!” (OK, also the iPod. And Facebook.) …Next Page »

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  • Personal Injury Lawyer Advertising on the Internet: Buyer Beware!

    The “Best Lawyer” May be Embellishing, Even Using Fraud to Sign Cases

    This is my final “staring into the abyss” blog – a collection of reflections on things that trouble me about the legal profession and the insurance industry today. Unfortunately, one of the byproducts of having the worst car accident law in the nation is that some Michigan personal injury lawyers have become increasingly desperate to sign new clients. They will say things – and put things on their web sites – to sign a case that would make the worst used car salesman or politician blush with shame.

    For example, these lawyers say they’ve received millions of dollars in trial verdicts, even when it’s a complete lie — and even when they haven’t tried cases in years or ever received a million- dollar jury verdict.  These lawyers make outrageous statements about making millions of dollars every year. I know one attorney who boasted tens of millions recovered for clients in one year and a 99 percent settlement rate! These lawyers also say they understand certain complex specialized areas of personal injury, such as traumatic brain injury or truck accidents, even if they have almost no real experience and certainly no proven results at trial with such cases.

    What people don’t understand that lawyer advertising is truly comparable to the wild wild west these days, as there is very little oversight and regulation. This is especially rampant on the Internet.  And these lawyers will continue to exaggerate and outright lie to sign cases until they’re caught – when some client they’ve lied to files a grievance.

    How to Protect Yourself from Lawyer Fraud and False Advertising

    There is one thing you can do to protect yourself.  Ask your prospective lawyer to “source it” when they make a statement.  You would do it if you were buying a toaster, so why wouldn’t you when making what may be one of the most important decisions in your life? There is nothing wrong or impolite with asking a lawyer to back up a statement he makes about himself. When you see something in quotes, like “best lawyer in Michigan” or “top car accident lawyer,” ask to see where that quote comes from, or if that lawyer just invented the phrases out of thin air and is now fishing to lure unsuspecting personal injury victims.

    Luckily, today there are a number of independent and peer-review services that rate lawyers for legal ability and ethics.  Some of the best are Martindale Hubbell, Best Lawyers in America and Super Lawyers. There are also helpful web sites like Avvo.  See if these services have rated and reviewed the attorney you are considering hiring.

    You can also look to see if that attorney has demonstrated mastery in his subject field of expertise.  Does the lawyer teach at seminars and speaking engagements, and has he been elected to leadership positions in legal organizations? These aspects show the respect and admiration of peers, which means you will get the best representation.

    Another important way to find top lawyers is to look for or ask for testimonials from real people who have been in the same situations as yourself. Read here for more tips on finding the most qualified auto accident attorney and truck accident lawyer.

    Again, when a lawyer says something, whether it is trial results and settlements achieved each year, or how great he is, ask for proof. It is not rude, it’s smart.

    Hiring the Right Lawyer

    Remember, if you have been injured in a serious car accident, the lawyer you hire will be one of the most important decisions you will make.  There is no book out there that says what someone’s pain and suffering is worth.  The same case may settle for double or more depending on the skill and reputation of the lawyer involved.

    In many of my cases, people are seriously injured and may never work again.  Soon the insurance company starts playing games, like cutting off critical no-fault insurance benefits or sending accident victims to notorious “second opinion” doctors for “independent” medical examinations.

    I know my clients depend on me, and that responsibility is incredibly affirming and humbling.  It’s gratifying to read what many of my own clients have written about me in testimonials on web sites like Avvo or Google Local after I’ve helped them.

    To wrap up my “Staring into the abyss” series about insurance company abuse and lawyer deception in Michigan, I’d like to remind my cherished clients and friends that it’s vital to find a lawyer who cares more about you than himself. There are many personal injury lawyers today who do dedicate themselves to helping people. These are lawyers who truly care about and believe in our civil justice system.  Unfortunately, some of the worst offenders are often also some of the loudest and most blatant in their exaggerations and lies.

    Like everything else in life, buyer beware.  Be careful. Take your time, and do your research.
    Good luck.

    – Steven M. Gursten is recognized as one of the nation’s top experts in serious car and truck accident injury cases and automobile insurance no-fault litigation. Steve has received the largest jury verdict for an automobile accident case in Michigan in four of the past seven years, including 2008, according to a published, year-end verdicts and settlements report.

    – Photo courtesy of Creative Commons, by Don Hankins

    Related information:

    Car Accident FAQs

    Top Auto Accident Lawsuit Mistakes

    Dealing with Michigan Car Insurance Companies

    For more on staring into the abyss of insurance company abuse in Michigan:

    Michigan Lawyers Taking Attorney Fees on Voluntary No-Fault Insurance Benefits

    Good Chiropractors and Bad Chiropractors

    Why Are Doctors Forced to Work Up Cases and Order Expensive Diagnostic Tests?

    Michigan Auto Law is the largest law firm exclusively handling car accident, truck accident and motorcycle accident cases throughout the entire state. We have offices in Southfield, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids and Sterling Heights to better serve you. Call (800) 777-0028 to speak with a lawyer. There is absolutely no fee or obligation.

  • Consumer Electronics Show Offers Showcase for San Diego Tech Companies

    ces_logo
    Bruce V. Bigelow wrote:

    [Corrected 1/5/10, 2:45 pm. See below.] “Connectivity” will be one of the prevailing themes at the annual International Consumer Electronics Show, according to analyst John F. Bright of the investment banking firm Avondale Partners. And several San Diego firms are poised to get connected at the show, which officially begins Thursday in Las Vegas.

    [Correction: Entropic Communications is a public, not privately held, company] Connecting devices in the home encompasses the core business of Entropic Communications, (NASDAQ: ENTR) a fabless semiconductor company in San Diego that has developed technologies that provide connectivity to home entertainment systems. Entropic is among many companies that plans to showcase its latest innovations at the four-day show, which is expected to draw 110,000 attendees before closing Sunday.

    Another San Diego company at CES is DivX, (NASDAQ: DIVX) the digital media technology company that specializes in video compression. Bright says DivX is expected to demonstrate technology related to its September acquisition of AnySource Media, a Pennsylvania company with technology that allows users to directly connect their TV to a wide variety of Internet-based content and services. He writes in his preview that a key question for DivX is whether the Anysource technology, which is designed to facilitate browsing on Internet-connected TVs, is approaching marketability.

    VMIX, a privately held San Diego company that also specializes in digital video technology, has been focused on providing its media clients monetization strategies as well as a complete video platform, according to spokesman Bill Curci. As part of that continuing effort, VMIX CEO Mike Glickenhaus is participating in a CES panel discussion on “Monetizing Digital Content” that is set for noon Saturday. (Other local digital media companies headed for CES include Carlsbad, CA-based Sorenson Media and Veoh Networks.)

    Under the heading of mobile connectivity, Avondale’s Bright points to San Diego-based Novatel Wireless (NASDAQ: NVTL) which specializes in USB modem cards for laptops and related broadband access technologies. Novatel has focused much of its marketing efforts in recent months on its credit card-sized MiFi wireless router, which converts a cellular 3G signal into a Wi-Fi bubble so Wi-Fi computers and gadgets can get online anywhere.

    A major San Diego technology company not on Bright’s list is Qualcomm, which has pushed into an unfamiliar role as a consumer-facing business with its Flo TV mobile television network. The wireless giant has long served as a major, albeit behind-the-scenes, supplier of wireless technologies for mobile network operators and other big businesses, and Qualcomm provides Flo TV to consumers with Flo TV-enabled cell phones as an add-on subscriber service through Verizon and AT&T. But Qualcomm also introduced its handheld Flo TV device as a $250 mobile personal TV just in time for Christmas, and the company has been marketing the gadget to sports fans and youngsters.

    Qualcomm’s foray into consumer markets also helps to explain why 2010 marks the first time that the San Diego company’s chairman and CEO has agreed to deliver a keynote address at the international conference (which has a predicted attendance this year of 110,000). Qualcomm’s Paul Jacobs, who is set to speak Friday morning at the Las Vegas Hilton, has been the primary driver in the company’s emphasis on accelerating wireless data services. As a result, mobile devices based on Qualcomm technology are moving beyond voice communications—expanding into entertainment, social networking, computing, and information access.

    Other keynote speakers scheduled for the four-day conference include Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, Ford’s Alan Mulally, Intel’s Paul Otellini, Nokia’s Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, and Hisense’s Zhou Houjian.

    Another major player to watch at CES this week will be Japan’s Sony Electronics, which was once the world’s leading brand for premium-priced consumer electronics. Sony Electronics maintains its North American headquarters in San Diego. The company still makes Vaio laptops at its suburban manufacturing plant in Rancho Bernardo, which also hosts Sony’s new center for research and engineering development. But it’s been a long time since the maker of Walkman radios and Trinitron TVs has led the industry, and the Japanese goliath has been undergoing wrenching organizational changes over the past year under CEO Howard Stringer.

    A Sony spokeswoman in San Diego would not discuss the company’s plans for CES, even in a general way, except to say, “I would say that our TV announcements are going to be huge.”

    Sony could be among the major consumer electronics manufacturers with plans to introduce 3-D television technology at this year’s CES. CNET’s John Falcone is among those who predicts 3-D TV will be the biggest trend at this year’s show, but Falcone remains doubtful that consumers are ready for 3-D and he calls the industry’s enthusiasm “premature.”

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  • New President/COO at Brightcove

    Wade Roush wrote:

    Brightcove, the online video hosting startup in Cambridge, MA, has created a new president/chief operating officer position and appointed Adobe Systems veteran David Mendels to the role.  Mendels was a founder of Macromedia (now part of Adobe) and led that firm’s acquisition of Allaire Company, the first business started by Brightcove founder and CEO Jeremy Allaire, who announced Mendel’s appointment in a blog post this morning. Brightcove said Mendels will be responsible for leading the company’s international expansion.

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  • Adsense tip: First Impression is everything.

    Humans are very visually oriented, that is why, and this will not come as a surprise to you, your first impression counts. This goes for meeting someone of the opposite sex, but it definately goes for your website. On different levels even!
    First of all it’s important that your website looks nice and clean, well structured, not messy (in my case, don’t make the website a copy of my desk: a complete mess with piles everywhere). Nobody likes to read and follow a website which looks like crap, with bad colors and bad navigation and layout.
    First impression
    The second level is in the same line. As you most probably already know, a great way to increase your AdSense earnings is to place multiple ad units on your webpages (if they have enough content that is). However, when doing this, keep this title in mind: of the first impression people get from your blog or website is that its only purpoise is to trick the visitor into clucking the ads, then you fail. Your visitors aren’t stupid. They don’t fall for that, and will most probably leave your blog again.

    The third level where this title fits, is in the same line as the second level (but not the first, great thinking huh? ;-) ). If you have multiple adsense units on your website, google will place the ads that are best performing in the first ad unit that they encounter! They know it too, the first impressionis very important. And they don’t particularly want you to succeed, but they want to auuccees, so they help you in this way.

    Now, what does this mean? Well, google puts the ad that has won the adwords auction, and thus has the highest payout per click, first in your ad units. This means that (watch out! Math part coming!) if you get this ad with the highest pyout for your page, to show up in the ad-unit that has the highest clickthrough rate for your page, you will get the maximum revenue possible for your page! However, there is a small pitfall to watch out for: the first ad-unit is not necessarily the first ad-unit that shows up on your page, but is the first ad-unit that shows up in your code. Depending on the layout and setup of your site, CDs can trick you, and the first ad-unit to show up in the code can even be the last ad-unit showing on your website. So a minimum of codediving is necessary here!

    I hope you found this article to be usefull, and if so, feel free to social bookmark it. Should you still have any questions, please feel free to ask them via the comments!

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  • Stephen Wolfram Talks Bing Partnership, Software Strategy, and the Future of Knowledge Computing

    Stephen Wolfram
    Gregory T. Huang wrote:

    There is something oddly human about Stephen Wolfram using his iPhone to look up the mass of the “cascade hyperon,” a subatomic particle with who-knows-what properties. That’s what Wolfram, one of the world’s most distinguished experts in physics and computing, was doing on the day we spoke a few weeks ago.

    Maybe it stood out because it means that even Wolfram—whose depth of scientific knowledge seems to exist on a different plane from other humans—needs a smartphone these days. Or maybe it’s just funny that anyone would use an iPhone app to look up such a thing.

    In any case, Wolfram, 50, is a renowned scientist, author, and business leader. Born in London, he resides in the Boston area, but his company, Wolfram Research, is global, with headquarters in Champaign, IL, and 600-some employees spread around the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Last May, he launched an ultra-ambitious project called Wolfram Alpha, a kind of “knowledge engine” that answers queries about everything from geography to statistics to finance by “computing” the answer from an extensive database. It’s different from a search engine, which returns a list of links and documents. But the two can work together: in November, Microsoft announced it had formed a partnership to incorporate Wolfram Alpha into some of Bing’s search results.

    So it was high time I checked in with Wolfram, whose career I have followed over the years. Interestingly, he calls Wolfram Alpha “the most complicated project I’ve ever done.” That says quite a lot, given that Wolfram spent more than a decade writing A New Kind of Science, the 1,200-page tome he released in 2002 that potentially turns every field of science and technology on its head. He is also the creator of Mathematica, a software program used widely for scientific and technical computing (things like modeling, simulations, and visualizations)—it’s the main reason Wolfram’s company has been profitable since 1988.

    We spoke by phone on a quiet December afternoon just before the holidays. I asked him about the technology and strategy behind Wolfram Alpha and the future of search engines and knowledge engines, as well as business lessons learned from building his company and running it remotely. (I also couldn’t resist asking for his take on the massive physics effort at the Large Hadron Collider, the Swiss-based particle accelerator that amounts to the biggest science experiment in history.)

    If you’ve ever interviewed Wolfram, you know to choose your questions wisely. It’s not just that he doesn’t suffer fools, but that he answers every question so thoroughly that he will embark on tangents that turn out to be mind-blowing—much more interesting than the path of the original question. Which is a bit like the best queries in science, business, and Wolfram Alpha itself, come to think of it. (You should try the site here if you haven’t yet.)

    Here are some edited and slightly condensed highlights from our conversation:

    Xconomy: Tell me about the organizational structure of Wolfram Alpha. How big is the project?

    Stephen Wolfram: Wolfram Alpha has about 200 people. The parent company is Wolfram Research, and headquarters are in Champaign. It’s quite a distributed operation at this point. There are pieces in Boston and the U.K. We have one or two people in Seattle. Our people are scattered literally all over the world. I set a bad example by being a remote CEO starting in 1991. For many kinds of things, it’s tremendously productive.

    X: What are your tips for managing a company remotely?

    SW: My theory is the most productive form of meeting is conference calls with Web conferencing. You can have more people in the meeting, and you’re not wasting anyone’s time. They can work on other things, and if you need them, you just say their name. I’ve found that it’s what I spend my life doing. The Wolfram Alpha project is the most complicated project I’ve ever done. It’s remarkable for what it …Next Page »

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  • RealNetworks Acquires Varia Mobile

    Gregory T. Huang wrote:

    RealNetworks (NASDAQ: RNWK) confirmed it has acquired Seattle startup Varia Mobile for an undisclosed price. The news was first reported by TechFlash. Varia makes content distribution and publishing software for mobile phones. The startup was founded in 2007 and already has a strategic alliance with RealNetworks. The deal also fits with Real’s increasing focus on the mobile market.

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