Soonr:Collaboration in the Cloud

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks
Google Docs is a great, simple office suite in the cloud. It works perfectly for a lot of people and small businesses. I’m even using it right now. But if you, or your business, need to use more powerful programs, yet want the easy accessibility, convenience and ease of collaboration that Google Docs provides, then Soonr is a good option.

Soonr isn’t new. It was founded in 2005 as a service that enabled standard mobile phones to use the applications on computers in an optimized way, but since then it seems to have evolved into a complete productivity tool.

You install the Soonr app on your desktop and mobile phone and select which files you want to sync with Soonr’s servers in the cloud. From then on, all those files are automatically updated and synced as you edit them. Just like with Google Docs, you can grant others access to documents and they can edit as well. Teams can collaborate on “Projects” containing multiple documents all organized under the same umbrella. Users can also comment on documents without editing–a nice layer between read only and edit. From the Soonr dashboard you can see all the recent edits and comments and who made them. From your mobile phone you can email or fax (that’s right you heard me, fax) documents out through eFax. With an iPhone you can even print a document from any networked printer.

The mobile interface for viewing documents is apparently very intuitive and fast, because it only requests from the cloud the portion of the document you need at any given time. Soonr supports over 800 mobile devices. We don’t offer handset editing ourselves, but coupled with QuickOffice it’s possible. We’ve integrated with QuickOffice to offer QuickAccess.net. Often times handset editing is a limitation of the handset/os , not the software.

I should clarify that Soonr isn’t an office suite, it just supports such a variety of document types (it even supports .mov files) that you can choose which office suite to use, and it is all continually updated, organized and safe in the cloud.

Soonr isn’t free. If you want acess for more than two users or more than 2Gb of storage you have to pay bit. To get at least five users and 40Gb of storage, you will pay $19.95 a month. I don’t know how the cost scale goes up from there, but it is probably reasonable. So if you work collaboratively are mobile and are tired of fiddling around with the frankly clunky version

AppCentral: Hubb for Enterprise Mobile Apps

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

Mobile applications have redefined the way we think about our smartphones. Nearly every day you can read about a great new iPhone app in the consumer tech press and the iPhone is just one platform. Blackberry and Android apps tend to get slightly less attention, but the cumulative interest in mobile apps is nothing short of an obsession for the tech media. But considering the amount of work that is done on mobile phones and the importance of the mobile web to so many workers and companies, where all the apps for them? Until now, enterprise has largely been left out of the app revolution. AppCentral, a venture of Ondeego, hopes to change that.

According to AppCentral, there are three primary reasons the enterprise market has lagged behind the consumer market in mobile app adoption: it is not easy to find apps for business amongst the thousands of consumer apps in app markets; Mobile apps can be difficult to manage for IT professionals and sometimes even dangerous to company data; and third party developers currently don’t have the right tools to make “enterprise-ready” apps or a good marketplace to sell them.

AppCentral says it tackles these challenges with it’s three part ecosystem. It addresses the needs of end users by providing an easy to use web-based portal for employees to find and download the mobile business applications they need. It helps IT professionals by allowing them to easily enable and disable applications as well as handle the data of each application. Additionally, AppCentral’s patent pending “Securitization” technology creates a “security wrapper” around apps enabling remote management. But how AppCentral claims to help developers is what may make it a real game-changer in the mobile applications space. The technology is platform agnostic, so it gives developers valuable tools to efficiently create and market their apps to a wide audience. The securitization layer is also added automatically, so no additional work is required from the developer.

AppCentral just launched a private beta in early October, so its claims have yet to be tested. However they have definitely identified a pain-point in the marketplace and the concept is different from anything else currently available. Being platform agnostic also gives them a leg up on any similar marketplace that might be created by Google, Microsoft or Apple. Although, at the moment AppCentral cannot support development for the iPhone because of “legal reasons.” However, if technology is as easy to use Ondeego says, AppCentral will tap into the largest, most lucrative, yet currently least accessible mobile application market.

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More Small Business Promotion Ideas

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

Run a user generated content contest in which the winner wins a trip to Hawaii
Show people where the sweet stuff is and they will come to it in swarms and they will tell all their swarming friends and they will talk talk talk about it. What is the sweet stuff? Anything really fun, anything worth fantasizing about, anything worth taking a risk for, or taking time out of their busy day for. If you can cause people to associate your, product, website or company with anything fun and exciting it will get attention. Remember the “Island Caretaker” job offered by the Queensland Tourism Board? It generated so much attention that the ensuing traffic shut down the site’s servers multiple times; tens of thousands of video applications were received and dozens of high profile articles were written.

Host an UNconference

We’ve all been conferences that were too expensive, long and predictable. So the next time there is a big industry conference in your city, rent out a small room near the conference and hold an UNconference. The idea is that the attendees will come up with topics and then discuss and present on the topics right there. You can focus on a specific problem in your field, or leave it more open. Do: invite as many people in your field as possible, invite the press, encourage collaboration, provide snacks, print up fun t-shirts. Don’t: charge admission.

Make a viral video

Hire a good video artist/director. Make it funny. Make it short. Be upfront about who you are and what you are promoting. Make sure it is tagged well and easy to find. Involver has a variety of social media video promotion tools for a large range of budgets.

Hold a Raffle

This isn’t a way to get money, but rather to get information about your target or encourage them to engage with a product. It is similar to the user generated content contest, but instead of creating content users interact with a site, fill out a survey or use a product. This idea works great when you have a new feature to promote as it points users straight towards engagement. The Dubai Government used a raffle to promote use of its new eGovernment portal to conduct payments and credit card companies and Discover Card is currently running a sweepstakes for users that switch to paperless statements. Both promotions encourage users to interact in new way with services they are use.

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Promotion Ideas for Small Businesses

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

Here are some ideas for promotion that cost under or around $10,000.

Host an event

Host an event around the launch of a new, or improved, product or service. It doesn’t have to be a big event. Rent out a bar, or a good sized room in a bar. Get a DJ or maybe a band. Invite some clients, business partners and any local press that cover your field of business. Make sure everyone the press might want to interview is there. Demo your product or give a presentation about your service. Print up take away materials for guests and press.

Sponsor a Podcast

This is a great way to hone in on niche markets inexpensively. Contact podcasters directly for details. Want examples of businesses sponsoring podcasts? This Week in Tech has a variety of sponsors, but it’s most common are Audible.com and Gotomypc.com; The Savage Love podcast is sponsored by Adam & Eve.

Run a Retweet Promotion

The most well known recent example is Moonfruit, a website hosting company, gave away ten MacBooks in ten days to random twitter users who included #moonfruit in their tweets. The prizes are what gets this kind of promotion going, but if the retweet itself is as unobtrusive and you can encourage a little creativity, the contest can create some interesting content of it’s own. These contests are easy to set up and oversee, so you can put nearly all of your investment into prizes.

Spend the money on a Google Adwords Campaign

Google Adwords is the best, easiest,do-it-yourself advertising tool in the world. You decide exactly how much to spend, what keywords to choose, and what targeting to use. It’s an essential tool to reach local audiences and is infinitely scalable. When used with a bit of know-how, Google Adwords offers some of the best ROI in advertising for both big and small businesses. If you aren’t sure where to begin, Google makes it easy.

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Google Voice Comes Out of Beta

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

Recently, Google took its unified voice service, Google Voice, out of Beta and into invite. The service is likely be available to anyone in the US in a few weeks. Google Voice allows you to have one number ring on multiple devices, so you can have one number, at home, at work and on the go for life. The convenience Google Voice offers users has some analysts believing Google Voice could relegate mobile service providers to the much feared “dumb pipes.”

Google voice works by giving you a number that becomes your new “universal” number. When someone calls your universal number, the call will be routed to your pre-selected devices. If you move or change mobile carriers, just change your Google Voice settings and the number will follow you. Likewise, when you want to make a call, you use the local Google Voice access number which then routes your call through the Google cloud to its end receiver. An app will make this process seamless on most smartphones.

Beyond a universal number, Google Voice has a myriad of other impressive features : You can set calls from specific numbers to ring on certain devices or go straight to voicemail; you can have a number ring on one device at one time of day and another at a different time of or day; your voicemails can be automatically transcribed and sent to you via email and text; you can personalize greetings and ringtones to individual callers; you can store and send your text messages online; you can call anywhere in the US for free, record calls, make conference calls….the list goes on. And more is in development. What’s most impressive? It is all free.

As per usual with Google, the service will be ad supported. The company has filed patent on a software that serves ads based on location to callers when they are on hold or before the receiver picks up a call.

Will Google Voice soon turn mobile carriers to be “dumb pipes”? In my view, the “dumb pipes” term is more hyperbolic than descriptive of the challenges mobile service providers face. Phone companies will always want to charge for as many services as they can. While customers, increasingly, want to use their cell phones as just another Internet portal. But that doesn’t mean that every time innovation creates a better way for users to better manage their mobile communications, that mobile providers lose their value. There will always be tension to do more on phones for less, that’s just economics. Phone companies will just have to continually re-bundle their data packages to keep up with innovation.

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The Rhetoric of Behavioral Targeting

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

In March, I wrote a piece about Google’s behavioral ad targeting and possible legislative action in the works to insure customers understood Google’s (and other advertiser’s) privacy policy. There is still not a bill on the table, but congressional hearings were held in mid-June and Rick Boucher (D-Va.) has been vocal about his plans to draft a bill. Although, Boucher insists: “My overall purpose is not to interfere with the legitimate practice of people who are doing targeted advertising. My goal is to try to create a greater sense of confidence on the part of consumers.”

The definition of what exactlyA qualifies as behavioral targeting varies across the industry. Some companies that claim to offer behavioral targeting, really only offer vague demographic information. Also it is unclear if retargeting (ads based on a users visit to an advertisers site) is considered behavioral targeting by legislators.

Opponents to regulation of behavioral targeting argue that it could “cripple” the online advertising business. I think this is a bit hyperbolic. It might be true if retargeting is outlawed, which is unlikely because it requires the collection of only one piece of information. True behavioral targeting requires following a user across several sites, and represents a relatively small but growing percentage of ads. Advertisers selling high price-point items like cars or travel packages use behavioral targeting the most. For the majority of advertisers, it is still unclear if behavioral targeting is worth the premium. Perhaps as the technology improves, it will become more of an advertising mainstay.

Having said that, the the cost of online advertising inventory was plummeting before the crash, and with cutbacks in ad budgets, even a small change in the industry could impact a lot of businesses. The businesses most scared of this legislation are ad networks. Google has its own ad network, as does Yahoo. They sell billions of dollars worth of “remnant” publisher ad space. Ad networks, rather than the advertisers or publisers, do the actual behavioral targeting in most campaigns. Limiting behavioral targeting would definitely cause them to rethink the way they do business.

However there is another, quiet trend in the industry that may one day replace ad networks as they are now. Advertisers and agencies know that ad networks function as a middleman between them and publishers and they would like to have more direct access to remnant inventory. Ad exchanges give advertisers direct access to impression by impression inventory for purchase through auction. Right now, ad exchanges are still an emerging platform, but if they gain popularity, they would decrease the relevancy of ad networks. That doesn’t mean behavioral targeting would go away, but it may become less attractive to advertisers if they can target remnant impressions more precisely.

In conclusion, congress and the FTC continue to debate regulation of behavioral targeting while the online advertising industry attempts to standardize a definition and develop practices to polices itself. Though true behavioral targeting currently represents a relatively small percentage of impressions, regulating would adversely effect some advertisers, agencies and especially ad networks. However, behavioral targeting is only one set of innovations emerging in online advertising and other technologies may make it less desirable.

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Long Term Challenges Ahead for Broadband Technologies

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

As consumer demand for broadband Internet has grown exponentially, a few different technologies have risen up to meet the need. Each of these technologies has their own unique set of advantages and challenges. Consequently, there is no all-encompassing solution for the future of broadband.

Let’s examine each of the current technologies:

VDSL2–Very High Speed Digital Subscriber Line 2. The newest and most advanced standard of DSL broadband over-the-wire communications. This standard supports wide-scale “Triple Play” services such as voice, video, data, high definition television (HDTV) and interactive gaming. It uses existing copper phone wires to make the connection. The supporters of this technology are AT&T with its U-verse offering and Qwest.

Advantages: Because it uses existing copper telephone wires as the back bone of the infrastructure, there less to build out than the other technologies.

Challenges: In terms of reliability, VDSL2 is sometimes more haphazard than to DOCSYS and FiOS, in part because it relies on older infrastructure. Also, VDSL2 speeds degrade over long distances.

In order to make the system faster, AT&T has created a hybrid of fiber optics and copper wires for it’s U-verse offering. The company uses a fiber optic cable connection to a city, then copper wires within a city. However, this hybrid system relies on huge cabinet-like hubs to be installed underground in each city. AT&T has had to battle officials over taxes in many cities for permition to install these hubs. Stalled negotiations have limited deployment.

FiOS–Fiber optic communications network and technology designed for bundled communication services including Internet telephone and television. Fiber optics are the newest technology and infrastructure, offering the highest potential speeds with the least amount of loss.

Challenges: When FiOS enters any new territory, the entire infrastructure needs to be built out from scratch.

Verizon is the only company currently building out its own all fiber optic network (FiOS). In more densely populated areas, the company must install cables under often-decaying city structures and negotiate with apartment building owners individually, making implementation very slow in old cities.

DOCSIS 3–the latest in Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification. DOCSIS is a standard that allows high speed data transfer over existing cable television system.

Advantages: DOCSIS uses existing cable infrastructure, so there is not nearly as much to build out as FiOS. This system also has less speed loss over distance than VDSL2.

Disadvantages: Ultimately, DOCSIS is inferior to FiOS for speed potential. Currently, FiOS does not need to operate near capacity to be competitive. As the market demands higher speeds, DOCSIS may not compete with FiOS. Also, despite having much of the existing infrastructure, there are still growing pains associated with this DOCSIS. Providers like Comcast and Cox have been unable to keep up with demand, slowing installations and causing services outages in some areas.

The challenges in implementing these technologies are likely to continue for years. Ironically, densely populated old cities and very remote sparsely populate areas simialr cost to benefit challenge for installation. The future is likely to be patchwork of all three technologies depending on different installation challenges in each area. Cities may need to depend on VDSL and DOCSIS for several years, while newer suburban developments in some states will have FiOS. Very remote areas may rely on broadband built out to a local tower which would then connect to users wirelessly Eventually, Verizon may be able build out FiOS in most areas and ultimately it may be the clear winner if very high speed becomes the deciding factor in consumer choice. But price is also a consideration and the market may never widely demand speeds that only FiOS can provide. Within several years, it is even possible mobile broadband advancements could make it a competitor to all of these over-the-wire technologies, causing further disruption to the marketplace.

Google Apps Goes for Businesses

by Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

One of the bigger stories in the computer tech world for the last several weeks has been Google’s promotion of Google Apps as a business solution. Google Apps (Gmail, Google Docs etc.) have been available to the public, both for free and as a premium level service, since 2007. But this is the first time Google has actively advertised its Apps for business. While most of the press has viewed this campaign as an assault on Microsoft’s home base, Google sees their Apps as something of a complimentary collaboration tool and not necessarily a direct competitor to Microsoft Office.

For the uninitiated, Google Apps are web based, cloud-computing programs that are accessible through any browser. A group can collaborate on a document, a spreadsheet, a power point presentation etc. all through a link. This cuts down on version multiplicity problem that often occur during collaboration. Also, by hosting everything in the cloud and making them as easily accessible as any web page, Google Apps provides a certain permanence, eliminates compatibility headaches and the need for endless software updates.

When I spoke to Andrew Kovacs, Manager of Communications for Google Apps, he saw the Google Apps products as part of a larger trend toward greater worker collaboration facilitated by the web. “A few years ago the emphasis was on individual productivity” said Kovacs. “One person would sit at their cubicle and create something, which they would then send to their boss or team. Now we are seeing much more of a focus on group productivity and collaboration and it is because programs like Google Apps make it easier to collaborate.” When I asked what he thought about Microsoft’s competitive product, Office Live, which is currently in Beta, he said: “When a software giant like Microsoft offers a cloud based solution, we see that as validation to what we have been saying…that the future of computing is in the cloud. We think it is good. We think it will only bring more people online.”

So, what are the downsides to Google Apps? Even though, for many businesses, there are cost and labor time benefits to hosting all their documents and email in the Google cloud, there is some loss of control. Not having your server in-house, but instead controlled by Google means not having direct control or access. For some, that requires a leap of faith. Also the kind of granular email message recovery that IT professionals are used to having on their own servers, comes at an additional cost from Google. Message Discovery, as the product is called, is $25/user/yr for one year of retention, or $45/user/yr for up to 10 years of retention. Meaning if you want to store one year’s worth of data for 8 years, it’s $45. Google believes that for many businesses there is still a significant savings compared to in-house server maintenance costs.

Google also admits, that for some work, Google Apps is not competitive with Microsoft Office programs. Word allows for more formatting than Google Docs. Excel offers more functionality than a Google Docs spreadsheet for complex tasks and number crunching. Google sees its Apps as an easy to use program that will satisfy the basic office document needs of most businesses, but admits more elaborate projects are better served by Microsoft. “We see Microsoft Office as being similar to Photoshop. It’s a great product that has a lot of functionality. Most offices have at least one copy of Photoshop, and we think all offices will always have at least one copy of Microsoft Office.”

Social Media and Web Ecosystems

By Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks

It may seem too obvious to mention that the strength and utility of the internet come from its ability to access and share information from a nearly infinite number of sources.
Yet this is a truth we are continually relearning about the internet through the successes and foibles of notable internet companies. The latest iteration of this lesson comes from the big players of social media.

Consider Facebook’s recent acquisition of Friendfeed. Until that acquisition, Facebook’s strategy was the much discussed walled-garden: control the user experience and keep them on the site. Such an approach is great for the statistics advertisers love like “time-on-site” but is, in actuality, counter to the natural flow of the internet.

Facebook’s status updates became a central part of the site during the rise of Twitter. The updates are easy, fun and useful way for Facebook users to keep track of what their friends are doing. But Friendfeed has a wider scope, allowing users to easily share a myriad of online activities including: favored websites from Digg and StumbleUpon, favored videos on YouTube, Amazon wish lists, music artists they found on Pandora…the list goes on. Friendeed acts as an online activity aggregator, rather than a walled garden and thus offers a richer user experience.

Facebook will use the acquisition to enter the aggregation business as well, which means the walled garden just became an ecosystem. Friendfeed would be a boring site if the sites it feeds from, like twitter and Pandora, weren’t interesting and thriving as well. Friendfeed does not directly compete with these services, it is merely a broadcast tool–taking data and sending traffic back to these sites. Facebook now also depends on the success of these other sites.

Some bloggers have argued that if twitter posts are widely fed to Facebook updates it could eventually erode Twitter’s audience, but I think there is plenty of room for multiple services depending on what a user wants to do or where they are on the web at any given moment. Many users will want to use both. On the social web, multiplicity of sources creates value, much like the wider world of the web.

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Microsoft Reaches out to iPhone Users and Developers

Microsoft is promoting a study by a third party research group, Crimson Consulting, that documents how developers can port applications they have developed for the iPhone over to Windows Marketplace for Mobile. Although Microsoft’s rival app store is not scheduled to open until late this year, the company is hoping the study will entice developers and bring competitive variety to the store.

The report centers on the iPhone app Amplitude, which turns audible recordings into graphical displays. According to Microsoft, Amplitude was an ideal app for the study because it is the type of high-quality app the company is hoping to have in its upcoming Windows Marketplace for Mobile. “It combines a rich user interface with features such as alpha blending (a computer graphics technique in which an image is combined with a background image) and transparency with specific audio and sound requirements, which makes it challenging to port the app but, at the same time, provides a number of helpful learning experiences,” said Constanze Roman, a Windows Mobile community team manager.

Microsoft is late to the app store game, but its store will have some features that could give it an edge. By allowing users with older versions of Windows Mobile to access the store, it has created a ready audience of 30 million smartphone users for developers. This audience is comparable or slightly higher than the number iPhone users. Also, users can buy apps by credit card or through their carrier bill and can return apps within 24 hours if they chose.

The fact that Microsoft needs a special study and app store for ported iphone apps suggests they will perhaps always be riding behind the iPhone in app development. Nevertheless, 30 million Windows Mobile users will soon have a place to find apps and developers have a huge new audience.

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By Mielle Sullivan, Janus Networks