I grabbed it the day it came out and have used it multiple times since, in a variety of situations — at home, on a road trip, even in a foreign country (Iowa) — and I must say I’m impressed.  Right now, I’m listening to a great station that’s all Grateful Dead all the time, which I discovered via the app. It’s called RadioIO Dead, and “Big Boss Man” has been my favorite track so far.  I’m on wifi in my motel room at the moment, and the sound is perfect — and I’m not even using an external speaker.  On the way down here to Des Moines, I used the app via my iPhone on AT&T’s 3G network (note: I was in the passenger seat!) to tune in multiple stations, including WSL in Chicago, and the sound was way better than any station I could tune in on the car radio.

Spark Radio not only gives you tons of station choices and social media features designed to make radio listening more interactive, but it also features visually stunning animations. Far out, huh? Its robust, visual radio tuner uses the guide from a company called RadioTime.com to give you access to more than 10,000 terrestrial and Internet-only radio stations worldwide.  Handcast says it’s adding new stations to Spark Radio daily, and will support more than 30,000 stations by April.  You can listen to precisely what you want to at any given time — music, talk radio, sports events, public radio, or special programming from around the world.  Its elegant interface lets you search for stations or programs by keyword, location, or the station URL, and you can browse programming by genre or location. (I’m still looking for two of my fav genres: rockabilly and surf.)  A GPS component lets you find local stations in any given city based on current GPS coordinates.

I took the opportunity to dial up the founder of Handcast Media Labs, Terry Anderson, whom I’d met in 2008, to ask if he’d be up for an interview. That follows.

Minnov8: Terry, I know you’re no newcomer to interactive and Internet marketing here in Minnesota. Give us a synopsis of your background.

Terry Anderson: Well, I’ve been involved in technology for almost 30 years now.  I founded e.Media group in 1995 and we were one of the early interactive agencies in the Twin Cities, with a lineup of really great national clients.  That was incredibly fun.  I sold that agency in 2004 (it’s now known as Idea Park) and have been involved in entrepreneurial ventures since.  I got energized by the iPhone platform in 2008 and have been working in that sphere since then.

Minnov8: How did you come to start Tiny Wonder Studios, and then Handcast?  And tell us about the rest of your team.

Terry Anderson: Tiny Wonder is a division of Popular Front, an incredible interactive agency here in the Twin Cities.  I’m involved as a consultant and helped form the new entity and create Pixi, their first iPhone app.  I’ve been close friends with Laurence Bricker of Popular Front since we were young. Laurence is a true visionary in the interactive world and it was great to collaborate with him once again.  HandCast Media Labs is my own startup, specializing in iPhone applications.  I needed a place to pursue my own ideas, so started HandCast in the spring of 2009. We’re trying to push the limits of technology and creativity.  There are a number of people involved, but the nucleus includes Greg Sharp, a visionary and longtime partner of mine, and Jesse Hemmingway, who is simply the best developer I’ve ever worked with.  It’s an incredible group and we’ve been collectively pushing the boundaries for a long time now.

Minnov8: I grabbed that first app from Tiny Wonder, the Pixi drawing app (see screenshot), right when it came out.  Refresh my memory — when did that hit the App Store?  And how has it done since then?

Terry Anderson: Pixi was developed as an experiment and hit the iTunes store about a year ago. (It’s available for $1.99 at this link on the App Store.)  We wanted to learn the intricacies of iPhone development and start figuring out what it would take to successfully market an app on iTunes.  It’s a beautiful and highly creative application.  It continues to sell moderate amounts on the store, but we never really put enough marketing energy behind Pixi.  We get comments all the time that Pixi is the best app on the store and we know we have a significant audience if we can reach them.  Look for a Pixi re-launch in the upcoming months.  We have some very exciting things planned.  One thing we’ve learned is that iPhone apps need a formal marketing plan, just like any other consumer product.  There are simply so many applications available on iTunes that you need to find a way to become visisble.  We’re excited about the future of Pixi.

Minnov8: Did you develop any other apps after Pixi, either for the iPhone or other mobile platforms?

Terry Anderson: Before we began work on Spark Radio, we began a prototype of what I’ll describe as a geo-spatial game.  That project has been put on a back-burner for now.  I believe if we can make it work, it could be a mega-hit.  But the scope is very substantial and we decided to focus on titles we could get completed in a reasonable period of time.  Stay tuned.

Minnov8: So, let’s talk now about the Spark Radio app. What made you decide to do a radio app? What did you think you could bring to this category that others weren’t doing already?  Aren’t there tons of streaming radio apps?

Terry Anderson: When we launched Pixi, we were overwhelmed with the number of people who asked if the Pixi animations could possibly interact with music from the iPhone or iPod.  It turns out that Apple has made that impossible.  We began looking at other ways to make that happen and came up with the idea of streaming radio, where we have control over the audio stream.  We knew that including graphic visualizers would give us a point of difference from the competition.  We also got very excited about the idea of global radio, and decided to include some social features to support that idea.  I think it’s fascinating that someone in South Korea can listen to a hip-hop station out of Paris.  We’re in love with that idea.  The decision to do a radio app was fairly pragmatic.  My research showed that this was a very lively niche within iTunes and that people were looking for quality.  While there were a number of products out there already, we felt that nobody had really developed a robust product with an elegant user interface.  We knew that if we made the experience more fun for listeners, we could succeed.  We launched two days ago and are already #32 on the iTunes list of best sellers, so I think we called that one correctly.  We’re very proud of the product and have some great enhancements coming.

Minnov8: How long did take you to develop Spark?  And do you have plans to do versions of it for any other platforms?

Terry Anderson: It took us eight months to develop Spark Radio.  That was complicated by the fact that our lead developer broke his collarbone somewhere in the middle of the project!  He took a bad fall on his bike one night and it was impossible to have someone take over his part of the project.  So, say seven months if you eliminate the injury.  That was a tense time, but it all turned out well.  We have always planned to do an Android version of Spark Radio.  We’re very excited about Android and hope to support it in parallel with iPhone.  We have some concerns about the graphics performance on Android, but we’ll figure that out as we go.

Minnov8: Being a longtime promotion guy, you have a pretty cool giveaway going on now for the Spark Radio app.  Tell us about that.

Terry Anderson:   I hate to call it a promotion.  We’re simply giving away 500 iTunes gift certificates ($10) to friends as a celebration of our launch, so they can download Spark Radio for free.  If your readers want to participate, they can email us their name & email address and we’ll send them the gift certificate.  It’s a way for us to show appreciation for all the great friends who have supported us over the years.  They can send their info to sparkgift (at) handcastmedia (dot) com.

[Blogger's note to the FTC: no freebie coupon here -- I bought my own app!]

Minnov8: So, Terry, what’s next for Tiny Wonder and Handcast?  What growth plans do you have for your ventures?

Terry Anderson: As I mentioned, we have great plans for Pixi, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it on the bestseller list by summer.  The success of Spark Radio has been overwhelming, but we’ll keep working until we get to the top of our category.  HandCast will be developing a new title soon and we’re also pitching some ideas that are too large for us to execute on our own.  Given the success of Spark Radio, we’re being contacted for some very interesting contract work as well.  It’s all good.

———–

Thanks, Terry.  A company that develops apps “designed to entertain the senses” can’t be all bad.  And I like how Handcast further describes its vision as “empowering users to explore their own creativity by meeting their entertainment-on-the go needs.”

You can learn more at the Handcast Media Labs web site, and you can follow Spark Radio on Twitter and on Facebook.

Minnesota Startup Launches ‘Spark Radio’ iPhone App is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

And that was just the schmoozing part! 

There were lots of live demos going on in the theater adjoining, if you could squeeze yourself in there:

1. ArtsApp – like Monster.com for artists to submit multimedia (Dejen Tesfagiorgis)
2. ReliaCloud – a cloud computing platform that allows people to build scalable computing infrastructure on demand (Jason Baker, VISI)
3. Pedal Brain – advanced cycle computer based on the iPhone platform combined with web-based data analysis (Matt Bauer)
4. MinuteBids – an online bidding platform that makes it easy for property managers/owners to request and get bids for their property maintenance needs from top rated service providers (Jon Coudron)
5. Pedair – a many-to-many market place for people who love bikes (Andrew Korf)
6. MobileRealtyApps.com – Custom branded MLS home search apps for realtors on iPhone and Android (Aaron Kardell)
7. MileMarker - helps organizations capture ideas and prioritize them, making it easier to understand what to work on first (Bill Galfano)
8. Live Information Manager for Business – connects employees of an organization to their data and each other from anywhere in the world, all from within a single workspace (Roger Peters)
9. Mobile Roots – customized iPhone applications for campaigns (Lynn Smith)
10. WebSlide – provides you and your clients with a private, secure, easy-to-use system for uploading, sharing, and collaborating on designs without ever leaving your browser (Paul Armstrong)

Kudos to Luke Francl, Ben Edwards, and their team of volunteers for pulling off another great Minnedemo!  And a shout-out and huge thanks to the sponsors this time:

• TECHdotMN
• ipHouse
• W3i
• Livefront
• Split Rock Partners
• New Counsel

MN Tech Rocks – Last Night Was Proof is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Here’s an excerpt:

“After a big public announcement of the sort Apple had this week for the iPad, CEO Steve Jobs often takes time in the day or two afterwards to have a Town Hall at One Infinite Loop, making himself available for questions from employees bold enough to stand up and take one right between the eyes.

This time, the big topics included Google and Adobe — no surprises there… And the absence of Adobe Flash support on the iPhone for three years and counting, and now on the iPad, is either celebrated by users as a poke in the eye of one of the web’s most dextrous tools, or the most over-rated and overused crutch for decent design.

Jobs, characteristically, did not mince words as he spoke to the assembled, according to a person who was there who could not be named because this person is not authorized by Apple to speak with the press.

On Google: We did not enter the search business, Jobs said. They entered the phone business. Make no mistake they want to kill the iPhone. We won’t let them, he says. Someone else asks something on a different topic, but there’s no getting Jobs off this rant. I want to go back to that other question first and say one more thing, he says. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullshit.” Audience roars.

About Adobe: They are lazy, Jobs says. They have all this potential to do interesting things but they just refuse to do it. They don’t do anything with the approaches that Apple is taking, like Carbon. Apple does not support Flash because it is so buggy, he says. Whenever a Mac crashes more often than not it’s because of Flash. No one will be using Flash, he says. The world is moving to HTML5.”

I decided to ask three local observers with a special perspective on Apple for their reaction. Two of them are former Apple employees, the other a 26-year user of both Apple and Adobe technologies.

First, I asked Curtis Juliber, a 16-year Apple business development exec, about what it was like on the inside, and also his take on the latest flap.

“I’ve been in employee meetings in Cupertino. Yes, Steve can be very forthright on a variety of topics. People did get up and ask questions. Usually, they were pretty well thought-out in advance — because, if Steve thought something was bullsh*t, he didn’t hesitate to say so.

“Apple has been pushing HTML5 for several years now. I remember hearing it discussed at WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) several years ago. But the market has been slow to adopt it. Whether or not Flash will be killed by the time it *is* adopted is still up in the air, in my opinion. The longer a technology is in the marketplace the harder it is to go away.”

What about Google getting into the phone business?

“I do see Google wanting to be in this market in a big way. Phone ads, and whatever patents they may own on the work they did, will generate great revenue streams.”

Next up, I just had to ask my Minnov8 colleague, Steve Borsch, about his take on the latest developments. Steve was a sales exec for Apple for several years in the 1990s.

“I was never actually in an Apple employee meeting with Jobs. [Steve was based here in the Midwest for Apple.]  My only personal contact was at a Macworld, where we had a partner who’d created a Mac-based digital sign that we thought we had management approval to have in the booth.  He walked in, saw the huge digital sign right on the end where the crowd walked in, and said to his underlings, ‘Get that out of here, NOW!’ We were all taken aback at the time, but on further reflection realized that, once again, he was right. The sign detracted from the message of the booth and was inappropriate.”

I asked Steve for his quick reaction about the Flash issue touched on in the WIRED post.

“At our company, we have several machine ‘footprints’ of Adobe stuff, and we invest several thousand dollars per year on their software. I find PDF, InDesign, and other apps mission-critical and invaluable for our business.  While Flash is ubiquitous, it is a resource hog, is mostly proprietary, and I would rather vote for an open web standard — that is, HTML 5 — versus continuing down the path with Flash.

“Case in point with it is the difficulty — and lack of tools from Adobe — to create Flash-based *anything*! I’ve been puzzled for years why they haven’t come out with tools that enable normal humans — meaning designers, not coders — to create and deliver Flash output.  And, no — Flex isn’t it, and the output in InDesign is a joke.”

(For some additional perspective on the Apple/Flash/Adobe situation, check out these recent posts:  Daring Fireball: Apple/Adobe/Flash and Scobleizer: Can Flash Be Saved?)

Finally, I asked Randy Geise for his perspective — and he offered up a lot. Randy is an accomplished graphic designer who began using Apple and Adobe technologies in 1984. He tells the story of calling for Postcsript support in those early days, and having the founder of Adobe himself (John Warnock) get on the phone with him.

“Flash has always been a big resource hog — worse on Mac — but Adobe didn’t really worry about it, as we’d been in a GHz race in the PC industry.  Everything was getting faster, so why worry about putting resources into making Flash (or any Adobe products) more efficient, when the horsepower kept going up?  And all that browser-crashing going on is mainly on the Mac, and what kind of share does it have?  Adobe sat on their laurels – as Jobs has said – got lazy.

“Then two things happened: the Mac share started climbing, and all that crashing — and the fact that Adobe wasn’t using any of the great native, core OSX tech in their Mac apps — pissed Jobs off. Then the mobile web took off with the iPhone — the first phone with a really capable browser — and Adobe didn’t have an efficient version of Flash to go with it.  They still don’t.  Mobile is huge, the iPhone is huge.  The iPad will be huge.  HTML5 is finally coming onboard.  You have the H.264 standard for video.  Everything is changing, there’s less need for Flash (or will be), and Adobe has missed the boat.  They blew it, they were arrogant and lazy.  They used to be able to claim a 99% plugin penetration — the plugin was everywhere.  One could feel fairly confident using some Flash on a site — it would play. Now, you can’t be confident, and the penetration rate of Flash is going down with every iPhone, iPodTouch, and soon iPad sold. A crack has developed, and it’s growing.

“Some say Google will save Flash when they put it on Android.  It won’t — the ubiquity is gone. It’s not safe to use Flash, it’s not everywhere.

“For all those Flash games out there, some say Adobe is about to introduce a version that allows you to develop in Flash and compile it to native apps on various mobile platforms, and that this will save the Flash developers.  May help some for certain things, but it doesn’t really create a true native app using native controls/features.  It’s kind of like Java — write once, debug everywhere, and still a slow runtime.  And the Flash games will still have to compete with all those native games already on the iPhone and other platforms. Good luck.

“Adobe and Flash aren’t going to go ‘poof’ overnight, but I think the writing is on the wall: the Flash era is over.”

I asked Randy if he thought there was any possibility that Apple or Google would support Flash.

“Neither will. They’re both moving a breakneck speed and don’t want to have to slow down and wait for an update to Flash. They’d be hamstrung by any third party. And Adobe doesn’t have a good track record for quickly getting new stuff out — no 64-bit versions for either Windows or OSX, for example. Both Google and Apple are into efficient code. Adobe hasn’t been.  OSX-SnowLeopard for example was all about rewriting for efficiency.  Neither company wants or needs the bloat that is Adobe.  Both Google and Apple need the web to run on open standards.  We’ve just barely gotten out of the era where IE was holding us back on all things new.  Google and Apple are not going to let Adobe/Flash become the new IE.

“Since Android is open, and Google doesn’t really control what apps gets installed, Adobe could make Flash available but installed by the user. That depends, however, on if the Android web browser allows plugins.  And there’s the wild card of Google partners adding it — so it could be somewhat the ‘wild west’ on the Android side.  But Flash won’t be ubiquitous, so one won’t be able to count on it. And that is the death sentence.”

(Randy added that, for those who want to read more, there was a lot of Flash discussion going on today in the comments on this Robert Scoble post: Google Will Save Flash, a Developer Who Uses It Says.)

So, will Apple win?  Is Adobe and its Flash flagship doomed?  And, furthermore….is Google evil?

Minnesota Apple Watchers React to Steve Jobs’ Rant is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

In the article, Anderson chronicles the age of “open source, custom-fabricated, DIY product design.” He profiles a fascinating startup called Local Motors of Wareham, Mass., and another one called TechShop of Menlo Park, Calif. (which I first heard of when I met the founder at a DEMO Alumni Reception in Palo Alto in August 2007).

“The tools of factory production, from electronics assembly to 3D printing, are now available to individuals, in batches as small as a single unit.”

Yep, a lot of this is driven by 3D printers, which you’ll remember, if you’ve been reading Minnov8 lately, is a product category well represented in Minnesota by Stratasys — which has come a long way from its startup days here in the 1980s.  See this post by Steve Borsch from January 21, about the company’s partnership with HP that caused its stock to rocket 44% in one day.  But the WIRED article talks about sub-$1000 printers, a part of the market in which Stratsys does not have an offering. As Steve mentioned in his post the other day, a main player in the low-priced sector of the 3D printer market is the open-source company MakerBot.  But, according to this PC World article, 3D Printing Coming to the Desktop, the HP-Stratasys models, though small enough to sit on a desktop, are priced just shy of $15,000.  Sure, the talk about this HP partnership is the promise of prices dropping with volume.  But one has to wonder…

Is a once-promising, emerging Minnesota technology pioneer looking at the possibility of having its lunch eaten by an open-source disruptor like MakerBot?

That question may take years to play out.  We can only hope that Stratasys management, surely feeling its oats now after the HP deal, is up to the task.  Meantime, the promise of “custom-fabricated DIY design” brings much hope to Minnesota’s still healthy small manufacturing sector, which has remained relatively stable despite the recent recession.  For more about this important part of our state’s economy, check out the site of an organization called Enterprise Minnesota, and the latest issue of its magazine.

Another connection to the DIY product design and manufacturing movement here in Minnesota is a locally connected TV show called MAKEzine.  This is a national series from MAKE magazine, Twin Cities Public Television, and American Public Television. According to the web site, “It celebrates ‘Makers’ – the inventors, artists, geeks, and just plain everyday folks who mix new and old technology to create new-fangled marvels.” The series is sponsored by Minnesota’s own Geek Squad, a business unit of Twin Cities-based Best Buy.

I asked a local startup founder, one I knew had experience with both software and hardware development, for his reaction to this WIRED cover story.  Matt Bauer is the founder of PedalBrain (www.pedalbrain.com): “I own one of Stratasys’s desktop printers. I evaluated MakerBot’s offering and there isn’t any comparison,” he said. “The uPrint from Stratasys completely destroys the MakerBot in every category except price. For that additional cost, though, I don’t have to worry about the uPrint working. It can run nearly 24/7 without anyone taking care of it. The same can’t be said for the MakerBot.”  So, how does he see the battle for this product category playing out? “I’m sure this gap will close, and I see Stratasys getting the win. It’s much easier coming down in cost than going up in technology.”

‘The New Industrial Revolution’ and Minnesota is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

I actually picked up the “who and how much” news tip on this story at the Social Media Club workshop Friday morning at Best Buy, from a deep-throat source I shall not name… :-)  And I decided to post it after we recorded our latest Minnov8 Gang podcast yesterday — in which, among other things, I chatted about this news with our guest, George Reese, CTO of enStratus, which shares offices with Alvenda.  (And Alvenda also uses enStratus’ cloud computing management tools.)  You may recall that Alvenda won the 2009 MN Cup business plan competition this past September — which was no small feat with more than 1100 entries.  The firm was only founded in 2008, and had announced initial funding in December 2008 (see its news page), from private investors it did not identify.  Two of its three founders hail, respectively, from retail powerhouses Retek (acquired by Oracle) and Target.com

What really launched Alvenda’s fortunes was the news this past summer that “social commerce” was coming to Facebook by way of  1-800-Flowers setting up the first online store there — with Alvenda’s technology behind it. Coverage of that development ensued on TechCrunch and in BusinessWeek, the Financial Times (registration required), and elsewhere, giving Alvenda quite a sudden high profile, the likes of which a Minnesota startup hasn’t seen in some time.  And that buzz certainly boosted the firm’s chances in the MN Cup judging that followed soon after.

Here’s a backgrounder page on Alvenda, which includes this quote from Wade Gerten, CEO, which I think captures the essence of what this breakout Minnesota startup is all about:

“We believe the majority of future online sales will happen offsite. Customers will be able to shop with brands wherever they happen to be whether they’re on YouTube, a favorite blogger Web site, or in Facebook. With innovative merchants like 1-800-Flowers, Alvenda is moving commerce forward to these touch points and is generating remarkable sales results.”

But the aforementioned flower store on Facebook is just the beginning of putting “shops next-door to the conversation,” as BusinessWeek so aptly puts it.  The FT.com story cited above, from August 2009, said at the time that “at least 20 more such storefronts will appear on Facebook in the next two months,” quoting Alvenda’s Gerten. The story said Gerten claimed contracts at the time to develop eight such storefronts, and that, since the 1-800-Flowers application launched, Alvenda had secured 12 more.  So, you can understand why there’s a flurry of activity at the firm these days.  FT.com quoted Gerten as saying the contracts were with “very large general merchandise retailers, and very large electronics retailers.”

Oh, I wonder whom that might include…

Alvenda Bags $5 Million in VC is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Graeme Thickins and Tim Elliott sat down with Steve for coffee the morning after he arrived back in Minneapolis for a holiday family visit.  What ensued was a 30-minute+ discussion on a whole raft of topics related to Steve’s new role, the Windows 7 rollout, hints of future plans, other MS initiatives we asked Steve to weigh in on (though of course he couldn’t speak officially for the company), and Steve’s personal experiences in making his big career move.

Show notes:

• Steve Bendt’s social media coordinates: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
• Steve’s personal blog
• truCAST from Visible Technologies
• Radian6
• Crimson Hexagon
• Windows 7 House Party
• Hosting Your Party video
• House Party parody video
• The social conversation aggregator for Windows 7
• Microsoft Looking Glass post at TechCrunch

Listen to, or download, the interview with Steve Bendt

Steve Bendt Interview: A Chat About Windows 7 Social Media and Life at Microsoft is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Well, one local entrepreneur, George Reese, is right smack in the middle of all this buzz, and is in a position to help clear up a lot of the confusion about it — especially for enterprises looking to take advantage of the economic benefits of this form of computing.   His new book on the subject is scheduled to be released by O’Reilly on April 10.  It’s entitled “Cloud Application Architectures: Building Applications and Infrastructure in the Cloud.” (And here’s the Amazon link.)  George is a Minneapolis-based technologist and startup founder.  I’ve known him since late 2006 and thought it would be interesting to get his thoughts on this very hot topic, and hear the story behind his book.  This is an interview I conducted with George earlier this week, which first appeared on the cloud computing site Cloud Ave.

Graeme: How long have you been involved with cloud computing, and what made you decide to write this book?

George: I suppose that depends on what you mean when you say “cloud computing.” I’ve been developing SaaS [software as a service] systems for the past five years, but got into Amazon Web Services and Infrastructure as a Service in late 2007 when my company Valtira needed an alternate approach to a high-availability infrastructure. During this time, I’ve developed a body of experience in putting transactional database applications into the Amazon Cloud.  My editor at O’Reilly, with whom I’ve written several books in the past, heard I was doing cloud work and asked me to put together a book on the subject.

Graeme: Why is cloud computing gaining adoption like it is?  What is its attraction?  We know Internet and IT startups love it, but do you think it will catch on in any significant way with larger enterprises?

George: The primary attractions to cloud computing are cost and flexibility. Cloud computing enables you to build out a world-class IT infrastructure with no up-front capital investment and pay for the growth of your infrastructure as the business it is supporting grows.

I believe enterprise IT has a strong need for the benefits of cloud computing, but they have higher expectations with respect to reliability and scalability than startups. My company enStratus is all about dealing with these two concerns for enterprise IT, and I talk a lot about that in the book.

Graeme: For what types of readers did you primarily write the book? What will they get from it that they can’t get elsewhere?

George: The book is for people tasked with making the move into the cloud and guiding them through that move. I start by establishing what the cloud means from my perspective and what its value is to an organization. The book covers how you evaluate what makes sense to move into the cloud and, once the decision is made, the security, availability, and disaster recovery planning necessary to operate at an enterprise level in the cloud.

Graeme: Do you deal in the book with the issue of choosing a cloud computing provider?  In not, why not?  Do you attempt to compare providers?

George: No. Anything I might say in the way of a comparison would be out of date by the time the book hit the shelves. Jeff Barr from Amazon reviewed the book for technical accuracy, and E.J. Johnson from Rackspace and Randy Bias from GoGrid both provided appendices describing their offerings.

Graeme: What are some of the other key issues you deal with in the book, such as security and reliability of the cloud?  And what does the book deliver that’s not available elsewhere?

George: Given my role at enStratus, cloud security and reliability are obviously key concerns of mine. I spend an entire chapter on security issues and cover how to architect your applications for maximum availability throughout the book. I have not seen much of this kind of talk available on the Internet; mostly warnings about how security and availability are things you should worry about.

Graeme: Readers of the book will also learn about the management tools you have developed for use in your own company, Valtira, which offers a SaaS marketing platform. Please tell us how those tools led to the formation of a separate, spinoff company.

George: Valtira was looking to build out a new service offering that required a high-availability infrastructure. We priced out a managed services infrastructure to support our needs, but that proved too costly for a new product offering. We then turned to the Amazon cloud to see if it would meet our needs. We ran into a number of obstacles along the way. Some of these obstacles have since been addressed by Amazon through new service offerings like Elastic Block Storage. For other obstacles, we built out tools to take care of things. It turns out that people who were not Valtira customers really wanted our tools, so we spun them out into enStratus.

Graeme: You began working on the book many months ago. The release of the book seems now to be right at a time of intense focus on cloud computing, undoubtedly driven in part by current economic conditions.  What’s your take on all the hype?

George: Cloud computing is the most disruptive technology to hit business since the Web. It’s not hype. Like any disruptive technology, however, there’s a lot of misinformation flying around. To make matters worse, every person has a different internal definition of “the cloud” that frames their discussions on the subject. So, the hype is warranted, but everyone needs to pay particular attention to context and definitions in their discussions.

Graeme: With the book’s release, your speaking schedule is naturally heating up.  Please tell us where people can find you in coming weeks and months.

George: Well, first, I’ll be presenting at CloudCamp in New York City on April 1. Following that, O’Reilly has a webcast scheduled for April 8 on “Getting Started with Amazon Web Services.” In Minneapolis, I’ll be speaking at the Minnesota High Tech Association’s spring conference on April 15, and then at CloudCamp Minneapolis/St. Paul on April 18 at the U of MN.  Recently, my company enStratus was chosen as a presenting startup at the Under the Radar conference in Mountain View, CA, on April 24.  The following month, I’ll be speaking on the topic of information privacy and security in the cloud at the Glue Conference in Denver on May 12. Then it’s off to London, where I’ll be speak on May 15 at WebTech Exchange 2009 on the topic of hardening an EC2 infrastructure.

Graeme: That definitely qualifies as a whirlwind, George! Thanks for taking some time to tell us about your book, and I look forward to seeing you at some of these upcoming events.

(Disclosure: the author has a consulting relationship with George Reese’s company enStratus.)

What’s All This About ‘Moving to the Cloud’? One Minnesota Entrepreneur Can Tell You How is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.

Minnedemo is being held for a second time at Intermedia Arts in Uptown’s Lyn-Lake neighborhood, and will kick off about 6:00 p.m. this Friday, February 6, with demos starting about 7:00. (Intermedia Arts is located at 2822 Lyndale Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55408.) According to Minnedemo organizer Luke Francl, “All are welcome, just please remember to RSVP online.” The web site for registering (again, it’s free) is http://minnedemo.eventbrite.com/.  This quarter’s event will feature ten demos — five, then a break, then five more. Most demonstrators will be launching their products or showing off their creations for the very first time. Here they are alphabetically:

Action Chess is a game app for the iPhone, described as a cross between Tetris Attack, Tetris, and the classic board game Chess. The developer claims it “makes your brain work in interesting ways.” It will be released for the iPhone in the coming weeks and will be demoed on stage. (Martin Grider will present.)

Association Manager Online (AMO) is a new web application from local development shop ArcStone that let members, staff, and administrators of associations and non-profits manage tasks (such as sending emails, posting documents, collecting payments, etc) in a secure manner from any internet browser, whether at home or work. (David Carnes will present)

BevPost is a site that lets consumers select coupons for their favorite adult beverages and have them delivered directly to their cell phones, so they can redeem them at their local liquor store and save cash. (John Ballatine will present)

enStratus is a brand-new startup that’s addressing the “confidence” questions businesses naturally have as they move their systems into Amazon EC2 and other “cloud computing” environments. The company, recently launched by the founders of successful local software firm Valtira, provides a suite of cloud infrastructure management tools that enable companies to automate the secure deployment, scaling, monitoring, and disaster recovery of their cloud computing infrastructure. (George Reese will present.)

LoudClick is a free website builder program that people can use to build web sites around their interests together, all without the need of a techie. (Alex Huff will present.)

Nabbit lets you identify a song you hear on the radio using your mobile phone. Just text Nabb and include the call letters of the station you’re listening to. The service will fetch the song information for you and deliver it to your account page on its web site. The company also recently introduced a native iPhone app. (Norton Lam will present.)

re-searchr is a social search app that lets you “find stuff easier” online. It helps you get search results from people you trust, using data from your friends to influence the re-searchr score presented on top of your search results. Another feature pushes your questions out to your social networks, where your friends can then answer or comment; the app then lets you push back their answers or comments for others to see.  (James Ostheimer will present.)

SendOnCue is a browser plugin that lets you schedule email delivery for later. It integrates directly into your email or webmail client. Send an email reminder at a later date and time. Slow down a conversation by delaying when your reply is sent. If you work odd hours, you can adjust the time your email is sent. (Aaron Kardell will present.)

Socialbrowse is a YCombinator-funded startup that provides social bookmarking with discussions in the browser. It lets you share and discuss the web in real time, and see what’s good on every page. It  combines your social network with your everyday web browsing. You can share and discuss any page with a single click. Pages you share or comments you make are automatically sent to other users in your network. You receive real-time updates of cool links shared by people you like. (Zack Garbow and Dave Fowler will present.)

ZippyStat (no web site yet) is a simple online service to record and monitor nearly any type of information such as your gas mileage, business cards collected, “poops by your newborn,” books read, miles run, etc. (Kelly Heikkila will present.)

This Minnedemo event is sponsored by:
• New Counsel
• Split Rock Partners
• Sierra Bravo
• Tightrope Media Systems
• The Foundation
• VISI

In a first for Minnedemo, this entire event will be video recorded, courtesy of TJ Kudalis from Internet Broadcasting. And, I’m told, monitors will be located in the networking area for those that can’t squeeze into the limited seating in the auditorium. In addition, Minnov8 will be recording interviews throughout the networking portion of the evening, with the help of 612Authentic, also a first.  For more information, see the Minnedemo web site.

Emerging Minnesota Software and Internet Technologies to Take the Stage on February 6 is a post from: Minnov8 and published under a Creative Commons license.