Homesick
I realized on my last trip back to Seattle, that I’m not really homesick for being there anymore. But I’m kind of homesick everywhere, always missing a place I’m not. So I’ve stopped traveling for awhile, and maybe that will make me feel better. This song captures it.
I’ll lose some sales and my boss won’t be happy,
but I can’t stop listening to the sound
of two soft voices
blended in perfection
from the reels of this record that I’ve found.
Every day there’s a boy in the mirror asking me…
What are you doing here?
Finding all my previous motives
growing increasingly unclear.
I’ve traveled far and I’ve burned all the bridges
I believed as soon as I hit land
all the other options held before me,
would wither in the light of my plan.
So I’ll lose some sales and my boss won’t be happy,
but there’s only one thing on my mind
searching boxes underneath the counter,
on a chance that on a tape I’d find…
a song for someone who needs somewhere to long for.
Homesick.
Because I no longer know where home is.
Will Milo Yiannopoulos Shake Up European Startup Press?
I can’t wait to see what this produces.
The saucy and often controversial Milo Yiannopoulos, who I’ve heard some call Europe’s one-man Gawker media, just penned an a post declaring its time to fix European tech journalism, and also noted he will retire from writing the fluffy stuff he’s been producing lately in favor of more substantive pieces in the future.
This echoes the sentiment of conversations ever since Michael Arrington left TechCrunch, and I think this emerging trend is about more than European media. The conversation is about what changes need to happen when it comes to startups storytelling as a whole, particularly in places like London where the trend for company creation is currently up and to the right. I think Milo puts it quite well when he says:
Start-ups have become conditioned to this cult of the mediocre, but it’s time to snap them out of it. Entrepreneurs who aspire to refashion the world around them deserve writing just as audacious and thought-provoking as their own ambitions. Unfortunately, as the technology sector in Europe has expanded, the quality of commentary around it has failed to keep up.
While Milo can’t save startups from their own PR, I hope we will see more compelling untold stories unearthed with this new project. Maybe I’ll even contribute, and help startups discover how to make meaningful connections with the press. What will you contribute?
More discussion of this topic from:
What Europe really needs is startup reviews. And good startup reviews, not rehashed press releases. Frequent ones: three or more per day. Tell me about the team, the tech, the traction. Make me understand market size, competitive landscape, go-to-market strategy, unit economics, capital intensity, and the strategic importance of this widget in a likely future stack.
Crunchbase is probably the most undervalued of Techcrunch’s assets. It’s the go-to database for startup financing information in the entire industry. It’s more complete and fresher than VentureSource or Capital IQ. I am glad it has been getting some love lately.
I’d like to see a blog really getting into the soul of the space and people behind it, with real insights into how things work. “teardowns”, case studies, documenting specific points in a startup’s life, summarising where vc’s and entrepreneurs think the opportunities are, successes, failures, learnings.. What’s going on with MyDeco, Keynoir, MoshiMonsters, Kopi, Unbound, BookingBug, Moo, Skimlinks, huddle etc.. where are the real interesting pieces?
Oh, and can we PLEASE stop going on about Silicon Roundabout – it’s NOT going to be the mecca where everyone wants to go and work. If I wanted to work by a tacky roundabout full of rubbish and kebab vans then I would have looked for an office in Basingstoke!
Epic Phone Purse
This incredible purse is a working telephone. Huge thank you to my friend Chris Bennett from Callyo for finding it and purchasing it on my behalf in St.Pete.
This will be a conversation piece for the rest of my life! I’m also already thinking of how to mod it with a SIM card and Arduino so that it can be completely wireless and working.
Posts Startups The Future: browser do@ doat.com mobile TCdisrupt11 TechCrunch Disrupt
by Danielle Morrill
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Doat.com aka Do@ is the Future of the Mobile Browser [TechCrunch Disrupt]
Yesterday at TechCrunch Disrupt Day #1 I didn’t “get” Do@, and I think this was mostly because I was put off by the graffiti branding. Not sure why, just a personal preference, but its amazing how powerful that first impression is. Then, I found out Cathy Brooks is leading marketing there, which got my attention because she is a tough woman, great story teller, and super connected. I just sat down after talking to their CTO and downloading and playing with the app, mind blown, to write this post in the back row.
Disrupt is a strange event, because you can see the future of mobile search in one moment, and then walk into the room as an entrepreneur talks about getting kids to “do butt art”. But I digress…
UPDATE: What IS Do@?
Do@ is an iPhone application that lets you search across publishers for content you care about in a mobile context. You enter something like “French” and it autocompletes with things like “French Food @ internet” or “French @ books”. When you select a result, you can horizontally scroll through pages of content to pick what you want. It’s like clicking through the top 10 Google results, except minus the clicking and plus the beautiful touch interface of the iPhone.
What’s with the name “Do@”?
I didn’t ask this, but I should have. It’s impressive that the company landed a four letter domain name, so I wonder if they did that first and then tried to rationalize it with the branding. My best guess is that the concept around the brand/name is that mobile search isn’t about consuming a lot of information, its about approaching “perfect information” or the right information for my context. Something cool about mobile app usage is that it always happens in a place, and on smartphones the app can get this location data without even syncing something like Foursquare or Facebook Places.
One other note on the name – it kind of reminds me of the SEO problems with “Ke$ha” (the music artist), but I’m an early adopter type and the general public might not care, or might actually dig it. We’ll see. It will certainly make it easy to completely own the search for “Do@”.
Media Consumption Power Tools for Regular People
What strikes me about Do@ is how easy it is to use. Download, connect Facebook, do a search, done. However, what done looks like is a dashboard as sophisticated as any home grown social media listening platform I’ve ever seen. I immediately searched for Twilio and found tons of conversations, articles, and relevant tweets and Quora threads. I can also “heart” searches that I want to do over and over again. Setting up this kind of listening in my brand would be incredibly time consuming with a tool like Google Reader, but do@ does it in seconds. I’m not sure this is the intended purpose, but I already know I’ll be using it as a media consumption and listening tool. I really really hope they release an iPad app soon too – it could compete with my love for Flipboard!
This is More Than Search, Its a Browser
There’s no Firefox or Google Chrome for the iPhone, but Do@ made it into the AppStore. I almost wonder if this is because Apple doesn’t even totally understand what it is yet. This is an entirely new user experience model for a mobile browser, driven by intention, implied preferences through sharing, and location (I think?).
When you use the app, it isn’t just displaying images of screens and then having you click through Safari. You can load the content and interact with it inside the app. This means Do@ is already building a huge data asset in engagement data which this can use to further refine results and improve the experience.
No Cold Start Problem in Sight
Ultimately, I fell in love with Do@ because I didn’t need to invite anyone to it to gets tons and tons of value in minutes. By simply connecting Facebook, it learned enough about me to give me relevant results. It has excellent search-as-you-type, so it tries to take a best guess at what I’m looking for based on both my explicitly stated interests and implicit interests it gleans from the content I share on Facebook.
Robert Scoble covered Do@ yesterday on his blog, and I’m dieing to read the post and watch this video. For now, I’ll post it here for your enjoyment:
Tips for Your 60 Second TechCrunch Disrupt Demo
In less than an hour, teams from the TechCrunch Disrupt hackathon will begin presenting their apps and they will have just 60 seconds each to make the judges (and audience) fall in love with what they’ve built. There are several outcomes to optimize for during your presentation, but the two that stand out to me are:
- Win the hackathon by impressing the judges
- Win public interest and get the crowd excited about your app (a la GroupMe last year)
You can try going for both, but my personal opinion is that public interest trumps the opinion of a few judges who’ve only had 60 seconds to evaluate. With a little hustle, you can set yourself up to optimize success. If you’re product sucks, no amount of hustling will save you, but if you’re looking to tip the scales favorably in your direction this could be the key.
Know the Judges
I haven’t found them listed on the Disrupt hackathon website, but a few have already tweeted that they’re on the way to judge. Look up their profile, follow them, read their bio page (if they have one, most VCs do)
Pre-Seed the Audience with Your Product
Start giving away beta access to people now, create a Twitter account for your app, and jump into conversations and get feedback. If you have a small but vocal group of fans cheering for you after you demo that’s a little more social proof, and the judges will notice.
Use Technical Difficulties as Free Time to Vamp
It’s likely some of the demos will be plagued with technical difficulties: a Mac that finally decides to give up after having its CPU pushed to the limit all night, a broken cable, a missing dongle, a screen with some screwed up resolution. You can protect against some of this by asking to quickly connect your computer to the monitor you’ll be using to present ahead of time, just to be sure, but the odds are something unexpected will go wrong when you’re not expecting it. Instead of getting pissed or flustered, use that time to crack a joke, show some of your personality, and show that you can be calm under pressure.
Don’t Waste Precious Seconds on How You Built It
The judges and audience (unless they ask explicitly) probably don’t care about what you used to make this happen, so don’t waste precious seconds taking about your technology stack. Unless of course its Twilio, in which case I’d like to know so I can write about you!
Use the Last 5 Seconds to Create Warm Fuzzies
As you’re about to be kicked of the stage remember to be gregarious:
- thank your team
- thank the organizer
- shoutout to any special people who helped you
- let us all know where/how we can connect with you (your Twitter name, app URL etc.)
Draw the Fucking Owl
Hopefully you’ve been doing this for the past 24 hours, good luck teams!
