Christine

Pocket Protectors Never Looked So Good: Women Who Tech

I just wanted to share news of what may be the largest, longest online conference call ever: the Women Who Tech telesummit on May 12th, 2009. Conference organizers have put together an agenda that includes:

•    Launching Your Own Startup
•    Women and Open Source
•    Breaking Through the Digital Ceiling
•    Tech Marketing in a Recession
•    Social Networks and Diversity Barriers
•    ROI of Social Networking

Panelists will include Joan Blades of MoveOn and Moms Rising, Allison Fine of Personal Democracy Forum, Shireen Mitchell of Digital Sistas, Amy Muller of Get Satisfaction, Lynne D Johnson of Fast Company, Charlene Li, Holly Ross of NTEN, Rashmi Sinha of SlideShare, and Lisa Stone of BlogHer.

For more information, visit womenwhotech.com, and feel free to drop by a live afterparty that evening if you're in Washington, DC, NYC, San Francisco, or London.

Startups Woo Coders with Cloud-Based Development Environments

Rafe Needleman continued his developers-in-the-cloud theme at the Microsoft campus this afternoon, with an Under the Radar judging panel that includes First Round Capital's very own Rob Hayes.

Here are the presenters, roughly in my order of personal preference:

Twilio helps developers to build and run voice applications cheaply. Their core XML API offers the basics used in most voice applications. Grand Central uses Twilio, as does Earth 911, which turned a six-month project into just a few hours. Telephony in the cloud changes the typical telephony business model, just as Amazon EC2 changed the cost of online app provisioning. Most telephony is based on the number of lines you have, and how frequently those lines are being used, so you pay for capacity you aren't using and can't handle spikes in demand. Twilio transforms this into an EC2-like model in which clients pay as they go for what they use. I was easily charmed by CEO Jeff Lawson (who no doubt could sell snow in Alaska), and bought his argument that there's emerging demand for voice integration into web applications.

New Relic supports Ruby in the cloud, in what the company claims is the 'first application management solution offered via SaaS.' Need to know what your app is doing at runtime, and how you can fix them in production. Real-time visibility while running production applications.  Independent developers and hobbyists are drawn to Ruby, and New Relic aims to capture those users as they get started in their development careers. Launched in Hune, now over 1600 customers, inluding businesses as diverse as github and Hot Topic. Average customer paying 50% more than they did six months ago for their New Relic subscription. Though the company has raised $11M, they're being frugal - they've only used $3M of that to date and still have three years of cash in bank.

Heroku offers a multi-tenant platform to 'enhance developer productivity and make deployment trivial.' Heroku, a Y-Combinator company, supports enterprises, web 2.0 companies, and individual Ruby developers with provisionless hosting - over 25,000 applications are now deployed over the Heroku platform. The metered service ranges in cost from $50/month for an individual developer, to $10K/month for an enterprise, and the company compares this to $5K/month for a sysadmin and server resources. I like Heroku - its simplicity is seductive - but they will have a fight on their hands as existing enterprise vendors develop offerings for their Ruby customers.

RunMyProcess offers business process management (BPM) in the cloud. They address the challenge of SaaS integration with 'workflows as a service.' Design, execution, traceability, and analysis are all part of RunMyProcess-enabled workflow. A basic subscription is 50 euros/user/month, and RMP partners can earn a 20% revenue share. I see the need for the service, but have many questions on their competitive landscape and differentiation.

Testing in the Clouds at Under the Radar

The mission critical - but decidedly unsexy - need for application testing is the latest part of the developer ecosystem to move into the cloud. At today's Under the Radar conference, Rafe Needleman moderated VC panel pitching from a number of vendors using the cloud to accelerate test processes. Since these companies aren't overly competitive with each other, I've listed them roughly in order of my own personal interest:
 
Sauce Labs provides fast functional testing to developers using Selenium, an open source testing suite. The cool part is that it concurrently runs your tests across multiple versions of IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera. Developers can scan broken tests with visual playback of the test being run in that browser. The company is run by Steve Hazel, John Dunham, and Selenium creator Jason Huggins. With over 100 beta signups to date, the company hopes to take down established test vendors like Mercury Interactive as more and more development moves to the cloud. They're out for a small seed round of $500K and have the right DNA to get an initial toehold with agile developers.


uTest bills itself as 'the world's largest marketplace for software testing.' Since their launch last August, they've signed up 100 customers and lcosed a $5.2M Series B. Customers sign up for a free Utest account, identify their QA needs, and testers can apply to be part of the testing. The 16,000 testers currently available through the service have had to work their way up through the system - initially through the qualifying tests provided by uTest, and then through the development of a reputation score by working with uTest clients. This reminded me of companies like LiveOps (for customer service contractors) and Salesconx (for sales contractors) - there's definitely a trend for professional-level outsourcing outside of coding, as is seen by the emergence of new professional functions in developer marketplaces such as oDesk. If uTest can maintain service quality, this gets very interesting.


Zephyr is 'an on-demand software test management platform for the enterprise.' Zephyr targets both Fortune 1000 and mid-market companies that need to manage test lifecycles with global teams. They have 25 paying customers today ($65/user/month) - large companies such as AOL, Atlassian, CDW, and Lithium - and are working hard to add to that number in 2009. Though the product looks very robust, they will have a tough slog as they face off with established enterprise vendors such as BMC and IBM on the high end, and 'perceived free' solutions such as Excel in the mid market.

Lane Becker's Therapy for the Under-employed at SXSW

What are you going to do with yourself, now that the economy has collapsed? Lane Becker, co-founder of creative commercial endeavors like Get Satisfaction and Adaptive Path, brought together a team of survivors to discuss the issue at SXSW today. (Disclosure note: First Round Capital is an investor in Get Satisfaction.)

Most of the panelists had great tactical sound bites - here are the top five:

1. Learn Excel. Michael Sippey, Six Apart thinks that everyone should learn Excel. 'It's an excellent data-munging tool, and it's a practical tool that can be applied to almost anything that you find interesting.' More importantly, applying Excel intelligently lets you prove to both yourself and to others that you know what you're talkng about.

2. Identify your passions. This applies to both finding a new job, and to carving your own path. Sippey has three key questions when interviewing job candidates: Tell me about the people you work with - why do you like working with them? What's your passion? How is your performance around your passion? On the other side, Ben Brown of XOXCO had the best sound bite on following fascinations: "I decided that I wanted to stop playing the game...which means that I wanted to stop trying to get a paycheck from some jackass every day."

3. Stick with your boring, safe job while you identify your passions. Andy Baio, who founded Upcoming and blogs now at Waxy.org, thinks that there's something to be said for a stable, boring job that doesn't conflict with anything you might be doing on the side. "Especially if you work in finance, you can go home and work on your own stuff. In finance, you don't have to worry about the company stepping up and saying that your online calendar conflicts with the core business around mutual funds."

4. Work on the side with friends. Baio noted that a fringe benefit of doing something with friends is that you don't need to worry about commercial success - just fix a common problem together, and give your work the time it needs to become whatever it will be. As Lane put it, 'The challenge is not just developing the right talent on the side, but finding the right people and joining the right groups.'

5. Be a generalist. Jane Mount, a director at 20x200 and former at Word.com, thinks that being a generalist is good in this economy. If you can do lots of things, you're more likely to find a role for yourself on projects that you find interesting.

One of the audience members had a great question: How do you explain yourself at a cocktail party when you're in an exploratory mode? I found myself in this position when I left Omidyar Network, and what I found to be most helpful was telling folks that I was looking to bring my marketing, strategy, and VC expertise to interesting people, and interesting projects. More specifically, that I was getting myself 'out there' so that serendipity could happen. Looking back at a bunch of months working inside the Get Satisfaction family, tons of entrepreneurs met via STIRR Pitch Lab, and an eventual investment role at First Round Capital, I'm pretty satisfied with this approach.

When all is said and done, Lane has some great advice: Pursue things that matter to you, and you'll find a niche. The market comes and goes, but people still need to get things done. As Brown put it, "The difference between unemployed and self-employed is just in your head....get fired into the right career."

Great Unconference Sessions at FreeTech (ETech) Today

Feeling poor since you tightened your startup's belt last quarter? There's a GREAT set of free, community-scheduled sessions for today’s FreeTech unconference at ETech 2009, being held at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose.

The current schedule is pasted below, and we’ve been keeping the FreeTech wiki fairly up to date (thank you Kevin Epstein!!) as new things get posted. As a reminder, all sessions are held in the Valley Room:

• 8:45 to 9:00 AM     Open Grid (time to sign up to present a session)
• 9:00 to 9:30 AM    “Rewired State: How to hack the government with geeks and beer”
• 9:30 to 10:05 AM   “Why not take drugs all the time? Physiology & Identity” (Quinn Norton)
• 10:05 to 10:50 AM  “Programmable Environments: Co-Design” (Jennifer Magnolfi, Herman Miller)
• 11:00 to 11:50 PM   “Behind the Scenes at the California Academy of Sciences” (Sasha Harris-Cronin)
• 12:00 to 12:40 PM  [OPEN SESSION – GRAB IT!]
• 12:40 to 1:05 PM   “Hacking Education: Online Fun Learning Tools / Ecosystem” (Hitesh Parashar)
• 1:05 to 1:55 PM     “Making and Sharing: Building New Hacker Spaces” (Rose White, City University of New York – Graduate Center / NYC Resistor)

There are a couple of free/sharable spots, feel free to grab one by signing up on-site in front of the Valley Room. Hitesh Parashar will be onsite for the duration to session wrangle and answer your questions. Remember to get the latest on the wiki, since naturally an unconference schedule is subject to change.

Thanks again to everyone who hosted or submitted a session on Wednesday – and if you haven’t yet dropped by, we look forward to having you join in the conversation today!

DEMO: the Queen is gone, long live the King

The news is spreading today on Chris Shipley's departure from the IDG DEMO conference. Count me in as someone with great admiration for Chris' work on and off the DEMO stage - she brings intelligence, class, and thoughtful analysis to what can often be a snarky business. The DEMO baton is being handed to Matt Marshall of VentureBeat - someone else that I have a great deal of respect for. Since there's to be a change, Matt is a fabulous choice for the role. He'll bring a fresh, interesting set of opinions as he carries on the constructive culture of DEMO.

(Photo of Chris Shipley originally uploaded by Robert Scoble.)

There's been a lot of fuss about DEMO vs. TechCrunch. So just to chime in on the froth: They're different conferences, folks...different platforms, different businesses launching, different audiences, different media, and most importantly, different strategic/tactical objectives in the minds of the demonstrators.

Back when I was a DEMO demonstrator, I found the $16K charge to be an excellent value when compared to the months of PR retainer we would have wasted on attempts to get the same press meetings. The work that Chris did with us (and others) behind the scenes served as a vital 'media training boot camp.' I'd do it again.

All that said: Whether or not IDG charges startups for DEMO participation, Chris Shipley has added enormous value to the startup community. Hopefully, Guidewire Group will prove to be the next great platform. And it will be fun to watch Matt tackle the ornery DEMO vs. TechCrunch conversation.

Matt and Chris, good luck to both of you!

First Round Entrepreneur Outreach at Stanford and SXSW

Just a quick note to get the word out on two upcoming outreach sessions that I'm participating in...it's a blast to get out and talk to shiny new entrepreneurs. Feel free to get the word out to those that would find these events useful:

1. VC3 "gives Stanford entrepreneurs an opportunity to pitch their business ideas to top Silicon Valley venture capitalists for 3 minutes." Any Stanford student (or active Stanford affiliate) is eligible to participate in this energetic bout of VC speed dating. Interested pitchers can apply here. Stanford's Asia-Pacific Student Entrepreneurship Society (ASES) is sponsoring VC3 as part of Stanford Entrepreneurship Week, and the event is being held this Friday, February 20th from 1:30 - 5:30PM at Stanford's Wallenberg Auditorium. If you're a VC that would like to volunteer for this event, drop the VC3 team a note.

2. First Round Capital's Office Hours is hitting the road in March for SXSW Interactive. Kent Goldman, Rob Hayes, and I will be co-hosting Office Hours SXSW on Monday, March 16th from 11AM - 1PM at Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant. Come on out and meet us if you've got an entrepreneurial bent - we’ll be available for a bunch of informal 10-minute chats. We’ll provide the napkins to write on and a few pitchers of margaritas. Meetings are first come, first served, so help us to space out meeting times by signing up to let us know if you plan to attend in the first or second hour.

Girls Gone Geeky - and Getting Funded

I'm glad to be supporting TWO upcoming events designed for women entrepreneurs. If you're a woman entrepreneur in Silicon Valley - or would like to encourage one - then read on, forward this information, and register.

First, I'll be speaking on how to go after VC funding at She's Geeky, an unconference designed for geeky women (and girls, if you'd like to bring your daughters). According to the organizers, "attendees include women involved in all aspects of technology, including those who like to use geeky tools, not just coders, programmers and engineers. You don’t even have to be from the computer industry. You just have to be a woman who identifies as a geek." She's Geeky is very affordable and is coming up this weekend (January 30 - 31) at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, so register today.

Second, I'm serving as a VC judge for Women 2.0 Pitch 2009, an annual startup competition. Enter your back-of-a-napkin business plan by April 10th and get a chance to win a meeting with legendary investor Michael Moritz from Sequoia Capital, along with free space at the Plug and Play Tech Center, legal representation from Pillsbury, and more. Any startup with a woman on the founding team is eligible. Five finalists will be chosen (by judges including yours truly) to pitch live at Pitch Night on May 7th, 2009. Apply to pitch here.

Folks often ask me why women need a 'special conference' to go to. While I agree much of the content at these events could be accessed at any entrepreneurship event, it's refreshing to walk into a room of one's own for a day. As anyone who's attended a freshman orientation or joined a soccer team knows, there's something special about bonding within a peer group. If one of your peer groups happens to be 'geeky women,' here's an opportunity to find them.

Green Data Rules at Web 2.0 Summit Launch Pad

Today's Web 2.0 Summit Launch Pad revealed the new trendy areas for Web-based startups: "green" data (Carbonetworks, GoodGuide, and Sungevity) and enhancing visual content (Everyscape and Qik). The audience ranked GoodGuide #1 from the presenters, but I preferred Carbonetworks because of my sneaking sense that commercial emissions management will be strongly encouraged, if not mandated, given the recent changes in political power.

See below for my snapshot reviews, roughly in order of personal preference:

Carbonetworks. The company's software platform helps business to create carbon emissions strategies - even worldwide, as needed. Companies can create an 'emissions inventory' and manage those items as assets and liabilities. The platform replaces expensive energy strategy consultants, and is a good first line of defense against changing government regulation while providing insight into potential business savings. I worry about adoption as well as the size and shape of their target custmer segment, but Carbonetworks is funded and has already started signing up paying clients.

GoodGuide provides comprehensive information on chemical composition and origin of products. It was started by a founder that researched every product in his house to see what chemicals his daughter was being exposed to. Enables consumers to have important information during the purchase process - as a result, they are now delivering this information via SMS and an iPhone application. I like the actionable presentation of data that has been largely inaccessible in the past. It represents a change in behavior for consumers, but if the green wave continues to grow, GoodGuide might be able to ride it.

Qik. Qik has had good buzz this year by enabling live video streaming from cellphones. (As a Seesmic user, I saw Qik get very popular, very quickly with online video users. I didn't test it since I wasn't a Nokia user.) Nokia has announced that Qik will be on-deck in their next device. Video streams can be shared, archived, and searched. Their hardware support now includes Blackberry handsets, so maybe I'll go back and try it again.

Sungevity provides potential solar customers with the education, price quote, and referrals they need to get the right solar energy solution for their home. I've seen a number of companies come to market with a customer interface that recommends solution and provides installer referrals. On track to make their first year's revenue target of $2.5 million. Thousands of consumers educated on how to save money with solar energy. Trying to become the go-to sales force for solar. The public may be ready for this in theory, but can Sungevity do anything to reduce what is still a very large consumer expense?

Everyscape. Amazing rendering that looks like you need Matrix-like computing power in order to present it. Trying to present the real world online. Their '2D-immersive' technology is intriguing, but the application presented didn't excite me. I think there's much more monetization potential than providing restaurants and bars with better event space marketing. (How do you think they should make money?)

Predictify hosts 'prediction challenges' such as these: Will Britney get pregant again this year? Who will be the next NCAA champion? When will the Dow next close above 10,000? The data can be used to 'predict the news' for fun (there is a game aspect) and profit (you can create a prediction markets ffrom some categories of prediction, if you can work within SEC regulations). Panorama Capital's Chris Albinson voiced my key concerns: How big can this get? Why will this stand out among the many 'prediction games' that have recently come online?

Amazon Announces Easier, Eco-Friendly Packaging Effort

When I hopped over to Amazon.com today to pick up a copy of Visio, I was surprised to see this holiday-ready announcement: Amazon is working directly with manufacturers such as Fisher-Price to develop "Frustration-Free Packaging." This means no plastic clamshells, no wire ties, no molded plastic holders. Just a few simple recyclable cardboard bits.

I've been waiting for one of the online retailers to make this move. (Yes, it's true: I have an unseemly fascination with supply chain management. Thanks, Professor Whang!) Unfriendly packaging has two primary goals: exposing the product for appealing store merchandising (you can see the Barbie on the shelf), and reducing shrinkage (impossible to get the DVD out of the clamshell so you can slide it in your pocket). As a retailer that sells exclusively online, Amazon doesn't have either of these requirements. Photos of the product supersede photos of the box, and the average Joe can't steal a copy of Batman Begins from Amazon's warehouse shelf.

I'm reminded of how Wal-Mart used its clout to drive electronic inventory systems and just-in-time manufacturing and shipping through its own channel. Now that Amazon has become such a large piece of most consumer product manufacturers' supply chains, it can use its channel clout to drive changes that save money throughout the manufacturer-distributor-retailer ecosystem, enable some positive PR with consumers, and even throw a bone to the environment by reducing waste. Kudos to Amazon for swinging its big stick to benefit all of us.

Mentoring Women for the Next Y Combinator (10/17 Deadline)

Y Combinator, a technology incubator based in Mountain View and Cambridge, is taking applications through Friday, October 17th 10pm PST for its winter 2009 Mountain View incubator cycle. Former AOL and Yahoo! exec (and current Tech Stars participant) Susan Mernit has galvanized a small group of us who are interested in seeing if we can help increase the percentage of women accepted this time around. So:

If you are a woman who is considering applying to Y Combinator for this cycle and you'd like to have some mentoring and support from an experienced executive before you submit your application, there's a small group of women who are interested in working with you. (Yes, I am one of them.)

To get involved with this group and ideally paired with a mentor, send an email with contact information and information about your proposal to pinkgaragementors@gmail.com; we'll circulate your information among our team and reach back out to you.

If you are mentored, you will receive an hour or more of coaching with a woman exec who has been through a tech incubator program; has been a tech CEO/co-founder, analyst, or VC; or some combination thereof.

At the last Y Combinator Demo Day I attended, there were 3 women in a room of over 100 people. That just seems a bit low to me, and I have no doubt that it reflects the candidate pool. Let's work constructively to get more bright young women to apply.

Last Chance Offer for STARTonomics

Dave McClure is sounding the last chance horn for attendance at STARTonomics, his new conference on startup metrics. The event is this Thursday, October 22nd in San Francisco, and there's a last chance offer for 20% off of registration - just register using promo code START208.

Explaining the Large Hadron Collider (for Dummies)

Tomorrow's the big day: the mad scientists at CERN are starting up the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to finally discover if we're on the right track when it comes to particle physics. This is a Big Deal and ideally humanity will be able to validate some key theories without collapsing the Earth into a black cloud of antimatter. If you'd like to see what all the fuss is about, here's a hilarious rap video from the LHC staff...particle physics for dummies! (READ: It's for those of us who chose technology, or even just spending time with the other humans, over science.)

For bonus points, head down to Stanford for a tour of SLAC. (Stanford's linear accelerator.) Even without the 17-mile scale of the LHC, it's an awe-inspiring visit.

Best of Monday at TechCrunch50: Yammer

TechCrunch50 launched today with multiple waves of new companies and memes. Like many folks, I was most intrigued by the startups in the Enterprise cluster. Of those, I had one clear and immediate favorite: Yammer. At its most basic, Yammer is Twitter for groups; at its most sophisticated, it's a productivity tool for teams and workgroups. I'm usually not an early adopter, but I found Yammer compelling enough to actually give them my credit card number.

As soon as Yammer launched (rather dramatically, they turned on the production server mid-demo), I started up an account for First Round. Within about ten minutes, everyone FRC staffer in attendance at TC50 was using Yammer as a conference backchannel, the folks in the back office had discussed getting some closing paperwork out the door, and we had juggled logistics for a meeting to be held right after the last session of the day. I quickly ended up sending "tweets" from the folks that I followed into IM; conveniently, I was able to respond via IM as well and have it flow neatly back into our Yammer stream. It was easy to add team members (hello virality) and set security settings, and the type of profile data being collected (who do I report to, who is my assistant, etc.) implies that a nice set of productivity features is on the way.

Some concerns did come up as to if Yammer would be 'yet another inbox,' which could be a valid objection for the company's corporate adoption if there isn't a well-understood use case. My prediction is that Yammer will end up as a home for general group FYIs, 'please let me know if you have an opinion/suggestion' thoughtstreams, or 'workstreams' (as vs lifestreams) that can be easily searched for either the current status of or the history on projects.

There are a number of obvious items for Yammer's product roadmap, but the service is useful today for groups whose members are already well-trained Twitter users. Kudos to the Geni team on today's launch.

Shameless Promotion: CircleDog, CRM for Small Business

From the Shameless Promotions Department: I received a happy e-mail today from Mission Research CEO Charlie Crystle, who was thrilled to share that the team launched CircleDog today. (Disclosure note: I have common equity in Mission Research, and on top of that would like to see my do-gooder friends do well.)

Mission Research has been developing fundraising software for nonprofits for almost five years, and has worked closely with great organizations like TechSoup to help small organizations learn about CRM. With backing in March from TBL Capital, Mission Research began work to spin out its GiftWorks technology into the SOHO market: and voila, you have CircleDog, CRM for the "smallest of small businesses." CircleDog is going after the small business space that continues (surprisingly) to be predominantly served by products such as Act and Goldmine. Like Mission Research GiftWorks, CircleDog is designed for the hybrid Web, and uses Web services while living independently on the desktop.

Visit CircleDog to grab the free trial, or even better, plunk down $99 to buy during the introductory period. (Yep, they're selling it old-school.)

BlogHer '08 Wrapup, Through Newbie Eyes

Earlier today, I volunteered my stepdaughter Katy to craft a post on her experience at BlogHer '08. Not only because she's a bright, baggage-free 15-year-old, but also because it's healthy for 'we the jaded' to see social media through fresh eyes.

Here's our guest post from Katy (soon to be starting a music blog at Electroqute):

BlogHer '08 was not only my very first BlogHer, but also my very first conference, ever. (I now know where Christine gets all the swag that she's constantly bringing home and handing out to the family). The Westin St. Francis was a beautiful location to have it in, but I spent a lot of time trying not to get lost in the labyrinthine halls.

I wasn't sure what to expect, having never been to a conference, and never really having a blog. But I was lucky - everyone welcomed me with open arms when I told them I was here to learn how to blog. The first day, Friday, Christine actually had a meeting, so I was there alone for the first half of the day. At the ice breaker I met a lot of really awesome people, some of which confided in me that, they too, didn't know anybody.

I was surprised as to the level of depth and complexity of blogging, how complicated it is and how much thought people put into it. The first session I went to was FAQs for beginning bloggers, where I met even more people who had never blogged before! It was really fun, and I learned a lot about different platforms and blogging etiquette. Then came the second session, on DIY syndication, where I learned about the different social bookmarking sites, and how to use them best to your advantage. That was also a very fun one. The writing workshop, however, bored me sightly. I'm sure other people found it interesting, but it just didn't hold my attention. Once that was done, that was it for day one of BlogHer. Well, there was also a party at RubySkye...but it was for 21+ only, so we went shoe shopping instead.

Saturday also had 3 sessions, the first of which was really interesting, about Building Traffic via Content and Community. The next two sessions were kind of dull, but of course I got more free stuff. =] The final event was a sojourn across the street for a closing party sponsored by Macy's - which was really, really cool! They closed off the departments for handbags, shoes, furniture, and lingerie. In handbags they had cheese and crackers and champagne, with some white jasmine sparkling tea for people like me, underage, or the pregnant women. Al the rest of the departments had assorted tiny treats, most of which were delicious. Free makeovers, too. =]

With this formal introduction into the world of blogging, I'm excited to start reading people's blogs. There's a lot of diversity in the types of women who blog. I also think it will be really fun to start a blog, but I also realize it might take me a while to get good at it, and I may not necessarily have much time for it. I'll try though, and it'll be fun finding the blogs of the women that I met this past weekend.

Now Christine gets to edit my post, because my blogging skills are pretty much nonexistent.

-- Katy Newton

BlogHer08, What a Difference Three Years Makes

As I sit in on the BlogHer '08 panel entitled "Pursuing Your Passion Never Gets Old", I'm struck by how much the bloghersphere has changed in the scarce three years since the first BlogHer gathering. Then, it was a room full of techies, early adopters, and activists, with vehement discussion around establishing a voice for women in the blogosphere.

Today, I'm listening to Maggie Mason (whose bangs look lovely), Melissa Summers, Evany Thomas, and Sarah Brown talk about how they manage to maintain an interest in their aging blogs, keeping their content fresh and managing their changing relationships within their audience.

This has me wondering...now that every age, interest, and technical sophistication is present, and the feminine voice is loud and clear in social content, what's it like to start a blog? As it happens, I'm here with my 15-year-old stepdaughter Katy. Katy doesn't yet have a blog, but she has had a great time steeping in Web 2.0 this summer via her community management internship with Amy Muller at Get Satisfaction. (Disclosure note: I have a relationship with Get Satisfaction.) Katy's planning to start a blog - probably about music - and as she reads over my shoulder, she's discovering that during a break today, I'm going to make her write a few lines about what BlogHer looks like through newbie eyes.

Quick Take on Science Fiction and DRM

A quick, fun snippet for the day: Thanks to Doug Dockery for passing along this great science fiction spoof on digital rights management issues. True to the best SF, it ports real-world issues into an alternate reality context: if DRM legislation and technology take the more conservative path, have we established barriers to artificial intelligence? How will Cylons think, create, and communicate?

Following this BSG line brings up more science-fanciful food for thought: What intersection will emerge between DRM and gene mapping? As genetic sequences are copyrighted (or patented), what limitations might DRM place upon one's ability to reproduce? Submit your novellas now.

NeuroVigil Sleep Scientists Win $250,000 DFJ Venture Challenge

Emerging entrepreneurs crossed swords on Wednesday at the fourth annual Draper Fisher Jurvetson Venture Challenge. Unlike most startup competitions and launch events, the Venture Challenge is for more than just the prestige - DFJ guarantees a $250,000 investment into the winner. This year, the (literally) giant check was snapped up by the beaming sleep scientists at NeuroVigil. Among the other five finalists, I was most intrigued by Athleon and Cascade Clean Energy.

Here's the complete finalist roundup:

NeuroVigil (born at UC San Diego) plans to help the 40 million Americans with sleep apnea. Each year, $3 billion in medical reimbursements goes to hospitals and sleep clinics for sleep testing. NeuroVigil makes it possible for sleep scoring to happen at home, without all of the wires. The company's solution (a Breathe Right-like strip that you stick to your forehead) measures your progress through sleep stages. Data goes to the NeuroVigil server and is run through their proprietary algorithm. 

On the business side: Patients currently get sleep center referrals from primary care physicians, who will soon have the added option of referring NeuroVigil's home device. The company also plans to provide analysis services to sleep centers, who can also send data directly to the NeuroVigil servers. The secondary product offering is a cap version of the product that truckers (or sleep-deprived coders) can wear while driving in order to be warned when they are about to fall asleep. The company has already assembled a large and impressive-sounding scientific board of sleep experts, and is currently raising a $2M round of funding.

Advanced Enological Closures (out of UC Davis) has developed a premium wine screw cap that breathes. Cork seeps in the right amount of oxygen to mature wine over time, but will ruin one out of every 20 bottles of wine. Typical metal screw caps don't let in enough air for reduction, and synthetic corks let in too much oxygen. AEC's solution is a layered screw cap with the same permeability as cork, which they have initially targeted at manufacturers of caps for $3-14 red wines in Australia and New Zealand. This team has the right background for the business, and is looking for a $500K seed round to pay for testing, patents, and bottle aging trial. A Series A of $1M will follow.

Athleon (University of Washington) is a web site for managing sports teams. Coaches need a better way to communicate, motivate, and track performance when players are off the field. Athleon's players-only team network enables players to use the same account across teams they belong to, while preserving privacy within each team group. The founder cited other sites such as MaxPreps (acquired for $43M) as public and stats-focused, rather than allowing for coach privacy and team management. The company is six months into its beta, and has attracted over 450 teams via word of mouth. The current fundraising is for a $300K bridge round now, followed by a $1.5M equity round in the fall.

Cascade Clean Energy (Stanford) has developed an energy-efficient solution for wastewater treatment. The company's numbers show that ~ 5% of US electricity goes to wastewater treatment, at a cost of $10-11 billion per year. CCE's alternative solution combines electrogenic bacteria with a microbial fuel cell to clean wastewater. These patented microorganisms (also used by the US Army) metabolize waste products, then are attracted to the fuel cell. CCE touts that this actually produces net energy while it cleans water. The working prototype is at a Navy facility, cleaning over 2500 gallons per day. The company is seeking $250K now to develop a larger prototype, then another $5M later this year. A number of next-stage pilots are in the pipeline, with $2M in projects under discussion.

CityMedia (UCLA) wants to provide branded, premium libraries across India. The company believes that Indian professionals, for whom reading is a popular hobby, want a clublike environment rather than the coffee shops or basic bookstores that are currently available. Premium memberships will be $25, and online memberships (a la Netflix) $7.50. The company is looking for $250K to establish an initial pilot location of 3000 square feet and 10,000 titles, which would take 1300 customers (half of each type) to break even. Post-pilot, they hope to raise a $4M Series A that will enable them to reach 15 locations in 3 cities.

Impel NeuroPharma (University of Washington) is developing a direct nose-to-brain drug delivery technology that bypasses the blood-brain barrier. By delivering drugs to the brain rather than into the bloodstream, prescription drug abuse potential can be reduced. Their "POD" delivers drugs through the olfactory region as a nasal spray with a patent-pending vortex flow. Safety and absorption are the company's top issues to address, and their initial target market is fast-onset cancer pain. Impel plans to license the delivery device to partners and is working to be approved as an FDA Class III Medical Device. The company is raising $1-2M in seed capital in order to scale up the device, and to conduct both human and animal studies.

Get Satisfaction Transforms Twitter Stream into Customer Service

Starting today, companies on the Get Satisfaction support network can respond directly to posts in the public Twitter stream, and incorporate those conversations into their own Web sites. (Disclosure note: I have a relationship with Get Satisfaction.) Some of Twitter's recent buzz has been on how companies are looking for customer buzz through the service, typically by using Tweetscan to find company mentions. Get Satisfaction takes this to the next level by bridging the public Twitter stream into Get Satisfaction's support network.

The new service ("Overheard") enables companies (or helpful friends) to convert any given tweet into a standing thread - it's hard to share reset or return instructions in 140 characters, and Twitter isn't intended for a detailed discussion - and letting the twitter poster know with a return tweet that someone wants to help. Mashable spells it out nicely:

"I really like this move from Get Satisfaction. Twitter (when it’s up) has proven to be especially efficient at uncovering trouble spots and potential feature ideas for a multitude of companies. Meanwhile, Get Satisfaction has emerged as a discussion hub for customer service issues that traditional customer service isn’t addressing. Combining the two will make Get Satisfaction a much more powerful tool, and give the corporate types that want a convenient all-in-one interface something to chew on." - Adam Ostrow

The less-sexy, but ultimately more functional, part of the company's launch this week is the introduction of Help Center, an open source help application (raw source here) that can be used to integrate Get Satisfaction's support network into the company's own Web site. Yahoo!/MyBlogLog is one of the early adopters:

"We try to reach our customers wherever they are. Our bloggers speak to us through their own blogs, Twitter, and many other channels. We want to bring all of these conversations into MyBlogLog so that all members can benefit from the discussion. We're excited not only to respond to our customers in a uniform and focused manner, but also to connect via the channels that our customers are already using." – Ian Kennedy

The Twitter/Overheard functionality is slick because it's acknowledging a manual process - I know plenty of startups, PR folks, and customer reps that are trying to get a handle on Twitter by chasing customers down with Tweetscan, cut/paste, link following, and emails. Overheard is a no-brainer to use. What's more intriguing long-term is to see how companies respond to the Help Center - though not being touted as such, it's one of the first few dedicated, public-facing applications for Enterprise 2.0. And yes, that means all of the company's overheard tweets can come along too if they like. Less sexy is fine with me.

Pimping the Chumby Bling

...OK, I couldn't resist sharing this one. Chumby is now selling the vintage-style tees that they handed out to us at FOO Camp. For twenty bucks, you can have one too:


Don't forget to check out the charms, too. My 15-year-old stepdaughter is mad for them. And no, I don't make any money from the chumby clan...I just happen to like them.

The Freeloader's Guide to Web 2.0 Expo

So, you want to go to Web 2.0 Expo, but your startup can't afford the $1,895 registration fee? Never fear. This year, conference organizers O'Reilly Media and TechWeb have embraced the proudly (or needfully) scrappy, and lobbycon energy is no longer restricted to the hallway salmon swim. Here's how to register for free, and a schedule of options accessible to free registration.

1. Register for Web 2.0 Expo. The $100 Expo Hall Pass can be had for free with one of the discount codes posted online. Here's one from the good folks at Web2Open: websf08opw . Since online registration is closed, you'll have to register onsite. Make sure to bring the discount code with you. Don't expect Moscone's booth staff to know it.

2. Plan your schedule. Once you've registered for the Expo Hall Pass, a world of free offerings opens up to you. Some events require advance registration to be free, so make sure to sign up online. I've culled a list here. (And if you know of other good sessions or events available to Expo Hall Pass holders, please share them...but only if they're still taking RSVPs. Promoting a sold-out party or conference badge-only event is not helpful. :)

Monday, April 21st

11:00 AM - 1:00 PM   Pownce Brunch, Daily Grill, 347 Geary Street
5:00 PM - 8:00 PM    Flickr-Moo MeetUp, Kate O'Brien's, 579 Howard Street
6:00 PM - 9:00 PM    Web Monday Silicon Valley, Citizen Space, 425 2nd Street, #300

Tuesday, April 22nd

6:00 PM - 11:00 PM   GAB/Blogtropol.us Launch Party, Gray Area Beacon, 1515 Folsom
6:30 PM - 11:30 PM   Digg MeetUp, Mighty, 119 Utah Street
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM     Ignite SF, DNA Lounge, 375 11th Street

Wednesday, April 23rd

9:00 AM - 6:00 PM     Blogtropol.us Blogger Lounge, Moscone West
9:00 AM - 3:30 PM     Web2Open, Moscone West
4:00 PM - 6:00 PM     Web 2.0 Wednesday Keynotes/Plenary Sessions, Moscone West

(Note: I'm not including the South Park Pub Crawl here, because the conference web site has it marked for conference badges only - no expo hall badges.)

Thursday, April 24th

9:00 AM - 6:00 PM     Blogtropol.us Blogger Lounge, Moscone West
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM   Web 2.0 Thursday Keynotes/Plenary Sessions, Moscone West
10:30 AM - 4:30 PM   Web2Open, Moscone West
1:30 PM - 2:30 PM     Web 2.0 Launch Pad
4:40 PM - 6:00 PM     Web 2.0 Booth Crawl, Moscone West
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM     Women 2.0 Networking Evening, Marriott View Lounge, 55 4th Street

Friday, April 25th

9:00 AM - 6:00 PM     Blogtropol.us Blogger Lounge, Moscone West
9:00 AM - 10:30 AM   Web 2.0 Friday Keynotes/Plenary Sessions, Moscone West

I'm sure there are more conference hacks and free events available this week, so post 'em up. One item that came to mind: sponsored sessions. Many conferences will open these up to expo hall badge holders. Access to these hasn't been offered on the Web 2.0 Expo site, but it's worth asking at the door.

Goodbye Google Reader, Hello NetVibes

Something strange crept up on me over the last several months: I slowly stopped reading blogs. Part of this was due to spending more of my limited social media budget on Seesmic, Twitter, and Facebook, which sites tend to expose a certain amount of blog content. (e.g., clicking through to new posts shared in Twitter streams.) And part of this behavioral change was driven by the incredible failings of Google Reader.

Do Women Care More About Social Networks?

Interesting snippet of the day: Auren Hoffman recently blogged about the growing imbalance between male and female participation in social networks. To boil it down, the most popular social networking sites - Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, Plaxo, and Hi5 - are roughly 60:40 female:male. Auren theorizes that the sole exception, LinkedIn (61% male) has the reverse skew because it is highly transactional, unlike the other networks. I can see his point.

Mission Research Raises Series B Financing

Though I don't normally pass on 'press release' type news, I'm making an exception today. As a common shareholder and advisor to Mission Research, I'm thrilled to disclose that the company has closed on its Series B financing, led by TBL Capital. Mission Research launched as a vendor of customer relationship management software for nonprofits (GiftWorks), and is now entering the small business market with SalesWorks. Congratulations to Charlie Crystle and team!