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Some people think that Seesmic is the video Twitter. They are wrong (even if they are investors in the company—Mike). The real video Twitter is 12seconds.tv. On Twitter, you have 140 characters to make your point. On 12seconds.tv, you have, well, 12 seconds. (On Seesmic, you can drone on forever or for 10 minutes, whichever comes first). We have 500 invites for the alpha launch.
The idea is to share moments of your life: sunsets, deep thoughts, funny faces. Or just broadcast your current status. You can upload the videos via a Webcam or your mobile phone, follow video updates from your friends, and even import contacts from Twitter. You can even link your 12seconds account to your Twitter account and it will automatically send a Tweet with a link your videos every time you put up anew one.
Is all of this pointless? Maybe, but no more than Twitter. Although, as a communications platform, text will always be more immediate and accessible than video.
The startup was founded by David Beach and Sol Lipman six months ago. They are bootsratpping it with 10 employees working for burritos. Besides Seesmic, 12seconds.tv also competes with the UK’s Phreadz. Here are a couple sample videos.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
On the iPhone, even the ads are cool. Mobile advertising network AdMob is launching a whole new set of customized ads for iPhone apps. As CEO Omar Hamoui explains in the video above, the ads are specifically designed for iPhone apps. Rather than the static text or image ads that make up most of its mobile ad inventory today, these take advantage of specific features of the iPhone.
For instance, an ad for a song can stream the audio or launch the page on iTunes where you can buy it. A movie ad can open up YouTube so you can watch the trailer. An ad for a retailer can find nearby stores on Google maps. Others call a number through the phone, or can take you to a specific Web page. And just like on Facebook,where many of the ads on apps are simply promotions for other apps, an ad for an iPhone app will launch the App Store. (See video below).
To get iPhone app developers to sign up for his new ads, Hamoui is giving away $1 million worth of advertising to the developers with the most compelling apps who apply here. Each developer who is selected will recieve $5,000 worth of free ads for their apps.
Admob already serves up 34 million mobile ads a month on the iPhone’s Safari browser. But that is a mere one percent of the total that AdMob serves across all phones. Hamoui, however, believes that the new type of ads he is launching today will quickly make up the majority of his inventory. Some of the advertisers he’s already lined up include Ford, Electronic Arts, Land Rover, Jaguar, “The Mummy,” Loopt, AccuWeather.com, and MovieTickets.com.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
AddictingGames, a popular Flash game portal, has announced plans to hold a large-scale awards show pertaining to casual games. The show will take place in 2009, with a series of voting rounds conducted on the site that will allow AddictingGames’ users to decide the final outcome (though judges will have some say).
The show will be open to any casual game on the web, but the results will likely be heavily skewed towards games on AddictingGames, since that’s where voting will actually take place. Few details have been released, but the Nickelodeon-owned site promises content spread on websites and television programs across “the entire Nickelodeon/MTVN Kids and Family Group”.
While the execution is flawed (the voting will be totally biased), developers could use an incentive to create casual games that are more involved than the mind numbing junk games that litter countless sites and development platforms across the web. Alongside a compensation program that AddictingGames will be rolling out for its most popular developers, this could at least help gamers pick out the best of the crop.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.
Yahoo’s Zimbra launches version 3 of its open source desktop email client this morning that is designed to compete with Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Mac Mail, etc. This is a new iteration of their browser-based offline product announced in March 2007.
Zimbra Desktop, which is built on Mozilla Prism, is available for Windows, Mac and linux machines. It weighs in at 40 MB, about double the size of Thunderbird. The product promises the robust features of Outlook, which are lacking in Outlook Express and Thunderbird. Users can access Yahoo mail accounts, Zimbra accounts, or any Pop/IMAP supported email boxes. Zimbra Desktop also includes a calendar, contact list and other features.
Based on limited testing (I set it up with Yahoo Mail only for now), the product is a winner. It’s responsive and quick, which is the most important feature for a desktop email client. I like the ability to tag items, collapse conversations, and perform web and local searches via the search bar in the top right corner of the app. If I wasn’t all Mac across the board to keep things synced properly, I’d use Zimbra permanently. Screen shots below.
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
I agree with Sam Gustin when he says that yesterday’s Facebook Developer Conference in San Francisco was in the end a snoozer, but not because CEO Mark Zuckerberg failed on stage.
First of all, saying the event itself was sleep-inducing is just factually incorrect. Before and after the keynote they played music so loud that a deaf person would complain. I was alarmed and somewhat panicked by the noise, but certainly not sleepy. And on a more serious note, Zuckerberg himself was much more at ease and charismatic on stage than I’ve ever seen him previously. He’s no Steve Jobs yet, but he’s no slouch, either.
I left the event feeling fairly upbeat about Facebook. They sent a clear message to developers that they need to build compelling apps and learn to play nice. And they created a clear reward and punishment system to deal with both ends of the spectrum.
But I’ve learned that I need period of reflection after these super-shows before I can really digest what happened. And after reflecting, I’m feeling more than a little let down by Facebook’s product focus and ability to execute.
Snatching Mediocrity From The Jaws Of Victory
A year ago Facebook set the Internet on fire with the launch of Facebook Platform. Competitors rushed to respond, and since then Facebook has been on a tear.
Facebook has all the momentum as the worlds largest social network (if not the most valuable), and they’ve always been willing to launch bold and controversial new products that change the way people perceive the company (News Feeds, Platform, Beacon).
Everyone looks to them to see what comes next. When rumors surfaced in May that they were going to announce Facebook Connect, a way for third party sites to integrate their services with Facebook profile data, Google and MySpace rushed to announce their own versions of the product, with nearly identical features and, in the case of Google (Friend Connect), a suspiciously similar name.
But today they were not bold, and they did not act like thought leaders. There was no controversial but exciting new product experiment unleashed on a gushing audience. Instead, there were minor tweaks to a platform that needs a major overhaul.
Facebook Connect, the most exciting new product on the agenda, is still vaporware. A parade of partners came out on stage to talk about all the great things they’ll do when it eventually launches this Fall. Meanwhile, Google’s product is in working alpha, and MySpace has fully launched Data Availability.
The new three tier ranking system for apps, which we first wrote about in March, addresses the problem of black hat developers, but it may create more pain than it’s worth. Developers have long complained that Facebook plays favorites.
More disappointing is what Facebook didn’t announce today. No payments platform, even though developers are begging for a way to make money beyond pitifully-low (and falling) CPM ads.
Nor did Facebook address their now quaint and basically unusable messaging system, even though MySpace paved the way for them by implementing Gears nearly two months ago.
Facebook also didn’t take the opportunity today to make amends with Google and cross-integrate their products. Competition is fine, but users are best served with interoperable products. In effect, Facebook is continuing to tell their users exactly what they can and cannot do with their own data.
Finally, Facebook chastised developers who build slow applications, telling them that they need to speed things up and think about scaling. But user complaints about the slowness of Facebook in general are on the upswing. Perhaps its time for the company to listen to its own advice.
Suddenly Facebook is acting more like a company with lots to lose (and therefore defend) rather than a scrappy young underdog startup looking to shake things up, capture our imagination and change the world. It’s time for them to be audacious again, and take some risk. Otherwise, they risk becoming simply boring. And that’s the fast lane to mediocrity.
Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer dropped the ax today, and it landed on Kevin Johnson’s neck.
Johnson, Microsoft’s soon-to-be ex-President of Platforms & Services, has been with Microsoft since 1992. He was in the unfortunate position of leading the recent Vista effort through its very troubled launch, and running Microsoft’s online efforts while watching their lunch be eaten by Google. He takes a consolation prize: He will become the CEO of Juniper Networks, a $12 billion network hardware manufacturer.
So what’s next for Microsoft? The Windows and Windows Live products now report directly to Ballmer. All the online stuff, including search, advertising and most MSN/Live.com services will be headed by a new executive. Ballmer says they’ll look for the person to lead their Google-killing efforts both internally and externally.
Putting Johnson aside for a moment, It’s damn well time Microsoft put someone in charge of its online efforts. Johnson had to split his time with the Windows cash machine and the results have been somewhat predictable. A half time executive running a product that doesn’t even have a brand (Live? MSN? Microsoft?) can’t win against Google.
The truth is that the next guy (or gal) isn’t going to make any fast gains on Google, either, no matter how awesome Mesh and Silverlight are. Ballmer seems willing to spend as long as it takes, though, noting that the war with Google is over the long term, not the short: “In the coming years, we’ll make progress against Google in search first by upping the ante in R&D through organic innovation and strategic acquisitions. Second, we will out-innovate Google in key areas…”
That sounds like Microsoft will channel yet more Windows and Office profits into their Internet startup. There’s no question that they intend to compete in search and advertising any more. The only question is whether they have any chance of winning.
Even if Microsoft concedes that they have a years (decades?) long war on their hands, they have to face the fact that Google’s commanding lead in search, and the network-effect driven advertising wealth that comes with it, will be hard to beat. And all those client software profits won’t last forever, particularly since Google is eating away at that via their suite of free Office products.
The first thing Microsoft needs to do is buy Yahoo - all of it. That brings them to half of Google’s market share in search, and at least they’re in the game.
Another thing Microsoft needs to do is simply pick a brand name for the Internet side of things, and stick with it. Microsoft. MSN. Live. Whatever, just name it something a little catchier than “Online Services.”
Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0
If you glance at the top lineup of gaming applications on the Facebook or MySpace platform, you’ll notice an interesting fact. Not one is the product of a major gaming publisher. Instead a group of independent gaming startups have been the leaders in publishing games within social networks.
Co-founders of the gaming publisher Playfish, Kristian Segerstråle and Sebastien de Halleux, chalk up the growth to a profound platform shift social networks have introduced into the gaming marketplace. Traditionally, large publishers have lorded over the $50 billion gaming industry by controlling two things: access and distribution. Be it a console game or the latest PC title, only big companies could shoulder the large costs of distribution deals and advertising involved in bringing a game to market.
Social networks, however, have are an open platform that give away both access and distribution for free (the CBS backlash is an exception that proves the rule).
You may already recognize Playfish from their flashy Facebook games: Who Has The Biggest Brain?, Word Challenge, and Bowling Buddies. The games have a very similar look and feel to the popular Wii, especially their latest game, Bowling Buddies. Playfish developed the 3 games over the past 6 months and has grown to about 6 million monthly users playing an average of 30 minutes a session. The team attributes this to the social infrastructure that both makes the games more enjoyable and easier to spread. For some perspective, EA’s Pogo.com claims about 14 million visitors per month and has been around since 1999.
For the large part, big gaming publishers have only stuck a toe into social networking. Gaming giant EA’s most notable release to date has been the official version of Scrabble, which currently has around 7,000 DAU (it’s also limited to USA and CAN). However, there’s certainly more to come as these networks watch startups work out the kinks. EA has already done some major releases on the iPhone and has larger plans for their latest acquisition, Rupture. Comparatively, Playfish commands 3 of the top ten gaming apps on Facebook, totaling around 1 million daily active users. The others are belong to notables include SGN, Zynga, and Serious Business.
But traditional gaming companies have been beating the startups on one key metric, monetization. PC and console games saw sales up 43% last year to $18.8 billion. Onine gaming is currently a $1 billion a year business. Pogo.com has around 1.5 million members for it’s monthly subscription service, Club Pogo, for which they pay $4.99 a month or $29.99 a year. Free players of the main site are upsold to premium features and game downloads.
But Playfish is taking a similar approach, looking to monetize gamers on all points of the demand curve. Gamers who are happy to play the basic game will be subject to advertising, while players looking for more can pay for upgrades and premium games. Just this past week they released $10 paid upgrades for “Who has the Biggest Brain?” and expect these payments outpace their ad sales. Albeit, their only form of advertisement is video ads displayed after a game set is completed.
While Playfish has yet to cross outside of the Facebook platform on to other platforms, they’ve made great strides to cross continents by translating their top game “Who has the Biggest Brain?” into six languages. The London-based startup also has studios in Norway and Beijing. They’re funded by $3 million in angel financing with a $1 million bridge from Accel.
Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.