Web 2.0 launchpad

I am attending the Web 2.0 conference today and decided to crash the Launchpad session to see what’s new with a variety of companies. The Launchpad provides 6 minutes for a company to introduce and demonstrate a new product to the audience in a manner very similar to the DEMO conference. Socialtext just announced at Web 2.0 a move into completely open source by Q1 2006. Socialtext is currently only 20% open source. Rollyo is an interface to Yahoo! Search allowing users to restrict the scope of their search to specific sites. Dave Pell described it as “Yahoo! provides the…

Tiger adds default RSS reader option

The next version of Macintosh operating system, 10.4 code named Tiger, defines a default RSS reader at the system level. Preferences in the current early start kit allow a user to define the time between feed updates, the color annotation of a new article, and when to remove stored items. Hopefully this means aggregators will be able to share a common feed storage location. Update: MacNet took down at the request of Apple Legal. The preference pane showed a drop-down boxes to select the default RSS reader, choose an update interval, highlight new items, and the length of time to…

How To Run Your Own Software Business presentation

Oliver Breidenbach, Steve Dekorte, Steve Gehrman, Will Shipley, Brent Simmons, and Dan Wood participated in a panel discussion about how to run your own software business. Below is my summary. I also have audio of the entire session (44.1 MB MP3, 1:36:48) except for mentions of Omnigroup lawsuits that were removed at the request of Will Shipley. Time to market varied for different software vendors. It took Dan 6 months to develop Watson. It took Brent 10 months to develop NetNewsWire including learning Cocoa. It took Oliver 3 weeks to develop his first product and receive his first payment. The…

Mac OS X Innovators

Delicious Library received first place in the Mac OS X Innovators contest announced today. I have seen the software for months, but I got to play around with the software in-person today, and hear about the product’s features from William Jon Shipley and Mike Matas. I have been waiting for this type of software for a long time. I am the type of user to update things I own in my Amazon account, rate them, and even leave a small description if anyone is interested in my collection. Now I will have the same information on a local store,…

Sam Levin on messaging and branding

Sam Levin just gave a presentation titled “Messaging & Branding; After the Product is Developed, What’s Next?” at the O’Reilly Mac OS X conference in Santa Clara. Below are quick notes from the session. I also recorded the session (21.1 MB MP3, 46:28). There are many Apple resources for developers and partners to tap into. ADC membership Apple Consultants membership Mac logo usage Mac Products Guide Mac OS X download ADC promotions Marketing 101: 20-25% of your total budget should be devoted to marketing. Data sheet. Example on Sam’s iDisk. Press releases, targeting good press channels. Editorial/reviews/awards. Put review directly…

O’Reilly Mac OS X Conference

Tomorrow I am attending the O’Reilly Mac OS X Conference in Santa Clara. I posted my session schedule on .Mac if you are interested. All feature presentations will be recorded and made available by O’Reilly. I plan to record Sam Levin’s Messaging & Branding presentation and make it available on in MP3 format. I also plan to record the How To Run Your Own Software Business session. (I am still waiting to hear back from one panelist regarding permissions.) If you are at the conference look for me on iChat and say hi!…

Web 2.0 Conference

John Battelle and Tim O’Reilly have one whopper of a conference planned in October: Web 2.0. The speaker list is incredible, especially if you are interested in search technology. $1695 for the conference sessions only if you register before June 7. Registration is currently by invitation only. If I know you and you are interested in an invitation send me an e-mail….

Jonathan Abrams Friendster SXSW Interactive keynote

Heath Row of Fast Company posted a partial transcript of Jonathan Abrams’ keynote at SXSW Interactive. A lot of people want to create a viral service. Friendster goes beyond this viral marketing that people talk about. It’s something I call viral nagging. People get peer pressure from their friends to sign up, improve their profile, and change their photo. That’s more powerful than anything I could do. Instead of a site like Match.com where you build a site and hope your friends find you, you build your site with them….