Archives for August 2009

Minnov8 Gang 46: Addicted to Twitter, Chatter about FanChatter & More

August 8, 2009 By Steve Borsch

On this week’s show we talk about Twitter being down and how people realized they are social media addicts, FanChatter, controversy over iPhone apps being rejected and much more.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson.

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 46:12 — 26.9MB)

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Discussed during the show:

+ Twitter down (and Dragnet’s “Blue Boy” LSD episode); FanChatter; Blog comment addition vendors: Echo and BackType (and BackType Connect for WordPress); Minnesota startups BusinessCard2 and Extendr as well as Retaggr

+ Federal Trade Commission (FTC) looking in to Google’s Eric Schmidt on Apple’s board (now potentially a moot point)

+ Pending Federal Communications Commission (FCC) proceedings regarding wireless open access and handset exclusivity are in motion, and as part of this the FCC requested more information from the Google Voice app rejection by Apple (good overview of the controversy–and Apple’s overall app rejection policy–in this BusinessWeek article)

FCC’s letter to Apple

FCC’s letter to AT&T

FCC’s letter to Google

+ HTML 5 and the open source video codec rejection; Google acquiring On2 and conjecture it was a strategic move to open source On2’s codec, move away from Flash (and minimize the possibility Adobe could make it a ubiquitous application platform as well as continuing to extend its reach as one for video) and not require licensing H.264

+ The MiFi device and the Wired article referred to by Tim; Comcast getting in to wireless broadband

+ “Social Media on a Stick“: Social Media Breakfast, Minneapolis/St. Paul (SMBMSP) is meeting at the State Fair

+ Blogwell is next week! This is positioned as a must-attend event for anyone interested in corporate social media use

+ Evocam: Steve’s geek fun this weekend.

FanChatter Goes to the Valley, Tapped by ‘American Idol’ for Startups: Y Combinator

August 6, 2009 By Graeme Thickins

Here’s a story many in Minnesota have been waiting to hear — including several of you out there in the local developer and ad communities who knew something was up. FanChatter-clients Yes, our friends at Minneapolis startup FanChatter have finally gone public with what they’ve been doing for the past four months. FanChatter is a site that “helps sports franchises and other businesses create a more profitable level of fan involvement through real-time content sharing.” (More on the company’s About page.) In April, it was chosen as one of the lucky few to be accepted into the summer program of Y Combinator (YC). Though the actual numbers aren’t announced, I’ve heard only 30 startups were chosen out of almost 1000 that applied. YC is an organization founded in 2005 that does seed funding for startups. Here’s how it explains what that means:

“Seed funding is the earliest stage of venture funding. It pays your expenses while you’re getting started. Some companies may need no more than seed funding. Others will go through several rounds. There is no right answer; how much funding you need depends on the kind of company you start. At Y Combinator, our goal is to get you through the first phase. This usually means: get you to the point where you’ve built something impressive enough to raise money on a larger scale. Then we introduce you to later stage investors or occasionally even acquirers.” (More on Y Combinator’s About page.)

YC’s application process is well explained on their site, a process FanChatter went through earlier this year, before their selection in mid-April. After sitting on this story for some time, waiting for the TechCrunch post to break first (which is the normal way YC companies get announced), what follows is the result of a phone and email interview I did over the past few days with FanChatter founders Marty Wetherall and Luke Francl, who remain in Silicon Valley through August. (The third founder, Norm Orstad, was not available.) … [Read More…]

Minutebids: Get Free Bids on Commercial Property Services

August 6, 2009 By Tim Elliott

Do you own commercial real-estate or manage commercial property? Probably not – but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be paying attention to local Minnesota web startup Minutebids.com and the brains behind it: Jon Coudron, Jeremy Raadt, Jerad Parish, and Seth Heiserman.

Minutebids is a free service for property owners/managers that saves them time by streamlining the process of obtaining multiple bids from reputable local service providers for property maintenance needs. Think lawn-care, snow removal, parking lot maintenance, landscaping, etc.

Of course there already are established players in this space, notably ServiceMagic.com (turn your speakers down) & ServiceLive.com – owned by IAC & Sears holding corp, respectively. Yet Minutebids has some unique competitive advantages that, when added together, make it a compelling alternative:

A focus on commercial property: neither service is clearly targeting commercial property owners/managers.

Pay for performance model vs. pay per lead model: service providers only pay for bona-fide, actionable, and closed leads – contrary to the pricing model of the other two.

Service wizard with Microsoft Virtual Earth integration through the Bing Map API: This allows RFP’s to be uploaded/submitted painlessly and for service providers to bid projects online, in real time, without having to do a site visit/walk through. The competition doesn’t even come close to this feature.

Option to combine multiple properties and service types into one request: This saves the owner/manager time and increases the likely- hood for volume discounts. Again, unique to minutebids.

A short, professional, and effective video tutorial: From a user-experience perspective, this is a brilliant feature that both servicemagic & servicelive lack.

Minutebids has gone from concept, through R&D, to their recent beta launch (mid July) in less than six months and they’ve clearly established themselves as “better than the rest”. Their next step is to work directly with local service providers and property owners/managers to iron out any kinks, listen & lean from said users, and otherwise evolve as they prepare for their nation-wide roll-out campaign.

Time is of the essence as Minutebids must close-in on the incumbents before they discover the Minutebids difference for themselves, and thus potentially implement the very same feature-sets and technologies that minutebids is using to differentiate itself. This is a common challenge faced by any startup that’s not first to market, and in this case, I’d place my bets on the startup side with consideration to drive and agility. Plus: how do you re-engineer your pricing model in the middle of the game if you’re ServiceMagic or ServiceLive? Remember, the primary differentiating factor is the Minutebids pay for performance approach to lead generation–a fundamental difference.

According to co-founder Jon Coudron, the market for commercial RE services is at-least a $40 billion/year industry and he’s not shy about his ambitions:

“We want to dominate this market segment and want to talk if you think you can help us”

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