RSS focused Venture Fund Announced
June 30, 2005
Jeff Clavier, venture consultant and angel investor, brought a new RSS fund to our attention. Partners John Palfrey and Jim Moore, from the Berkman Center, announced a new venture capital fund focused on investments in “tagging, RSS, OPML, search, social software, and realted next-gen standards.” Moore indicates that they have already raised $20MM from Ritchie Capital and plan to raise another $80MM.
[via Software Only]
Start-ups are cheaper and easier to start…
June 30, 2005
Great post from an entrepreneurship blog titled: It’s a great time to be an entrepreneur.
Reasoning: 1. Hardware is 100x cheaper than the late 90s. 2. Infrastructure software is free. 3. Access to global labor markets. 4. SEM marketing.
What does this mean? More innovation because more people can and will be entrepreneurs than at any other time in history. It took $3MM to get Excite.com from idea to launch. JotSpot took only $100K. It is much easier for a budding entrepreneur to save $100K than raise $3MM from a venture capital firm. When you do need outside capital - after you prove out the model - you will get much better valuations.
Slingbox Update…
June 30, 2005
Slingbox is available today (not sure if I will pick one up as the player only works on Windows XP - no MAC support) at CompUSA. PC Magazine reviewed the product here.
Previous Slingbox Posts:
What is broken about your living room
TIVO=Time Shifting, Slingbox=Place Shifting
Completely useless post - but intriguing nonetheless.
June 29, 2005
So I saw this site for a glue company. Basically, they took an old monitor and used superglue to attach it to the wall. Then they connected a realtime webcam to the wall aimed at the monitor. Finally, they created a web interface so you could type comments and see them in realtime on the monitor. I sat for 5 minutes or so reading the messages from around the world. Lots of people writing… Here is the Link.
What is broken about your living room?
June 29, 2005
I was listening to NPR and Steve Rubel was being interviewed (is that guy everywhere these days or what?) about various new technologies and how they are being sold.
Steve had a great perspective on XM and Sirius Satellite radio. Both companies have spent billions trying to sell us an alternative to radio, but for most of us “radio is not broken”. The reason TIVO has been a (modest) hit is that it is fixing television by allowing you to remove ads and timeshift content. He explained that Sirius is trying (and succeeding) to break radio. For example, Howard Stern fans will no longer be able to tune into over-the-air radio to hear their favorite show - he will only be available on Sirius. This is an effective strategy.
Previously I posted about a new product called Slingbox that allows for placeshifting (i.e. I can watch my TIVO and home TV anywhere with a high speed internet connection). What is Slingbox fixing? Do I really need to watch CSI at the office? TIVO fixed my problem - i.e. I can watch CSI when I have time - when I get back home.
I am sort of geek so I will be stopping by CompUSA this weekend to pick one up - imagine - TIVO has a hard enough time selling their product… Good luck Dixon!
Interesting Dallas Real Estate Project.
June 29, 2005
Many of our Dallas readers are familiar with new home builder Diane Cheatham and her forward thinking development practices. She discovered a 12-acre parcel just inside the loop South of Forest East of 75 and West of Greenville and announced the development of 53 modern homes there. The City Council approved the project called Urban Reserve.
What I think is interesting about the project was Diane’s idea to conduct a ‘Design Competition‘ to design the ‘innovative, sustainable modernist houses for Urban Reserve’. She had over 65 architects compete for the prize. So basically, she got the best of the best to work on her project for free (or for very little cost). Great idea!
Winners in the professional category are:
1st Place - Calvin Chen of the Bercy Chen Studio, Austin TX;
2nd Place - Glenn Wilcox of Area Architecture, Eugene OR;
3rd Place - John Munn of the Munn/Stewart Studio, Dallas TX.
Student winners are:
1st Place - Gabriel Andres Cuellar of Carnegie-Mellon University
2nd Place - Won Jin Park of the University of Pennsylvania
3rd Place - Jesus Rodriguez and Alexis Flores from the University of Texas at Arlington
Citation - Gabriel Fuentes, a student at Florida International University in Miami.
The winners will receive cash awards as well as the possibility of seeing their designs constructed at Urban Reserve.
Google Print is out (Beta).
June 29, 2005
Apple’s Podcasting iTunes 4.9 was released this morning! What happens to Odeo?
June 28, 2005
If you run the system update on your Mac iTunes 4.9 will show up. I have not tried it yet.
TIVO=Time Shifting, Slingbox=Place Shifting
June 27, 2005
Dixon Doll and the guys at Mobius funded a neat start-up called Sling Media last year (Series A was $11.5MM). The technology is very cool and my understanding is that it will be availble in stores this summer (maybe June 30 from CompUSA).
Basically Slingbox allows you to stream TV content from your cable, satellite or DVR to any computer with a high-speed internet connection. From the site: “The SlingboxTM Personal Broadcaster by Sling Media, Inc. is a breakthrough consumer electronics device that transforms today’s television viewing experience. The SlingboxTM enables consumers to watch their TV programming from wherever they are by turning virtually any laptop or Internet-connected device into a personal TV. The SlingboxTM redirects, or “placeshifts,” the TV signal from any cable box, satellite receiver, or personal video recorder to a viewer’s location and device of choice - whether in another room in the home or anywhere in the world with a high-speed Internet connection.”
Meriton Networks Closes Series C (oversubscribed $54MM)
June 27, 2005
I served on the board of advisors for Meriton and have a small interest in the company. WTG Mike Pascoe (new CEO)! The funding came from new investors VantagePoint (Cynthia Ringo) and Nomura International (Andrew Healey) as well as from all previous investors including: Desjardins Venture Capital Group, Newbury Ventures, Primaxis Technology Ventures, RBC Capital Partners (Telecommunications Fund), Sierra Ventures, VenGrowth and Venture Coaches/Skypoint Capital.
Austin Ventures adds Thomas Ball as Partner
June 27, 2005
Austin Ventures named Thomas ball, formerly CEO of Openfield Technologies and founder of eCoupons.com Inc., as a new venture partner. Thomas also has investment experience with Discovery Capital and Mitchell Madison. Read the press release.
I think they will need the help as they recently closed on their ninth fund ($525MM).
Podcasting Marketing Sizing
June 27, 2005
Former Boston Consulting Group consultant, Alex Nesbitt (now of Bella Ventures), claimed the current market for Podcasting services and tools is worth $2MM USD per year. He predcits that podcasts will generate $40MM in business from software, hosting, search and aggregation in the next year. Books on Podcasts will be a huge segment - today 7% of listening, but only 1% of production. The report can be downloaded here. Full disclosure a. Bella owns Digital Podcast and b. we have a podcast startup called egorCAST.
P.S. Steve Rubel reported this morning that Purina is podcasting now.
Scobleizer speaks up on Odeo, and Evan won’t like it…
June 26, 2005
[via Scobleizer]
Social Networking Article in Black Enterprise Magazine.
June 26, 2005
You may have read an earlier entry I made regarding an article I was quoted in Entrepreneur Magazine. This time I was interviewed and quoted for the July edition of Black Enterprise Magazine for an article titled Rubbing Elbows in Cyberspace. I was surprised that B.E.M. was interested in my experience using LinkedIn given my photo: Me. Interestingly I received several emails as a result of the article so I decided to pick up a copy at Borders. The magazine is fairly good - pick up a copy if you have a chance.
The center of the Web 2.0 world :: why SFO and not DFW?
June 26, 2005
Frederico Oliveira is a 22 year old blogger and I have his blog, We Break Stuff, in my RSS reader. This after noon Fred asked the question, “Is the Bay Area the center of the world?”
It would seem that it is for Web 2.0 projects and companies. Having just returned from SuperNova2005 in San Francisco I can confirm that there is definately something going on that is not going on in Dallas, Texas. The whole idea of the Web 1.0 was that anyone, anywhere could start the next big thing - think Audionet. Wait, were there any other Web 1.0 successes here in Dallas? I have not found any Web 2.0 projects (other than our own) here in Dallas - lot of old 90’s or Web 1.0 thinking…
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