April 2006
April 02, 2006
April 03, 2006
April 08, 2006
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April 20, 2006
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April 27, 2006
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Techcrunch?m=803
Fluxiom, based in Vienna, is a first rate online storage and file management product. I’d even go so far as to say that it is the most usable storage product I’ve tested.
A key issue with online storage is the uploading function. Typically files are uploaded one at a time via a web interface, which is fine for just a file or two but breaks down under heavy usage. Flickr and some other sites have mitigated this problem by creating a desktop-based application that users can drag multiple files into. Sites that don’t have this are seriously limited in their ability to serve customers. Fluxiom has come up with a unique way to deal with the issue without a desktop uploader - by allowing users to zip up files and upload them all in one go. While this works in theory, and I was able to upload a zipped folder with multiple files, Fluxiom did not automatically unzip the folder and I could not determine a way to do it with the service.
Fluxiom in general handles files extremely well. Uploaded files can be viewed by thumbnail or file name. Thumbnails can be resized with an Ajax slider (gimmicky but cool). Sharing, versioning and other features are all supported, as is tagging in a limited form (you must predefine tags beforehand, they cannot be created on the fly when uploading files. Fluxiom’s search is also very good.
So, on the product side, I have no complaints other than the issues I had with uploading zipped folders, and the desire to tag-on-the-fly.
On to Pricing.
Fluxiom is smoking something if they think they can mass market their product with no free version and minimum pricing of 9 Euros (about $11.21) per month for just 200 MB of storage. And while they offer a 30 day free trial for all accounts, they require a credit card to open an account. If you don’t terminate before the end of the free trial, your card is automatically charged.
Pricing for online storage has effectively been benchmarked by Amazon’s S3 - $0.15/month/GB of storage and $0.20/GB transferred. At those much more reasonable prices, Fluxiom’s 200 MB product should cost $0.03 per month (plus a bit for bandwidth), not 9 Euros. To look at this another way, Fluxiom’s pricing is 373 times what Amazon would charge for the same storage. Yes, Fluxiom has built a nice interface on top of their storage service, but this pricing is flat out outrageous.
So, Fluxiom is a great product but the team needs to seriously reconsider pricing if they want to compete in the already crowded online storage market. See Solution Watch, Pete Cashmore and Orli Yakuel for more.
Note: If you’d like to test an account, you can enter 4111111111111111 as a credit card number (at least until they disable it).
Screen Shots:
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Facebook, which is rumored to be generating about $1m per week in revenue, is now allowing new users from corporate networks to join their social network (based on email address) in addition to high school and college students. Niall Kennedy was able to register using a microsoft employee email address. I was not able to register using my TechCrunch email - only certain companies are currently supported.
It makes sense for Facebook to continue to look for new markets (this was predicted previously). 85% of college students already use it - growth must come from a different group of users if they are going to be able to attract the $2 billion price tag they’ve been asking for.
Update: Inside Facebook lists the ten companies that are Facebook-enabled: Accenture, Amazon, Apple, EA, Gap, Intel, Intuit, Microsoft, Pepsi, PWC and Teach for America.
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April 28, 2006
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Techcrunch?m=805
San Diego-headquartered Goowy (a Mark Cuban investment) just publicly launched the enhanced IM and storage products that I tested last month. Goowy users now have Meebo-like IM funtionality built directly into their Goowy desktop, and 1 GB of free online storage via a partnership with Box.net.
Goowy has also rolled out significant enhancements to their email client, including a three-pane view that looks and feels a lot like Outlook. Goowy is turning into an excellent desktop replacement - users can choose to use a Goowy email account or Pop in whatever email service they currently use (including Gmail). CEO Alex Bard tells me that over 100,000 people have logged in and used the Goowy email client in the last 90 days.
Everything is currently free…Goowy will layer in paid premium services down the road. You can also try Goowy without registering through their demo account.
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http://feeds.feedburner.com/Techcrunch?m=807
Palo Alto based Renkoo, which just raised $3 million in venture financing, is opening its doors this morning to beta testers. They’ll immediately let in the first few hundred requests and then trickle in new users after that (if you don’t see a box to request a beta account, they haven’t switched over to the new site yet). Once you are a member, you can invite others to use the service.
Renkoo, like competitor Skobee, helps people plan events (the pre-evite stage). Want to gather a couple of friends and discuss when and where to have drinks next week? Renkoo is a perfect choice to help you do this. Socializr, Friendster founder Jonathan Abrams’ new startup, is also rumored to be entering this space.
I’ve tested Renkoo off and on during its development cycle, and it’s evolved rapidly. CEO Adam Rifkin gave me another walk through today to see some of the recent feature additions.
To use Renkoo, you set up a new event and invite people. If they are not yet Renkoo users, they will receive an invitation. If they are, they’ll receive a new event notification. Once people start interacting over an event, things get interesting.
Renkoo is an early “Comet” application (allowing real-time two way interactivity in a browser - Google Talk and Meebo are based on underlying Comet technologies). That means the event page updates in real time as your friends give their input. The experience is similar to instant messaging. Users who aren’t logged in see the comment stream once they are.
Renkoo also allows instant messenger, email and sms notifications of events, comments, etc. (all user controlled). Once an event is finalized, it can be exported in icalendar format (for desktop calendars like Outlook and iCal), or Google Calendar format. Support for additional web calendars and microformats is coming soon.
Renkoo was founded by Adam Rifkin, the founder of KnowNow, and Joyce Park, formerly a senior web developer at Friendster and an author of PHP5 and MySQL Bible.
Screen Shots (click for larger view):
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Live.com Shopping launched today (official blog post), and all I see is a big message saying they don’t support Firefox. It doesn’t work with Safari or Opera either (same Firefox error message for all non IE browsers). The entire Mac audience has been shut out of Live Shopping. I’ll fire up my Windows machine to test it out later.
In general, Microsoft has been good about supporting Firefox for its new live.com products. Live Shopping should have been delayed until it supported Firefox, too. Most bloggers and journalists use a Mac and/or Firefox and this audience was just completely alienated from Live Shopping.
Ian McAllister, the Program Manager for Windows Live Shopping, has more.
Just as a point of interest, here is today’s browser breakdown for TechCrunch:
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Yahoo announced Local Featured Listings today, a way for local businesses to advertise on Yahoo Local search results. This is not pay per click advertising, but rather first come, first serve service that allows local businesses to advertise on Yahoo Local for a flat monthly fee. This is the same pricing model used by offline yellow pages - small businesses are very comfortable paying a set monthly fee.
Local businesses that would like to have a permanent place in local search results can use Yahoo Local’s automated system for placing ads. There are just six total slots on each results page (three at top, three at bottom).
I’m confused as to the exact pricing. The blog announcement (linked to above) states that ads can be purchased for “a flat, monthly rate starting at $29.95/month, depending on the business category and location”, whereas the linked rate card states that pricing ranges from $15-$300 per month based on ad location, business category and geography. Either way, this compares very favorably to offline yellow page advertising options, and will be attractive to advertisers.
I thought there was a window of opportunity for a startup or open source project to enter this space before the big guys came in to dominate (see no 7 here). And while I still think there is an opportunity here (particularly for an open source project) for a true online yellow page business directory, that window may be closing fast with today’s announcement. For more on the offline yellow page angle, see John Battelle’s post earlier today.
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April 29, 2006
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Techcrunch?m=810
The one thing I wish my digital camera had was wifi so that I could auto-upload photos without the extra hassle of connecting the camera or memory card to a computer. There are cameras being released now that have this capability. However, the vast majority of cameras sold, plus the 100 million digital cameras already out there, don’t have any wireless capabilities.
Eye-Fi is tackling the problem from a different perspective. They’re building wifi directly into the flash storage. Their first product will be a 1GB SD card with built in Wifi. For about the same price as a 1 GB flash card sells for today - $100. You’ll be able to upload photos, or whatever, directly from your device to a computer using the built in storage wifi capabilities.
There’s lots more buzz on this. See Robert Scoble and Scott Beale, who are just as excited as I am about Eye-Fi. No guidance on when this will be available, but they have working prototypes. If Eye-Fi owns the intellectual property around this, look for them to license the technology to flash memory producers. I will buy this the second it becomes available.
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April 30, 2006
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Techcrunch?m=811
Wyaworks, a new startup, “aims to do for web development what blogging has done for publishing”. In other words, Wyaworks wants to help non-coders build usefull web applications. the “Wya”, by the way, stands for “write your apps”.
Their first application is called WyaCracker, a form builder. The site is in private beta, but the beta access code can be requested by email from the “try the beta” link on the left sidebar.
Wyacracker allows users to build simple web forms and publish them on websites or via email. Resulting data can be viewed on the site or exported to excel.
It’s very rough on design, but the core functionality works. And unlike competitor Form Assembly, which is also a great form builder, its free (to be fair, Formassembly has much more robust functionality at this point).
I really like applications like this that perform a task that is easy for coders but hopelesly complex for non-coders. I hope they give the site a redesign to allow the underlying application to shine, and I’m looking forward to future product releases. To see more on Wyaworks, check out Phil Sim’s Squash blog.
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