Minnov8

Showcasing Minnesota Technology Innovation

W3i Lights Up the ‘Net with Its Latest App News

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Okay, so there’s this company named Apple that I hear makes phones.  And people tell me there’s been, uh, a bit of news lately about some new phone of theirs?  Well, that media firestorm didn’t stop Minnesota’s W3i LLC from deciding to jump in with some news of its own, which is actually related to the exploding ecosystem around Apple mobile devices.  That would be apps.

St. Cloud-based W3i is in the app distribution business — in a big, profitable way (33 successive quarters thereof).  But till now that business has been all about desktop apps, and Windows only. Well, mark down yesterday as the day they entered the world of mobile, with this bombshell: W3i Launches New Incented Mobile App Distribution Service for iOS App Developers.  A separate version of the release, for consumers, gets more to the benefit: Consumers Can Now Earn Rewards for Installing Apps.  Those rewards, my friends, would be cash — for consumers who register at a W3i site called Apperang.com.

Naturally, app fanboys and girls everywhere loved the news — after reading about it on some of the sites they frequent the most.  TechCrunch (MobileCrunch) ran this story: Apperang Pays You Cash to Download iPhone Apps… Ka-Ching! And VentureBeat (MobileBeat) ran concurrently — amazing how that happens — with their take: Get paid to install apps with W3i Mobile Solutions and Apperang.  Numerous other sites and blogs picked up on it immediately, and Twitter was going crazy on it (just search on hashtags #apperang and #w3i).  [Oh, sure, there was a story in the StarTrib last week, too, but that didn’t light up much of anything… <rimshot>]

I asked the CEO of a local app development company for his reaction to this W3i news, from a business perspective:  “The model and integration W3i has developed for desktop distribution has been a huge success in the past, so I wouldn’t bet against them on making their mobile version a success,” said Wade Beavers, CEO of DoApp Inc. “For developers wanting to get a core base of users fast, it makes sense to use this service. The key will be how long those users keep your app, because that’s where the return on investment is.”

I also asked one of Minnesota’s most experienced iPhone app developers for his reaction: “Will app publishers readily jump to use this type of service? Small developers, maybe,” said Bill Heyman of CodeMorphic. “But small developers may not have budget to support this type of promotion… Will it be enough to hit the tipping point for more organic sales because of a higher App Store ranking? Well, ultimately, it would depend on how much a company wants to spend to buy a ranking.”

But, actually, W3i signed on some pretty successful big developers for its private beta before the announcement yesterday (the service is now in public beta).  That list of launch advertisers — just those that let W3i use their names for PR purposes — includes these firms, with the name of their app in parentheses: Big Stack Studios (Sigma), Inert Soap (FingerZilla), Booyah (MyTown), Gist (Gist), Thinking Ape (Kingdoms at War), Flixster (Movies), Slacker Inc (Slacker Radio), xCube Labs (My Health Records – Health n Family), and infinidycorp (Zombies vs. Aliens).

I’m sure we’ll be hearing about a lot more, as W3i tells me they are crazy-busy now following up with other app companies who are inquiring.

(Disclosure: the author has had a consulting relationship with W3i for providing PR services.)

Best Buy Announces Movies & TV Online

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With the acceleration of online movie and TV show distribution from the likes of Netflix, Amazon, Apple along with on-demand access from cable company services, it was inevitable that Best Buy would get in to this online distribution business.

Best Buy Co. Inc today announced the availability of its new digital video service CinemaNow which will provide customers same-day instant access to new release movies and TV shows.

This month the service will be available on the CinemaNow website, but also with internet connected BluRay players. Netflix has been delivered on these devices (as well as the Roku box, internet connected HDTVs and more) but Best Buy is in a highly unique position with consumer electronic manufacturers.

Add to that their ability to explain to consumers how to use the service, Geek Squad ‘officers’ to set it all up in the home, and the potential to begin to reallocate the sheer square footage devoted to merchandising TVs and movies on DVD/BluRay discs.and you can see why this is of such strategic importance to Best Buy.

The full press release is after the jump. …  [Read More…]

WCCO Launches ‘The Wire’. Connect Your Own Dots

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A screenshot of WCCO's The Wire zoomed in on the timeline

People in Twin Cities social media circles got a sneak peek at WCCO’s The Wire last October and its promise looked intriguing. We here at Minnov8 were particularly pleased to see John Daenzer and crew be so bold and embracing risk as it pertains to delivering news in an increasingly changing (and fragmented) media landscape. From what we can see, it looks like the experiment is off to a very strong start.

Here’s how it works: A WCCO reporter or staffer kicks off a story in the timeline. As the story unfolds, updates are done but where it gets interesting is this: We, formerly known as the audience but geared to be highly participative in today’s online world, are able to submit relevant perspective, information, and media we capture digitally and report on the story! In essence, you can connect the dots in your own way and quickly gain additional information and other people’s perspectives on a news story (and how I wished this had been available during the Minneapolis bridge collapse since so many people had multiple angles and photos of what was occurring).

WCCO's 'The Wire' FAQ page with a video fully explaining this new way of delivering the news

After my adventure attending the WCCO hosted Bloginar in October, Minnov8’s Phil Wilson reported on The Wire with this post, “WCCO Walks The Wire.” In it he interviewed Daenzer about the effort and there is a short screencast. At the bloginar, and in subsequent discussions, Daenzer has been quite clear that they see themselves as engaging the community for input and not trying to be the “ultimate brokers of all news”. If the way that WCCO leaders, reporters and staff have leapt into the social media space and how they’re using it daily is any indication of their sincerity with engagement of the community, The Wire is going to be a resounding success.

…  [Read More…]

Twin Cities Firm Joins Ranks of Public Cloud Computing Providers

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Though the likes of cloud industry leaders Amazon Web Services and Rackpace may not yet have noticed, a Minnesota company has been quietly trying to do them one better. VISI, Minnesota’s largest data center services and managed hosting provider, formally announced on December 17 a public beta of its ReliaCloud cloud computing service, whereby any business can now apply to try it out — whether it’s located here in Minnesota or anywhere.

The first offering, dubbed “Cloud Servers,” allows business users to establish an account online. They can then quickly and easily set up one or more computer servers that run in one of  VISI’s data centers and are accessible to them and their users “in the cloud” — meaning via any Internet browser anywhere in the world.  Customers of the service thereby avoid the expense and work of having to purchase and maintain their own computers servers at their own site.  “It’s a pay-as-you-go model,” said Gary Elfert, director of marketing at VISI, which is headquartered in Eden Prairie and has its original data center in downtown St. Paul. The pricing model for these Cloud Servers is by the hour, starting at 5 cents.

Why would anyone be crazy enough to enter a market that is already dominated by notable heavyweights like Amazon?  “Though there are some large players already in the public cloud computing marketplace, it’s still a nascent business, and a rapidly growing one,” said Antonio Piraino, Research Director at Tier 1 Research, in VISI’s press announcement.  “There’s certainly room for a competitive offering such as ReliaCloud.” His firm has projected that cloud computing services will be a $1-billion market in 2011. …  [Read More…]

Visi Launches ‘ReliaCloud’ Services to Packed House

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ReliaCloud-logoGot a nickel? Then you have a server for an hour, my friend. Visi.com, Minnesota’s largest Internet services/hosting firm unveiled on Wednesday morning its all-new brand of cloud computing services, dubbed “ReliaCloud,” with pricing starting at 5 cents per hour for its first offering, called “Cloud Server.” The breakfast seminar, “CloudVision,” was held at The Metropolitan in St. Louis Park, and was sold-out, with more than 200 IT and business executives attending. (Tweets are archived at the hashtag #cloudvision, including my own.)

CloudVison-crowd+stageThe seminar featured talks by Mike Sowada, CEO of Visi, shown here on stage. (Photo courtesy of Charles Robinson.) Visi is the state’s largest Internet services and hosting firm, with data centers in both St. Paul and Eden Prairie.  A talk followed entitled “Cloud Computing as a Business Advantage” by Chris Howard, a VP at analyst/research firm Burton Group.  Jason Baker, CTO of Visi, wrapped up the event by presenting the first details of his firm’s new ReliaCloud offering, which included a live, online demo by product manager Johnny Hatch that came off flawlessly. I captured a few of the key slides for you… …  [Read More…]

Our Head In The Cloud: Minnov8 Talks With Chris Howard

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Visi hosted Cloud Vision 2009 at the Metropolitan this past Wednesday and invited Minnov8 along. It was an event tailored to the IT community they serve and was the chance for them to introduce attendees to their soon to launch cloud product called ReliaCloud. Minnov8 colleague Graeme Thickins has posted a complete look at ReliaCloud, so look for that here.

Along with the demo and pitch Visi featured a presentation on Cloud Computing as a Business Advantage by Burton Group VP, Chris Howard. Chris took some time to talk about opportunities, concerns, and even the multiple definitions of “the cloud.”

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ktP0i143B4

The slide deck of the presentation is available now from Visi.

mIQ: Best Buy’s Cloud-based Sync & Backup

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miq

Vendors like Apple and Google recognize that the cloud is central to the mobile experience. Without the ability to access ones data, sync to the desktop, laptop netbook (and soon, a tablet?) with our mobile smartphones whether we’re stationary or mobile, our digital life is fraught with nothing but frustration.

The center of the action in communication and being social surrounds mobile devices as does an increasing amount of our consumption of music, video, news and information (and if you head in to a typical retail outlet selling CD’s or DVD’s, you’ll notice a continual downtrending of floor space devoted to merchandising them because, quite frankly, sales in these categories continue to drop in bricks and mortar stores). With smartphones sporting GPS and applications that allow providers (and the marketers who work for them) to have a HUGE amount of data about usage, consumption, social, demographic and location patterns, if you were Best Buy with only stores and a website with typically limited connection to customers, what would you do? …  [Read More…]

Fallon Releases Free Social App?

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skimmer1

As social media and networking continues its advance and integration in to the very fabric of our lives (which is especially the case as more of us become a part of the always on, always connected online culture) it continually intrigues us at Minnov8 that most organizations are still either taking a wait-n-see attitude toward the whole category while others have quickly become a part of the smart and select few taking calculated risks and subsequent bold actions. We’ve seen very little in-between, even as the shift in marketing and communications has accelerated as traditional media has downtrended rapidly while social media and networking use has increased dramatically (e.g., Twitter grows to 8M users).

Fallon, a division of Fallon Worldwide (a part of Publicis Groupe S.A., based in Paris), has moved forward with an innovative new lifestreaming application called skimmer. Lifestreaming is the practice of collecting one’s online digital breadcrumbs and presence — on sites like Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, YouTube or Blogger — within applications or services which enable we connected folk to bring all of our friend and acquaintance connections (and everything we’re each doing online in all of these various online venues) together in one central place and with a single, unified application.

What is skimmer exactly? As Fallon describes the value proposition for the app they say, “Skimmer is an Adobe AIR-based desktop application that serves as a dashboard for a person’s social networks, saving people the time and hassle of manually checking Facebook®, Twitter®, Flickr®, Blogger® and YouTube® by consolidating their feeds into a single stream of real-time, relevant content on the desktop.” Skimmer was developed in conjunction with the firm that seems to be popping up everywhere, Sierra Bravo, and the application has performed flawlessly for the few days I’ve been using and feels rock-solid.

I had a chance to to talk with Chris Wiggins, Creative Director at Fallon about the motivations and strategy behind skimmer and what initially appeared to me to be fuzzy reasons why a creative brand agency would deliver such an application. I also wanted to potentially uncover whether the app they’re delivering is intended as a true value giveaway or just another scheme to surreptitiously give away a platform that would end up as another backdoor carrier of ad or messaging distribution.  …  [Read More…]

Mayo Accelerates Their Online Presence

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sharingmayoMayo Clinic today announced the launch of what they’re calling its “culture blog”, Sharing Mayo Clinic, which provides an online site for patients and employees to share their stories about what makes Mayo Clinic unique. This WordPressMU delivered blog is clearly focusing on uplifting stories of individual patient and employee experiences. While initially interesting, I started to poke around since I wasn’t sure how this fit into their overall mission or why they’d want to have a showcase for patient and employee stories.

According to Mayo’s about page positioning this new blog, Each year over 500,000 unique patients from every U.S. state and nearly 150 countries come to Mayo Clinic for diagnosis and treatment. These patients and their families and friends, and 50,000 employees and students are part of a global Mayo Clinic community.

The goal for the Sharing Mayo Clinic blog is to provide a virtual place for this community to connect and share their experiences. It’s the online companion to the new newsletter for patients, also called Sharing Mayo Clinic, and is a hub that links to Mayo Clinic’s pages on other social networking sites, such as Facebook and YouTube.

Unless you’re a constant observer of Mayo Clinic, you may be as surprised as I was to learn how truly significant and holistic the Mayo online presence has become, and how its online initiatives actually spring forth from the innovation DNA of the Mayo Clinic. This premiere healthcare organization is leveraging social tools to extend their reach and to ensure they’re at the points online where people are increasingly focusing their attention: the internet and web with a primary focus on social media applications….  [Read More…]

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 19

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m8_kmathenyOur kickoff podcast for 2009 is a discussion with guest Kevin Matheny, self-described “E-business Architect & Open API guy for Best Buy” and founder of the innovative Best Buy Remix Developer Network effort.

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

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The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 57:46 — 33.3MB)

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Our discussion surrounded a variety of topics:

– How did the idea to open up the Best Buy catalog come about? What is the vision for Remix?
– How does it fit with broader plans or strategies of the corporation?
– Can you talk about how you came to select Mashery as your API delivery partner?
– What about higher level tools to increase access to the Remix API?

As you may have heard, a guy by the name of Keith Burtis (based in Buffalo, NY) was just hired to be community manager of the Remix program and is running the Twitter presence. During this podcast, we discussed the role of the community manager, what Keith is doing, and why it matters.

Links:

+ Kallow.com

+ Blog:  http://remix.bestbuy.com/blog

+ Twitter:  http://twitter.com/bestbuyremix

+ Kevin’s article, Agile Software Development: Bridges to the Future in BusinessWeek.

+ Follow @kevinmatheny on Twitter here.