Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

Archives for May 2008

Zanby.com Relaunched: Groups for Groups

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After 2 years in development Zanby.com has relaunched with a different take on a community site. Rather than focusing on the individual profile with groups as an extension (how I think of Facebook). Zanby reverses it by putting groups at the core and extending them into a “group family” – a network of groups.

The simple example of this is a national professional organization with local chapters, or an organization with franchisees. Within Zanby, all those groups can communicate with each other while maintaining their distinct identity.

TheUptake.org, is moving their entire site off WordPress and onto a white-labeled Zanby to take advantage of all the social aspects of the platform.

Scribbls: A Big Draw with Little Doodles

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To stand out in a world that launches a new start-up company, application, or website almost hourly is not an easy task. Ask anyone who witnessed the demo at the latest Minnebar in the Twin Cities or has had the good fortune to discover the site that has been live for about three weeks and, after they stop laughing, they will tell you Scribbls is a standout.

The brain child of Watermelon Sauce* co-founders Zach Johnson and Paul Armstrong, Scribbls has been bubbling under the surface for the past few years. These chronic doodlers made the site public just three short weeks ago.

The basic premise of a scribbl is incredibly simple. Users are asked to create doodles by using existing ones and combining them. The formula, according to Zach, is a straightforward one: A+B=C. He also notes that the University of Minnesota is actually studying something similar as it applies to non-verbal communication. Scribbls on the forefront of science. Yeah, who knew?

These scribbls play on collaboration and can lead to hilarious results. They both enjoy the proliferation of people drawing and reusing bacon on the site in their doodles: “Everything is better with bacon!” they say in unison.

…  [Read More…]

Taking a Risk on Open Source

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Sit back and let me tell you a story about a game-changing open source ecommerce project, an emerging web development firm in Bloomington, and how they discovered this project and I, in turn, discovered them. It’s illustrative of how Internet and Web connections are changing everything from value discovery to customer satisfaction to how awareness of an emerging company can happen if they’re in-the-game and leveraging new social media tools.

Last year I was performing some due diligence for a client on ecommerce software. Stunned by how poorly executed most open source ecommerce projects were, I was delighted when happenstance brought me to this blog with a link to an open source ecommerce package called MagentoCommerce. After thirty minutes on the site, scanning posts in the forum and looking at the demos, I realized that the sheer scope of the energy, effort and enthusiasm the community was exhibiting around this open source project was going to raise the bar quite high for any other ecommerce offering…whether commercial or open source.

Local Bloomington firm, August Ash, Inc., also found MagentoCommerce in much the same way I had, though they came upon it in early 2007. Turns out they are the only known Minnesota firm to have already launched sites on this new open source package (which shipped the very first version on March 31, 2008) and you also might be surprised to learn why they took the risk on such unproven software, how doing so actually aligns with their focus on quality and customer satisfaction, and how I came to learn about August Ash in the first place through the use of social media….  [Read More…]

Your Business Card for the Web

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Throughout the last few centuries, people would meet and exchange trade, social, or what we now know as business cards, ensuring they could re-connect with one another if there was any interest or need in doing so again.

This ink on paper, manual handing out process was adequate in a day when contact information was relatively static and there were inherent limitations on the number of people whom we’d ever actually meet. In a time when 75% of adults are participating, communicating and engaging with others on the Web and meeting dozens, hundreds or in some cases thousands of others virtually, a static paper card is becoming much less useful. By the millions, we participating adults are engaged in numerous social networks and affinity groups, are blogging in record numbers, possess multiple email addresses and phone numbers, use Twitter, Skype and instant messaging accounts, and often have different identities with personal, business, or some other affiliation with required contact information that can often change frequently.

One Minneapolis company has created an innovative solution to meet those multiple identity needs with a digital equivalent of the trusty paper business card, one whose capabilities go far beyond what a static paper card could ever deliver….  [Read More…]

Nabbit Moves Beyond Tagging

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On May 13th a press release announced the new partnership between Eagan-based Jump Technologies’ Nabbit service and CBS Radio, Minneapolis (102.9 Lite FM, 104.1 Jack FM, 830 WCCO AM). This partnership will further move Nabbit from a relatively simple tagging application into a full blown marketing tool. On that day, the eve of the big rollout of said partnership, I sat down with Nabbit chief (“Chief Nabber” on the business card), John Freund, to talk about the Nabbit, where it started, where it is and where it’s going.

Nabbit was born some two years ago as Freund and his team at Jump Technologies were discussing the eBay purchase of Skype. “I remember saying how great it would be to have 50 million subscribers to anything.” The discussion included colleague (and radio fan) Norton Lam’s thoughts about tagging radio content. So was the birth of Nabbit. According to Freund, “The first year we dedicated about 10% of Jump Technologies resources to Nabbit.” That has clearly grown as Nabbit has evolved, indicating a great deal of confidence in the potential of the business.

At first, it truly was a “content play” offering listeners of radio the ability to tag songs and advertisements via internet enabled cell phones. Those tagged pieces of content are placed into the Nabbit user’s account for later action including purchase or artist and advertiser info.

“We found that while users were tagging music they were actually tagging more advertising and the calls to action that they provided.” This led to what Nabbit describes as the first service that allows marketers to combine broadcast, mobile, direct response, and online advertising into one integrated consumer marketing campaign.

Here’s how it works.…  [Read More…]

Bellying Up to the ‘Bar for The Seven Deadlies

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Curt Prins at MinnebarAs part of Minnebar last Saturday I had the pleasure of sitting in on the “7 Deadly Mistakes of Start-up Marketing” presented by Curt Prins, marketing consultant focusing on emerging technology companies. In a full board room at Coffman Union on the U of M Campus, Curt took us through what he considers to the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make as they begin to develop and market their company or products. (I had a chance to Twitter those “mistakes” live but they deserve just a bit more focus.)

Mistake #1 Target Market Greed. A common problem that afflicts most new companies. In the quest to market to the most bodies, they target way beyond their sweet spot. The tighter the niche that you focus on the better results you will get. Curt demonstrated his point with a very simple “pie” chart. Cut out a slice, and then cut it again. Reaching that small piece of the pie will yield tastier results. Not to mention it’s a much better use of your marketing budget.

Mistake #2 Prospect Gluttony. Similar in nature to the above Target Market Greed, the more you wander outside of the group that really needs your product the more disappointing the results.

Mistake #3 Product Pride. It’s your baby! Clearly, it’s the answer to everyone’s needs…or do they even give a #*@? (Curt’s word, or rather, punctuation.) Your product is an extension of you and of course benefits you. Does it benefit your prospects?…  [Read More…]

Minnov8 at MinnPost

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What could be better than to have been approached by the editor and publisher of MinnPost, an organization whose mission is to bring high-quality journalism for news-intense people who care about Minnesota, and asked if Minnov8 would be willing to participate weekly with one of our posts published there? Maybe bags full of $100 bills dropped on our doorstep would be better, but this is certainly at the top of the list.

Upon their launch, it was clear to me that MinnPost really was serious about their mission and I’ve been a loyal reader since they went live and recently donated as well. While scanning stories in competing publications about puppies, gossip about celebs at the Mall of America, the annual “Get Ready for Summer!” article or the provocative teaser at Digg is interesting when our minds need a cotton-candy-content fix, but more of us crave deep thought, analysis and perspective which those contributing to MinnPost deliver….  [Read More…]

Minnesota’s Internet Tech Crowd Flexes Its Muscle

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If one had any doubt about the intensity of our state’s information technology and Internet community, one only had to be anywhere inside the U’s Coffman Union on Saturday for the third annual Minnebar “unconference” (part of an international phenomenon called Barcamp). To say the joint was a-jumpin’ simply does not suffice. And numbers alone don’t tell the story (though attendance was an event record at 430). Rather, it was the intensity of energy through the entire day that could only impress one about this somewhat quiet, and definitely underrated, sector of Minnesota’s economy.

I was there for at least 12 hours of the event — yes, it went on that long, and no one was complaining — and I can surely say that even the most skeptical of attendees who sacrificed part of their spring weekend were impressed with what they experienced, and left beaming with an elevated sense of pride in the industry they’re a part of. One needs only to scan the voluminous talk that went on in real-time — thanks to the magic of Twitter, and all archived here — to see that something big was happening in the Gopher state on this rainy fishing-opener Saturday. (In fact, Minnebar was ranked during the day as one of the top-five conversations going on in the entire, global “Twitterverse.”)…  [Read More…]

State of the State: Technology in Minnesota. A Minnebar Panel Discussion

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One of the highlights of Saturday’s Minnebar was a panel discussion entitled, State of the State: Technology in Minnesota. The panelists included: Douglas Olson (Microsoft), Jamie Thinglestad (formerly of Dow Jones), Michael Gorman (Split Rock Partners), Robert Stephens (Geek Squad), Dan Grigsby (Unpossible), Matthew Dornquast (code42).

Ed Kohler at Technology Evangelist has a post with highlights here. You can also listen or download the one hour podcast below.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:00:08 — 74.8MB)

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