PND Technology: Jibe

My weekly (kind of) recap of some of the interesting technology I've heard about at the tech meet-ups I've been going to (NYTech)

JIBE is a site that combines your social network with your job search. The site includes listings from companies (which are paid) allows you in the application process to include specific recommendations from your social network in support of your application. For example, if you are applying to a position at Conde Nast (launch partner) and you have a facebook or linkedin connection at that company you can ask for and attach a specific recommendation or endorsement to travel with your application for the position.

The company has also developed some intelligent software that decodes information from your network on linkedin and facebook so that you can organize your contacts by business and/or business segment. In effect, JIBE creates a set of profiles of your profiles but applicable to work and job seeking.

Check out the video:

Watch live streaming video from nytechmeetup at livestream.com

PND Technology: Apture

My weekly (kind of) recap of some of the interesting technology I've heard about at the tech meet-ups I've been going to (NYTech)

Apture is a great application that enables a publisher to offer a more in-depth experience to readers and browsers of their web site without them leaving the page. For the publisher a simple line of code added to their site gives 'look-up' capability to any highlighted segment of content on their page. One neat thing about the Apture application is that it can 'look-forward' and return the more detailed and deeper material (again in a pop-up window not by taking the user somewhere else) in an appropriate to the content manner. For example, if a reader highlights a photo link the pop up can produce a photo image viewer that is optimized for the content and the appropriate usage. (Best shown in the plug-in).

In allowing the user to access instantaneously more information, the Apture application provides a far more engaging experience for the user. Another aspect of the technology, is that each successive pop-up can be searched in a 'Russian doll effect'. So in the example on the live demo, if the user looks up information about Alfred Hitchcock and in the pop-up there is more information they want to search - including content such as photos, music and videos - they can do this sequentially. All without leaving the original website.

For a publisher implementing the technology, they can also 'manage' how the deeper information is displayed in each pop-up. For example, a publisher may want to highlight their own content they may have that is relevant to the search and they can present their links or content first. This can drive additional page views for the publisher which for usage statistics and for advertising could be important. The company says users will stay on a site 2-3x longer when this technology is implemented.

Each pop-up does not replace the earlier one and so the user can always see where they came from and navigate easily backwards and search other interesting links in earlier windows. The user can also re-size at will depending on their preference and there is an example of how that functionality is appropriate for maps and street view for example.

Apture is being used by the Financial Times, Thomson Reuters, NY Times, ReadWriteWeb, The Nation. The company also launched a browser plug-in which they claim will change the way you search the web. I'm playing with it now.

PND Technology: KnowMore

This is week three in my recap of some of the interesting technology I've heard about at the tech meet-ups I've been going to (NYTech)

Knowmore is still in beta but it looks promising and interesting to anyone who juggles many social networking relationships. And increasingly that is many of us.

Knowmore has created on view of all your social network relationships and presents that content in various streams that you as a user establish. (Here is the video but sadly the audio is bad but good enough that you can still understand the presenter). Knowmore doesn't care which network supplies the content rather they are focused on presenting all the content you and your social network is interacting with in a more logical and consistent way. For example, you are able to set up streams that collect all the videos and photos that your network is looking at or commenting on regardless of where they were located so you can see a concentrated and focused itemization of this content. Additionally, Knowmore has incorporated a 'social search' function so that you can look at and search everything your network has shared. As they say in their presentation at NYTech, "who better to trust than the people you know and love to tell you what you should be interested in".

It is difficult to determine whether 'aggregation' of our social networks will become a long term play; however, Knowmore is an interesting starting point and once they come out of private beta it may be fun to play around with. Longer term this functionality could be incorporated into your browser but that ignores the ingenuity of companies like Knowmore to add layers and value to their aggregation solution over time.

PND Technology: twilio

This is week two of my recap of some of the interesting technology I've heard about at the tech meet-ups I've been going to (NYTech)

Over the years, I've had the dubious distinction of being responsible for several office moves and, aside from the bickering over who gets the bigger office and what type of furniture we buy, some of the more problematic issues related to dealing with the old telephone pbx. Twilio can't help with the baser issues but they have eliminated the hardware problems inherent in the old phone systems and pushed a powerful and easy to use set of applications to the cloud that can manage the most sophisticated phone applications.

Here's how they explain how their system works:

We're always building web applications, and sometimes we want those apps to be able to interact with phone callers. Maybe we want a customer to be able to call in and get information, or maybe we need to coordinate our employees more efficiently. Before Twilio, you would have had to learn some foreign telecom programming languages, or set up an entire stack of PBX software to do this. At which point, you'd say "aw, forget it!" Twilio lets you use your existing web development skills, existing code, existing servers, existing databases and existing karma to solve these problems quickly and reliably. We provide the infrastructure, you provide the business logic via HTTP, and together we rule the world.

The demos at NY Tech meet-up are only five minutes long however in a demonstration of how easy their tool is to use they wrote a simple script that created a dial in conference call, selected (purchased) a specific phone number and then created an invite to which they asked all the audience to dial in to. Programmed in simple xml this took 2mins of fast typing. The system naturally collects all the dial in numbers and as a follow-up demo they used the application to call back everyone in the room who had dialed in to the conference number.

There are all kinds of business applications that can be created almost on the fly and certainly specifically directed to a business issue or situation. Some of the examples include, polling, status updates such as weather problems or power outages, reminders such as appointments, as well as the typical voicemail transcription and sms functionality.

There are many more practical examples noted on their blog including:

MedTaker takes advantage of the ubiquity of the phone to help people remember to take their medication while at the same time periodically checking in on their wellbeing.

Life is full of so many little details that need attending to all the time. Would you rather be coding up your next prize winner Twilio app, or assembling IKEA furniture? What about getting a ride to the airport, or grocery shopping. Fortunately, with TaskRabbit you can delegate these tasks to "runners" who you pay by the hour to help you get things done.

Diner Connection is a complete online solution for restaurants. You can contact your customers via text messaging, collect patron visit information and connect with your patrons more effectively using Diner Connection.

DropConf is an on-demand conference calling application -- you pay per conference call. The idea is that small business or freelancers for example might only need one or two conference calls a month. Some months they might not need any conference calls. All the other paid options out there have monthly fees -- so people are paying for a service they don't need.

And many, many more.

PND Technology: Parse.ly

Frequent readers will recall that I occasionally report on my attendance at the New York Tech meet-up which is a once a month showcase of new and interesting technology and applications in early development (mostly). I also recently attended a similar group meeting in Hoboken and I am considering reporting on what I find interesting at these meetings on a more regular basis. So here goes.

I am interested in curated content and Parse.ly is a product that helps content owners curate content for their users. At a recent meeting I attended one of the founders of the company took the audience through their product showing how users on traditional media sites are treated like strangers even though they may be frequent visitors to the website. The parse.ly product "connects users with content they’ll love through personalized recommendations. Our technology gives publishers the power to quickly and easily recommend relevant content to users based on what they’ve read in the past and what other, similar users are reading now." It is a cool and elegant application.

By understanding what the user has looked at and interacted with over time and what other users with similar habits have also viewed the parse.ly tool is able to serve up a more concentrated and particular set of content that the user will find interesting. Perhaps a good example of how this process works and how it could be implemented is represented in a current test the company is running with a major newspaper. Parse.ly has suggested that pre-packaged topic-based email subscriptions are too generic and that the Parse.ly tool can craft topic collections based expressly on the needs/interests of a particular individual. So do away with the generic email subscriptions and implement a parse.ly solution that is more relevant to the user.

Parse.ly is available in various forms with the most powerful being full integration with a clients' content. The company is working with some major media clients on enterprise level contracts but is also available to general users so check it out.

Maggwire.com: The iTunes of Magazines?

I've been going to monthly meetups for the NY Tech group for the past year and they are a lot of fun (I've mentioned one of two presentations shown there in the past year - Snooth is one). At these meetings start-up companies are given five minutes to present their company and answer questions from the audience. The response from the audience is generally positive; however, the audience are not afraid to challenge the presenters over some aspect of their offering and worse not ask any questions if the company has failed to inspire. Each monthly meeting has about 700 attendees.

Last night one of the presenting companies was Maggwire.com which was started earlier this year by a group of ex-bankers. The company is attempting to aggregate magazine content into one experience so that a user can subscribe via one service to multiple content sources. The user then pays a low monthly payment to access the content. Currently, the product is in beta but the founders said the monthly fee could be as low as $1.99 for a base package with an extra fee per additional content source. If this reminds you of cable television then you're on the right track. At Mywire.com where I have been spending a lot of my time in the past two years we have a similar model however our monthly fee is $4.99 and we plan to offer a wider variety of content and only content that is unavailable free.

Maggwire is currently hosting aggregated content the is 'in the public domain' which is a troubling way of putting it but the company is in discussions with all the media companies about forming what amounts to distribution deals for their content. Unless the publishers restrict availability to their content - raise pay walls for example - Maggwire and other companies like this are unlikely to gain traction with subscribers. There is just too much free content and consumers will be unhappy if they find content they think they are paying for on the open web. The convenience of one location for content is a benefit that will only go so far.

Riding the Subway

Savvy sub-way riders memorize which carriage to ride in and which door to exit that will guarantee them a quick exit up the stairs or a fast transfer to another line. I was never a public transport commuter until I spent a semester abroad in London in the early 1980s. During that time, I quickly realized there was a useful trick to optimizing your journey so that you never had to trudge behind a column of people up the stairs to get out or you missed your connection because you went down the wrong passage. It seemed obvious to me that with a little bit of observation, and by anticipating the placement of the exits and passages at my next station, that I could save considerable time. In a short while, I had it down to a science and to this day when riding the Underground, Path or Subway I still move about the departing station platform in order to make sure I get in the right car and so I can leave by the right door.

When Mrs PND and I first visited London together she couldn't grasp that whenever we traveled on the Underground I was always saying 'we can't stand here we need to go to the end of the platform' or 'I have to count the carriages to make sure we get on the right one' or words similar. Invariably, there are many stations in any system that are new to me (excepting the PATH) and thus if I end up at one of these unfamiliar stations I become a commuting victim just like everyone else.

Unlike me however; Jonathan Wegener and his sister Ashley thought that maybe "there should be an app for that" and have built an iPhone application that optimizes every NYC subway ride. They have created an easy and intuitive interface that enables you, for any combination of NYC stations, to find the proximity of carriages and doors to exit stairs and transfer points. It is a pretty neat app and represents yet another reason why the monthly NYTech Meetups can be so fun.

The Wegeners actually created this information by brute force . It didn't exist until the two of them spent 10 weeks riding the subway with clip boards in hand to document each subway stop. As far as I know, they weren't stopped by NYPD in the process. The application was introduced as the 'quintessential New York app' but I can see others copying the idea pretty rapidly.

Snooth and Book Selling

I have now been to several NY Tech Meetup meetings where the audience gets to hear (in five minutes) all about five or six new tech start ups. This is a large, appreciative and young audience and I have found myself nodding surreptitiously so some other gray beard across the aisle as we both realize the average age of the audience and the presenters are less than my shoe size. That doesn't stop the excitment however, and most of these presentations are really interesting having been vetted before hand.

This week a presentation from an online wine merchant was particularly interesting. The company Snooth is based in Brooklyn and has created a front door to wine sellers around the world. On top of that they have incorporated and organized content (formal and social) that provides a user with a wide degree of latitude in search. The interface is clean and the functionality is both well designed and obviously well tested.

Wine isn't really publishing or book related but what struck me relevant about this webstore were the similarities between the bookselling environment and wine. The founders speak about a disorganized and insular business that confused vintners and consumers alike. Applies to publishing - check. Yet wine is also complex in a similar manner to books. Wine is matched to taste and occasion and so are books. Wine is produced in many locations by many vintners - read subjects, authors or publishers. Wine is dominated by large brand merchandisers - read publishers. Wine is sold by many unconnected retailers - read book selling.

Snooth has aggrated content to support a consumers' choice and also aggregated supply so that consumers can locate and order from a local supplier (and one they know has the wine in stock). Snooth collects inventory data from a global network of 11,000 merchants and they recently announced their 100,000th registered user. And true to my heart, they are building a data analytics program that will support value-added revenue opportunites.

Michael Tamblyn suggested thinking about a new paradigm for on-line bookselling and Snooth could be an example. Check it out.