Spark on SWiK

With Summize, Twitter to Buy a Clue

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:52:20 -0700

The big buzz of the evening is that Twitter, a San Francisco-based startup that allows anyone to post short (up to 140 characters) messages to its platform and thus broadcast them to one or many using different media such as web and mobile, is about to acquire Summize, a Potomac Falls, Va.-based startup that uses the Twitter API to search and find relevant messages on Twitter.

The rumors of the deal were first reported by a little-known blog (not anymore, of course) by Josh Chandler. Subsequent to the news, I made a few phone calls and did confirm that it is not just a rumor and a deal is certainly in the works. It is likely to be announced as soon as next week. I’m still trying to dig up the financial details and will report further when I get hold of them.

The deal would be a good move by Twitter, and would be putting some of its recently acquired $15 million in VC funding to decent use as it would help the company get hold of of a business model. Here is why. Most people think of Summize as a Twitter search utility, and it is a mighty fine search service. It is so good that there are nearly half a dozen other startups using the Summize API. At first blush, it seems like Twitter could bolt on search on their platform and make it more useful. I think it would be thinking about Summize in a limited sort of a way.

“We monitor collective attitudes being expressed right now on the web,” is how Summize describes itself. In other words, it can quickly look at data coming from conversational sources — RSS feeds and Twitter tweets — and offer a quick opinion as to what is being talked about. For example on this page you can find out what people really think of this deal between Summize & Twitter deal. All the data is coming from the Twitter stream.

In a conversation earlier this year, CEO Jay Virdy, formerly of AOL, told us that they had developed a way to geocode public timeline tweets (short messages). This allows one to find out what people are saying about John McCain in Phoenix vs. San Francisco.

In other words, Summize has come up with a clever way of peering through Twitter’s vast data stream and finding out what’s hot, where and how. The results are essentially keywords — topic-, person- or location-based — and thus can be used to show contextual advertising next to the pages that show these results. Summize has thereby developed an ability to monetize conversations without being intrusive.

Summize could have easily done this on its own and started to make money. It would surely need to compete with Twitter for attention and figure out ways to keep generating more traffic. Instead, if Summize is bolted onto Twitter, that can help the tiny startup get instant traction.

Just as AdSense serendipitously turned Google into a giant cash register, with Summize, Twitter can take the first step towards a business model. Of course, Evan Williams & Co. have to quickly figure out a way to fix their patchy-at-times service before everyone decides to switch loyalties to one of the many Twitter rivals currently being plotted by clever minds.

P.S.: Since Twitter doesn’t want to charge me for having too many followers, and it doesn’t cost me anything, go ahead and follow me on http://twitter.com/om. Not that you are going to read the tweets anyway :-)

P.S.#2: My jet lag has finally hit so if you notice errors/mistakes, please excuse my tardiness. I will rectify when I wake up.

Chess Set made from Recycled Auto Parts!

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:54:50 -0700

With all the nifty little stuff people can create out of recycled parts, here’s another cool chess set made from recycled auto parts. Nice…

Combining art and function, Ramirez sculpts each piece from automobile parts — even the heads of the bishops are made of NGK and AC DELCO spark plugs!

via gizmosforgeeks

Iminlikewithyou Gets VC Cash For New Game

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:58:07 -0700

Iminlikewithyou, a New York-based dating game start-up has raised $1.5 million in Series B round of funding from Spark Capital, and a bunch of influential angels including Marc Andreessen. Baseline Ventures and Betaworks, also had previously invested in the company joined this round of capital. Bijan Sabet, who recently made news for investing in Twitter is joining the board of Iminlikewithyou.

I wrote about Iminlikewithyou at the time of their launch and found their dating-gaming platform very compelling and addicting. Over a period of time, I made many friends because of that platform. The gaming focus didn’t quite turn Iminlikewithyou into a web-sensation. Co-founder Charles Forman, refocused Iminlikewithyou as a way to build casual games.

That strategy seems to be working for the company, as it has gained some popularity for its four games - Blockles, Dinglepop, Drawmything, and Gemmers. Blockles looks like a clone of Tetris, but with a realtime multiplayer twist. Competing against many people in realtime makes these variants of old classics exciting and very social.

Iminlikewithyou, while keeping its dating site alive, will offer this real time casual gaming platform to third party developers who can develop games that can be played anywhere on the web. The move comes at a time when there is a growing interest in casual games, especially among investors who see ad-supported games and virtual goods as the next big pot of gold. Maybe!. I say that because these games and gaming start-ups need to get a big audience before they hope to crank up the money engine.

As part of this new round, Pooj Preena, former Skype executive who till recently worked for Betaworks is joining the company as Chief Operating Officer, hoping to build the basic infrastructure of the company. While I am happy for Pooj, it sucks because he is one of my best friends in San Francisco and he is going to move to New York. Maybe Pooj can calm down Forman, who is “mercurial” to put it mildly. (For a detailed litany of his antics, check out Valleywag). His co-founder, Dan Albritton has left the company.

What makes gaming social

Spark | CBC Radio

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 09:57:07 -0700

listing of archived podcasts for 2007-2008

Ignite Realtime: Ignite Realtime Blog: Flash-based Audio in Openfire part II

Fri, 30 May 2008 14:43:10 -0700

Yet Another Drama About Twitter

Fri, 30 May 2008 10:49:27 -0700

Twitter, in a post on its blog, has acknowledged that it’s been having problems. It attributes some (not all) of them to so-called “popular” users that it says overloaded the system when they sent updates in too quick a succession. In other words, it was a tactical acknowledgment by the company of problems that have already been widely reported.

Of course Twitter’s most popular user is Robert Scoble, and as far as numerous successive posts have argued, he is the real source of the problem (prompting some not-unexpected foot-stomping on Scoble’s part).

I wrote about Twitter’s problem in a post last weekend and how they should charge for people like Scoble, Michael Arrington and myself for using their system so aggressively. Our use of Twitter benefits our businesses. Links to Scoble’s posts can drive traffic to his site or his videos, which in turn drives attention to his work and his employer. Same holds true for Michael and for me. On a more philosophical basis, it allows us to stay in touch with our readers, who in turn keep us in business.

Nevertheless, since common sense and paid services are apparently not part of this brave new Web 2.0 world, my idea didn’t play well. What was I thinking? Instead there’s this belief that Twitter, the ultimate tool of our collective narcissism, should be so lucky to have super users, that they are what make it popular with everybody else. I don’t subscribe to that point of view, but hey that’s just me.

For Twitter, the challenge of keeping the service going while at the same time fixing it to scale up is immense. Thankfully they have the money and what looks like the will to fix the problems. Will they? We shall see!

Update: The debate about Twitter rages on. Scoble met with Twitter team and talked about the various issues in a video interview. I got an email from Even Williams who is one of the founders of Twitter and this is what he had to stay:

We like the idea of charging for commercial use. That’s something we’ve been talking about for a long time (you can probably find my quoted saying that from a year ago). We’re just not there yet.

Given all different opinions, and other issues that have emerged, I have to reiterate that by charging the super users, I am suggesting that costs will bring in a sense of responsibility to the entire ecosystem. When there is no tax involved, there is no cost to having thousands of followers, or sending hundreds of messages. When asked to pay, heavier users will use the system responsibly.

Twitter VC Funding Done, Raises $15M

Wed, 21 May 2008 23:20:31 -0700

I spent most of the day digging up more information on Twitter and its new round of funding that I reported last night. The update is that Twitter reached an agreement with investors today to raise $15 million in funding at around $80 million pre-money valuation. A new investor is leading the round with existing investor Union Square Ventures also participating. With this round, the company will have raised a little over $20 million in VC backing thus far.

Official news of the deal is eventually going to percolate out, and hopefully I will be able to nail down the specifics on who is the lead investor. Valleywag and Silicon Alley Insider had mentioned Spark Capital as a potential investor. Meanwhile, I am told that Charles River Ventures, after fighting a bit, is now out of the race. The news of new funding comes at a time when Twitter is dealing with a whole slew of scaling and infrastructure issues. Today, the folks there almost threw their proverbial hands up in despair.

Update: Twitter the great facilitator of e-narcissism also can’t keep secrets. As Michael Arrington points out, two tweets from two parties add fuel to the rumors of Spark being the mystery investor in the San Francisco company.

Update: AOL Buying KickApps Too?

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 07:51:44 -0700

AOL, fresh off its $850 million purchase of social network Bebo, is now eyeing KickApps, a white-label social software company, reports Kara Swisher. Her sources peg the deal price at around $90 million. The deal hasn’t been inked just yet. KickApps, based in New York, has raised $17 million from Softbank Capital, Prism VentureWorks and Spark Capital. I contacted one of their investors but he wouldn’t comment on the rumor.

Update: As an aside, KickApps CEO Alex Blum is an ex-AOLer. I checked with my sources and it seems like AOL isn’t the only candidate looking at KickApps and the $90 million number isn’t even close to what company wants. Given that they have raised $17 million, KickApps must have a valuation of $40-50 million, and their investors must be looking for at least 3x return on their money.

When I asked AOL COO Ron Grant if AOL was going to be doing any more deals soon, he declined to comment but said the company will be “aggressive.” I have heard from multiple sources that AOL is kicking the tires at many Silicon Valley startups. From the looks of it, Time Warner is ready to spend to do a complete makeover of AOL. Call it dressing up before a spinoff, regardless of what happens with Yahoo.

Welcome to OpenSPARC.net

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 15:40:00 -0800

Openfire SVN + Eclipse 3.3 + Subversive Installation Guide

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 04:30:19 -0700

Ignite Realtime: Downloads

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 17:23:25 -0700

Ignite Realtime: Downloads

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 07:10:03 -0700

Simple Spark: A Catalog Of Web Applications

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 23:44:49 -0700

New York based Simple Spark aims to make finding web applications easy through an extensive catalog of online application sites.

Over 3000 web applications are tracked and categorized with screenshots, icons, feeds, reviews and concise summaries. Applications are indexed in over 70 categories including Spreadsheets, Workspace & Wikis, Education, Fashion, Green Living and Family & Kids

The Simple Spark search facility is also language friendly, a search for delicious or Flicker delivers the correct results of del.icio.us and Flickr; we’ve all misspelled Web 2.0 application names before.

Each competitive space can be tracked by RSS feeds based on individual categories, searches or the newest additions to the catalog.

Keeping up with the numerous competitors in each space can be difficult for even people working in the industry, let alone an outside observer. I find myself impressed with Simple Spark, as the name suggests it’s a simple idea that I can definitely see myself using in the future when researching a product category.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Ignite Realtime Forums: Spark 2.5.3.beta1+Openfire 3.3.1+AD SSO ...

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 07:50:49 -0700

Spark is an Open Source, cross-platform IM client optimized for businesses and organizations. It fea

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 16:39:55 -0700

Clipmark: Spark is an Open Source, cross-platform IM client optimized for businesses and organizations. It fea

Mon, 16 Apr 2007 16:39:55 -0700

Spark project

Wed, 04 Apr 2007 19:06:25 -0700

MEMO

Ignite Realtime: a real time collaboration community site

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 14:16:35 -0700

SPARK (programming language) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 02:12:15 -0800

via Thunder and siti on #haskell Like a next generation of Ada, with additional function constraints and post-conditions. specification based stuff, proof checking etc.

Mitsubishi Diamante Starter Cheapest Deals

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 18:05:17 -0800

Mitsubishi Diamante Starter cheapest deals . Click here if you are looking for cheapMitsubishi Diamante Starter

Mitsubishi 3000gt Starter Take the Best Buy Deals !

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 06:00:07 -0800

Best Buy Deals about Mitsubishi 3000gt Starter

Spark's Pensieve

Wed, 08 Mar 2006 13:23:52 -0800