New Google+ Features Target Businesses

In an effort to boost adoption of its Google+ social network, Google this week announced a slew of new features aimed at enticing business customers to use the service and "go Google."

Citing the success other Web-based Google Apps like Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Drive have found amongst employers and their workers, Google Apps Product Management Director Clay Bavor detailed a slew of new Google+ features for businesses in an official Google Enterprise blog post.

"Like Google Apps, we think Google+ can help colleagues collaborate more easily and get things done ' and get to know each other along the way," wrote Bavor.  

These new features include Gmail-integrated videoconferencing involving Google Docs and Google Calendar (turning Google "hangouts" into business meetings) as well as enabling private, intra-office Google+ posts. (Think Google's version of Yammer, aka the Facebook for the workplace.) The clever thing here is that these "restricted posts" can't be reshared outside the organization. There are also new administrative controls to ensure that only the right people have access to.  

Google has already been testing these new features with a couple of businesses, including Kaplan Test Prep and Banshee Wines. The new features are available for free until 2014, but the company has not announced what the eventual pricing will be. Businesses already have to be signed up for the Google Apps business suite in order to use the new features.

Google says it plans to roll out more business features for Google+, "including a mobile version of Google+ for enterprise users and more administrative controls." The idea, apparently, is to encourage companies to "Go Google" and run their businesses in the cloud. Google+ hasn't been able to significantly challenge Facebook in the consumer social networking space, but the enterprise market is much more wide open. 

6 Ways To Win Every Startup Competition You Enter

OK. That's an exaggeration. Odds are you can't win every startup competition you enter. But you could win 92.59%. Candace Klein did. Klein is the founder and CEO of a new peer-to-peer lending platform called SoMoLend and she's won 25 of the 27 startup competitions she's (That's a winning percentage of 92.59% - do the math). We asked her how she did it.

Get A Mentor

Most startup competitions offer entrants the chance to connect with a mentor. Take it, says Klein, who has signed up for a mentor at every competition she's won.

'We've had media mentors who have gotten us press. I had one mentor who helped us negotiate a term sheet. Anyone entering a business plan competition should sign up for the mentorship. It's a huge mistake not to.'

Best of all, mentors are often on the competition's panel of judges. So even if you don't take home prize money, you will benefit from the free advice.

Keep It Simple

It's easy to be complicated - to show up at your presentation and regurgitate the technical details at the heart of your innovation. That will not sway judges and investors.

'Even if you have a complicated concept, you should make it understandable,' Klein says. 'You get engineers and mathematicians who are starting companies and they get so bogged down in details they don't do a good job of explaining what the business does. Make it simple, make it so a third-grader can understand.'

Pack Your Bags

Klein has entered and won competitions from Xavier University to the University of Dayton, where she took five of the five awards on offer. On May 10 she won best of show at FinovateSpring and the week before finished first at Business Insider's Startup 2012.

'The downside of participating in all these competitions is that it's a tax on your time,' she says. 'You have to be there in person. We drove to St. Louis six times for the Olin Cup competition at Washington University. We did win it but we had to be there on six different occasions.'

Be Yourself

You're not Mark Cuban. Don't try to be. When you present at a startup competition, just be yourself, Klein says.

'If you're a funny person, be funny on stage. If you're a storyteller, tell stories. If you're a sweet person, be sweet. The judges want to believe in the jockey. The horse itself may be a concept they like or don't like. They want the jockey. I know I raised money from people who liked me and not just my idea. They want to see you're poised and confident and quick on your feet.'

Klein is certainly confident. At 31, she's won $500,000 dollars in prizes and raised over $1 million in angel and seed funding. She was born to a teenage mother, the oldest of five kids, and her father left when she was 5. She has four college degrees and has had ovarian cancer twice. (It's now in remission.)

Enter Plenty Of Competitions

She recommends that every startup enter at least five competitions. Even if you don't win, you'll learn how to pitch. 'The reason I do all this is it gives me great practice for when I go in front of investors. It is intimidating and stressful but that's a good thing. The second benefit is most of the judges at these competitions are also investors, people who are looking for deal flow.'

But Avoid Those Without Prize Money

Obviously, Klein has entered far more than five competitions. But there are those she avoids: the ones that don't offer prize money. She won't sign up for any competitions that doesn't promise at least $10,000 in prizes. And while she's pocketed her share of cash, she's won a lot of services as well, including six months' free office space in New York and legal help from three different firms.

'I don't know if winning all these competitions will translate into a successful business. We're still a startup. But what I will say is that I can articulate what my business does to anyone. I can sell the vision.'

Klein recently launched her own startup competition, SoMoLaunch. First prize is $5,000 and consulting from Klein. She's taking applications at SoMoLend.com until Sept. 30.

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Study Tells Why We Can't Resist Facebook Games

Revenue from social networking games is expected to top $4.5 billion this year, up from $3.2 billion in 2011, and it looks like online-game sales could surpass retail sales as soon as next year. A Chinese study tries to figure out why these games are the fastest growing segment of the $66 billion video-game industry.

The researchers suggest that, unlike other online games, those built directly into Facebook and other social networks are more attractive to casual players.

The study was conducted by Kuo-Hsiang Chen, Kai-Shuan Shen and Min-Yuan Ma of National Cheng Kung University in China and accepted for publication by the peer-reviewed academic journal Internet Research this spring.

The authors interviewed 11 gaming and social media experts and surveyed 321 video gamers and found three main reasons why games on social networks are appealing:

• The games are easy and convenient to play.
• They are friendly and lively.
• They offer social interaction, unlike most traditional computer games. 

In many cases, a player on a social network is trying to kill a few minutes, and social-network-based games don't require a significant time commitment to play or have complex rules like other online and video games.

In fact, social-network gamers use Farmville, Mafia Wars and Zynga Poker in the way that an earlier generation of people turned to solitaire in Windows.

Chethan Ramachandran, co-founder and CEO of gaming-analytics company Playnomics, said he generally agreed with the study, but thought it underemphasized the fact that social-network games are just plain attracting new players.

'Ease of access has translated into several new demographic groups playing games consistently," said Ramachandran. Most notably woman in the Midwest playing resource-management-style games like Farmville.'

Bonnie Ho, an analyst at Inside Network, which provides news, data and analysis on gaming, social networks and mobile apps, also points to how social games spread.

The best games spread virally, but social-game makers build heavy-handed marketing tactics directly into their products.

Facebook members may complain about all the Farmville status updates and other enticements in their feed, Ho says, but that strategy is vital to game success.

'Attitudes from social gamers towards this type of game design is fairly negative. But these mechanics are effective at driving virality as well as monetization,' Ho said. 'As long as social gamers respond and convert in the way social-game designers want them to, social-gaming companies will continue to use them.'

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New Tech Incubator Focuses on Car-Based Apps

Tech entrepreneur Jim Disanto sees the automobile as the next great platform for connectivity. 'There are a more than a billion cars in the world,' he said. 'Every automotive OEM and Tier 1 supplier will tell you that within three years, every car will need connected systems, or you're not going to be able to sell it.' That, Disanto believes, will spawn a new generation of app developers offering Internet-enabled enhancements to the driving experience.

However, as large as that opportunity is, the obstacles facing entrepreneurs wanting to develop apps for cars are bigger still.

It's the chasm between the opportunity and its realization that led Disanto to start what he believes is the first Silicon Valley incubator to specifically focus on connected car technology. Disanto first caught a glimpse of the opportunity for web-enabled cars soon after selling a previous company, KonaWare to a China's Yamei Electronics in 2008. KonaWare provided remote logistics to transportation companies, but the wave of smart phone applications had not yet reached critical mass.

Four years later, everybody and their mother have a smart phone. We all step into our cars, and wonder why we can't bring those apps along for the ride. 'A new generation of car buyers aren't interested in the mechanics of the car. They are much more interested in the electronic stuff onboard,' Disanto said. 'Before, the car was a transportation system. Now, it's an extension of your digital life.'

Disanto's incubator, Transportation Technology Ventures, consists of two partners, six advisors, and an office in Palo Alto. The group, which serves as an angel investor fund, is now 'circling up entrepreneurs in the space,' said Disanto.

But those fledgling entrepreneurs face the following serious obstacles.

Nobody Knows Which Apps Make The Most Sense

Sure, you want dashboard navigation integrated with things like Yelp or Open Table. Or you want to listen to Internet radio, like Pandora and Spotify. But beyond that, it's a mystery as to which apps will become popular, and what will even make sense while driving.

The grand vision is to eventually have hundreds or even thousands of downloadable car-related apps. But at this stage, the only ones out there are carried over from the mobile phone, rather than specifically created for an automotive environment.

No Centralized App Store

There are about 20 major automotive companies selling vehicles in the United States, and around 70 around the world, according to Disanto. Because each car company has to worry about potential lawsuits from a rogue app, or one that distracts too much. So each OEM will want to test and bless every app, and control its own app store where drivers will download right to the car.

Apple or Google app stores probably don't make sense, unless you can easily elevate the car-related apps above the clutter. Expect confusion when there are as many app stores as there are models on the road.

Lack Of Standards And Qualified Developers

The automotive industry has not yet established app standards for hardware, software, interfaces, and communications protocols. Who wants to spend countless hours and dollars developing a car-based app, when you don't know if it will meet a standard that hasn't been finalized yet'or even discussed?

The Department of Transportation will throw out its own roadblocks. A game app for a smart phone is child's play, compared to developing functionality that has to interact with a car's computer network, widely divergent dashboard configurations, touch screen interaction, steering wheel controls, and potential voice recognition and heads-up displays projected on to the windshield.

And we're not even talking about vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to-road communications that's right around the corner. These technologies are not taught in most computer science classes.

All of these complications add up to time, money, and headaches. And it creates a scenario where innovation is stifled because the best ideas never get off the ground. But this won't stop enterprising tech innovators from coming up with ideas, and seeking money and logistics to support them.

'There's a massive gap between the seed stage of a new company focusing on transportation, and the institutional financing route,' said Disanto. 'A lot of things need to get done in the gap.' Disanto intends to fill that gap.

Grooveshark Makes Up With Google - Is It Too Little Too Late?

After a 16-month ban, controversial music streaming service Grooveshark is back on Google's Android platform. The shift represents a change of luck for the beleaguered company, who eagerly announced the news via email last night. Are things finally looking up for Grooveshark, or has the streaming music market moved on without it? 

The company apparently managed to convince Google that any piracy being committed in its name was done via third-party "rogue apps," which let users do less legally defensible thing like actually download the streaming tracks. Grooveshark says it worked with Google have such apps removed.

It's an interesting move for Google to make, since the search giant has been working to ingratiate itself iwth content owners, even going so far as to factor  copyright complaints into its search algorithms.

But Grooveshark still faces a decidedly uphill battle for longterm viability, at least in its current form. For one thing, it's being sued by all four major music labels in the U.S., each one claiming that Grooveshark encourages copyright infringement. Even though users can't download music directly from Grooveshark (without third party hacks, apps or plugins), the labels say that the site's model of allowing people to upload their collections and allow others to stream them violates copyright law. Grooveshark is also accused of actively encouraging users to upload infringing content, a charge the company denies. It was these copyright concerns that led both Google and Apple to pull the plug on the service's mobile apps.

Meanwhile, label-embraced streaming services like Rdio and Spotify are growing in popularity by the week. Those services have issues of their own (queasy indie artists and debates about royalty payouts), but they stand on firm legal ground and enjoy tight integrations with Facebook, which puts their products in front of millions of eyeballs. Even if it survives litigation unscathed, Grooveshark faces an increasingly competitive marketplace for streaming music.

"At the end of the day we are trying to build a business that gets the consumers to pay for music and not only expand the revenue pie but optimize the cost side of the label equation," Grooveshark PR Director Danika Azzarelli told ReadWriteWeb. "Getting the majority of the recorded music business to see the execution of our vision is one of our biggest challenges."

Then there's the issue of its exclusion from the biggest smartphone platforms in the world. Google booted the app from Android in April of last year, following in the footsteps of Apple, who yanked it from the official iOS App Store two summers ago (it's still available to jailbreakers). Grooveshark even saw its official Facebook page briefly deactivated due to a copyright-related takedown notice, although it was quickly restored.

To cope with its app store bans, Grooveshark developed its own in-browser Web app using HTML5. As Facebook's recent reversal on the HTML5 showed, the technology is not quite flawless yet. But for smartphone users addicted to Grooveshark's brand of all-you-can-stream music, the mobile-friendly design is a pretty good compromise in the absence of native apps. 

Now that Grooveshark is back on Android, the company is planning to revisit the issue with Apple, which pulled the app in response to copyright complaints made by Universal Music Group. There's no timeline on that yet, but users can expect an update on that front "very soon," Azzarelli said.

VMworld Hints At Post-Windows World

Windows' position within the business marketplace is shifting. Witness this year's VMworld conference in San Francisco. VMworld is the virtualization Mecca -- and this year's show could herald a new era for VMware competitor Microsoft: the post-Windows era.

News from a virtualization conference might not seem too relevant to Windows, but VMware's announcement Tuesday of its new Horizon Suite makes a lot of difference. The suite, available in beta in the fourth quarter, pulls together several of VMware's multi-platform management tools.

This is VMware committing to heterogeneous platforms, and that's a pretty big deal.

'For nearly 30 years, Windows has been the dominant platform in the workplace,' explained Phil Montgomery, senior director of Product Management, Desktop Products at VMware. Now, he added, it's Windows, Macs, iPads, and Android devices with which an IT manager has to contend.

The Horizon Suite promises to manage files, data and privileges across multiple platforms.

'It's not necessarily about just mobile devices,' Montgomery said. 'Mobile's just one part of a much bigger multi-device workspace.'

Confronted with so many new and varied devices, managers can enact prohibitive policies, work with mobile-device management systems (which are slightly less restrictive), or just open the gates with a bring-your-own-device strategy.

He said one of VMware's clients, a major college, was to deploy VMware View, a virtual desktop interface that enables employees to log into a completely controlled desktop environment over a network.

When VMware asked what hardware the 10,000-seat deployment would be supporting, the college's IT managers said it would be on the students' own machines ' all of them. The college took bring-your-own to the extreme.

Bring-your-own 'is the direction that IT is going,' Montgomery said. If that is the future, unified management platforms will be must-haves as all-Windows environments become less common, and perhaps more rare.

Facebook's Latest App-Permissions Change Could Land It In German Court

Facebook has changed the way it seeks permission to share users' personal information with third-party apps and games, a move that could land the social network in a European court. A German consumer advocacy group is threatening to sue the social network unless it gives users a clear choice on whether they agree to share information.

Why Privacy Advocates Are Angry 

What has provoked the Federation of German Consumer Organizations
 is Facebook's decision to drop the 'Allow' and 'Don't Allow' buttons used in choosing whether to share personal information with a game or app. Rather than offer the choice in a no-nonsense permissions page, Facebook now shows in the App Center a page with colorful images and a single button that reads, 'Play Game.' Under the button is the list in gray font, which could make it seem less important than text in bolder type.

Avi Charkham, co-founder of MyPermissions, lists five design elements on Facebook's new page that he claims play down the fact that in choosing to play a game, people are giving up lots of information. To see exactly what's being shared with the app developer, users have to roll over a question mark that then shows they are giving up their name, friends list, email, user ID, networks and 'any other information you made public.'

Getting such information to advertisers is the core of Facebook's business model - which naturally leads to pressure to push the envelope on privacy. 'Facebook will push the concept of consent to the breaking point,' said David Jacobs, consumer protection fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Has Facebook Crossed The U.S. Line?

To the Federation of German Consumer Organizations, Facebook crossed the line with its latest site change. In the U.S., though, that line is blurry. Under a recent Federal Trade Commission order, Facebook is required to first obtain 'affirmative, express consent' from a user before sharing information with a third party. In addition, the company has to 'clearly and prominently disclose' the information shared.

Facebook did not respond to a request for comment. Presumably, it believes that by agreeing to play a game, users are also agreeing to share personal data. Also, rolling over a question mark for details could technically satisfy the disclosure requirement. 'Having the user click to use the app probably counts as affirmative consent,' Jacobs said. 'But the App Center disclosures might not be clear and prominent.'

Pressure On Privacy Won't Stop 

Whether or not the recent changes meet U.S. or German requirements, it's unlikely the company will stop looking for ways to mine the wealth of information it collects from provide. In a recent interview, Facebook engineer Andrew Bosworth, whose mission is to find ways to increase ad dollars from the company's mobile app, said he is exploring ways to use a smartphone's audio sensor to trigger relevant ads. For example, if you're at a Bruce Springsteen concert, then you might be in the mood for buying the artist's latest album.

The site is also investigating the money-making possibilities of sending ads based on a user's place and time. 'Maybe you're walking past somewhere we know you'll like and it tells you there's a deal you can get,' Bosworth told Technology Review, published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 'Ads don't have to be a distraction.'

Facebook's Balancing Act 

Like other Internet companies, Facebook is fishing for profits in the ocean of user information it gathers. But Facebook is unique in that it has to balance selling the information people think they are sharing only with friends while also respecting their privacy. That's a high-wire act that's likely to require constant adjustments to avoid a disastrous fall.

Why Job-Hopping Is Essential For Startups

A lot of people in Silicon Valley are down on job-hoppers these days. They're flaky, they're bad employees, they steal all the Sharpies when they leave, blah, blah, blah. But it turns out that all that job-hopping is an important part of what makes the Valley so special. 

Everyone loves a good game of musical chairs. The tune kicks on, everyone jumps up and runs in a circle laughing and the party is good. That's Silicon Valley over the past few years. A lot of people whirling around and having a grand old time. But what would happen if the music started and nobody got up to play? What if companies want to hire but all the workers stay firmly seated in their current positions?

The truth is that Silicon Valley startups depend on job-hoppers to fill their open positions - and a lot of them would struggle if the job-hoppers stopped hopping.

Job Hopping Makes Silicon Valley Hum

'That's why employers populate Silicon Valley, because they have access to great talent,' said Kathryn Shaw, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, who researches ways that firms attract top talent in knowledge industries. 'They want people to be relatively mobile, because when they have a need for a particular skill, they want people to be available.'

Job-hopping means startups have an easier time finding a match for their needs. If job-hopping ceased, Silicon Valley would lose a lot of its appeal as a location, Shaw said. 'You need job-hopping to continually update the matching process between employer and employee. That's why we have Silicon Valley. Otherwise people would be more scattered.'

So job-hoppers are a vital commodity for tech companies. But what about the other side of the chip? Conventional wisdom among startups workers is: move around as much as you can and you'll benefit from ever-increasing compensation as firms seek to attract your talents.

Surprise: Job Hoppers Make Less Cash

In fact, that's not true. In her research, Shaw has discovered that people who stay longer at one company get paid more. A few years ago she did a study of 50,000 Silicon Valley software employees and found that those with at least five years' experience at the same employer typically earned annual raises of 8%, compared to 5% for those with a history of job-hopping. She also found that employees who stay in place longer are more productive and creative. (Perhaps because they don't waste so much time in orientation sessions.)

Shaw's data included stock options vested as they were realized. She drew her data from the state of California, not survey forms.

'To constantly hop between jobs to try to chase the greatest pay is not advisable,' she said. 'If you take someone who has high income right now and look at the sources of that income, what they did to achieve that high income, how they did it was staying with one or two employers, not by hopping [among] employers.'

The Future Of Job Hopping

So will startup workers keep on job-hopping? Culture is the key to the decision-making process. When workers see a culture in which every employee at Instagram gets filthy rich overnight, it's only natural for them to decide to chase the next Instagram. When they look around and see their friends jumping from one startup to another for more stock options and cooler rooftop parties, it's easy for them to do the same.

But what happens if the bubble pops and everybody sobers up and admits the reality revealed in research by people like Shaw? it's likely there will be less mobility in Silicon Valley. Exactly how much job-hopping continues could hold long-term implications for companies big and small - not to mention their employees.

IBM, anyone?

Image courtesy of Shutterstock.

Apple Wants Injunction Against 8 Samsung Phones

Apple has requested an injuction against the sale of eight Samsung devices. The move follows its patent-infringement victory over Samsung.

According to The Verge, Apple is requesting injunctions against sales of eight Samsung devicess (see the court document here). Apple is going after some of Samsung's most popular 2011 products. 

Apple's list includes iterations of the Galaxy S II, which was widely considered to be the best Android smartphone of 2011. The S II came in a variety of flavors as Samsung tweaked the device for U.S. mobile carriers. 

According to The Verge, the list includes:

• Galaxy S 4G
• Galaxy S2 (AT&T)
• Galaxy S2 (Skyrocket)
• Galaxy S2 (T-Mobile)
• Galaxy S2 Epic 4G
• Galaxy S Showcase
• Droid Charge
• Galaxy Prevail

In the just-adjourned patent-infringement suit, 25 Samsung devices were found to infringe on one or more of Apple's patents. Many of those devices are older or generate marginal sales (such as the original Galaxy S, Fascinate and Captivate). But, the S II is a popular phone globally. In June, Samsung said it had sold 28 million S II's worldwide. (Note: Samsung says sales but it is actually units shipped.) Overall, 50 million Galaxy S and S II units had been sold as of June. 

See: A Brief History of the Samsung Galaxy

Apple's patent suit did not challenge Samsung products launched after the case was filed, models including the Galaxy S III, Galaxy Note and others. Apple's main target with the injunction is the profitable long tail of Samsung's mobile-product line. Every Galaxy S II sold is one fewer iPhone sold. 

Driven by breakthrough thinking and a wide-open sense of what's possible, Alcatel-Lucent delivers the world's most advanced technologies to companies all across the globe. Our driving motivation is to realize the potential of the connected world - by providing the technologies needed to turn networks into engines of sustainable economic growth, social development and opportunity. We provide a comprehensive suite of software solutions and services offerings designed specifically to meet the needs and demands of communication network operators and strategic industries. These solutions allow our customers to optimize network costs and quickly deploy innovative, value added products and services for their subscribers that increase loyalty and create new revenue streams. To learn more about how we're turning the network into a platform, visit http://www2.alcatel-lucent.com/hln/network_evolution.php

Should Your Company Just Say "No" To Dropbox?

As the business world increasingly turns to mobile devices and cloud-based file-sharing services to store or collaborate on important documents, the amount of information that's falling into the wrong hands keeps climbing.

The numbers tell the tale: 90% of organizations had a leak of sensitive or confidential information over the past year. That's one of the take-aways from a new study from security analysts at the Ponemon Insitute.

Dropbox Is Useful - And That's The Problem

Services like Dropbox, Bitcasa YouSendIt and others are useful and efficient ways to get documents and files from one worker to another, especially in this age of mobile devices and distributed workforces. Plus, they're cheap (or free) and easy for individual workers or small departments to set up.

But increasing use of these tools in the workplace, even for legitimate business reasons such as collaboration, puts a lot of private information at risk. And companies are starting to notice.

How bad is the situation? According to the Ponemon study, 60% of organizations have employees who frequently or very frequently put confidential files on services like Dropbox without permission. And just about that same percentage (59%) reported that what controls they do have in place were inefffective at managing who has access to sensitive files.

Not Inherently Insecure, But...

It's not that these consumer cloud services are inherently insecure. But as Wired's Mat Honan learned a few weeks ago, nearly any service can be socially hacked (though proper precautions can help.

The problem is that mobile and remote workers want to have access to their files where and when they need them. But the idea of just having critical company information out in a public cloud makes a lot of companies nervous. Risks of data loss and falling out of compliance are too high to ignore.

'Consumer file-sharing services are effective, for consumers, but they lack the security, reliability and granular permission settings that business requires,' said Andrew Dixon, Sr., Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Igloo Software, a cloud-based business collaboration company. 'And that means they can quickly become just another way for information to fall into silos or slip into the wrong hands.'

IBM Bans Dropbox And Its Ilk

Some companies are already reacting with strong policies regulating use of such file-sharing services. IBM, for instance, has banned employee access to services like Dropbox and iCloud. Even the iPhone's Siri is turned off for fear that sensitive information could be discovered from search query data stored at Apple.

This might be going too far for many companies. Especially if they don't provide some sort of alternative. IBM has its own custom-built solution for file sharing, but many smaller operations can't afford such measures.

A Business-to-Business Opportunity

Not surprisingly, new ventures are stepping to try and fill the void. The solution is use a collaborative platform with secure file sharing capabilities, according to Yorgen Edholm, CEO of Accellion, which markest just such a product.

'Organizations need to give their employees a secure way of sharing files or every mobile device will continue to be a potential sieve for confidential data,' Edholm wrote in a recent article on Forbes, 'Before deploying a file-sharing solution, organizations should educate themselves about the risks of various file-sharing technologies and the requirements for enterprise-class mobile security.'

In other words, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. By implementing a broader solution for collaboration that has easy-to-use and secure file sharing features, IT managers can reduce workers' temptation to venture out on a consumer service.

Make a collaborative platform safe, make it easy and your sensitive documents might just stay where they belong.

 

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Does Your Startup Need A Technical Co-Founder?

In today's startup landscape, practically everything can be outsourced. But when it comes to core technical skills, more and more entrepreneurs are opting to partner with technical co-founders rather than hiring someone for an in-house position. So how do you decide what's right for your new company?

To find the best way to integrate core technical skills into a start up, we asked eight successful young entrepreneurs from the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) whether startups need tech-oriented founders.

1. How Innovative Is Your Technology?

If you want to start a tech company, you must understand the space. You don't need to be a developer, but at minimum you need to have the background to know what traits a superstar developer has. It also depends on how innovative your technology is - if you're using existing platforms and delivery methods, you can definitely hire out a great team to run your company. But if the tech itself is what you're innovating, you need to understand what is happening inside your business. - Laura Roeder, LKR

2. You Need To Know Tech Basics

I really believe that what's most important for a founder is the ability to have a vision for the company, make sales and hire well. That being said, when you're in the startup phase, you need to be able to get stuff done ' and that means you need to at least have some basic tech skills. It will also help you to hire better, and understand what's possible and what's not possible in terms of technology. - Nathalie Lussier, Nathalie Lussier Media

3. Tech Knowledge Is Cost-Effective

I may be biased - as I am a graphic designer with programming, Web and marketing skills - but to me it is highly important that a founder have some tech skills. We use technology in every business, from online sales and shipping to mobile Web. Being able to change your website on the fly based off a new analytic has been key in growing our online business. Understanding how to harness social media and being up to speed with the newest trending platforms allows us to be everywhere. This being done in-house means more revenue stays with us, compared to hiring a firm or paying a employee who requires training and possible review process, slowing down the speed of business and still adding a layer of time effort to the management team. - Jerry Piscitelli, Portopong LLC

4. You Need Basics, Hire For The Rest 

There's a big difference between not knowing intense coding and not knowing anything at all about the space. For a founder to be able to navigate the industry, it's important that he/she knows enough about trends in the industry and has a basic understanding of tech. One of the worst things I've seen are very non-technical VC's teaming up and opening tech companies. Sometimes their idea for a company has already been done and not worked, but the founders don't know that because they haven't been in the field long enough. - Caitlin McCabe, Real Bullets Branding

5. Tech Skills Help, But Aren't Necessary

As an Internet entrepreneur, tech skills are certainly helpful (at the very least so you know when you're paying a fair fee when outsourcing), but they're most definitely not necessary. I started TheBeautyBean.com barely knowing what WordPress was, let alone how to run a website. Sure, I've made mistakes (likely more with regard to technology than a founder with tech skills would have), but founders can't be good at everything ' and I make fewer mistakes in other areas. All entrepreneurs have to outsource parts of their businesses in order to use their skills most effectively. For me, that means outsourcing tech. And so far it's worked quite well. Knowing your weaknesses is far more essential than not having any. - Alexis Wolfer, The Beauty Bean

6. Buy It, Share It, Or Be It 

If you are unable to build your own tech product, you only have three options: 1. Pay a company to build your product, which could cost $80,000 to $100,000 for an initial app and website, and even more as you add features and improve your product in response to customer feedback. 2. Give up equity in your company. Software programmers are in extremely high demand - you're competing with Facebook, Google and thousands of other startups. Very early-stage startups may have to give up as much as 30% of their company to bring on a rockstar programmer. 3. Learn to build the product yourself. This is the most time-consuming option, but is often the best. By doing so, you could save capital and equity, and at the very least, adopt the skill set to better oversee options #1 and #2. - Doug Bend, Bend Law Group, PC

7. Communication Skills Are Even More Important

I was a sociology major in college. When I started my social network, I didn't have any tech skills. What I did have, however, was a lot of passion for my idea and the ability to communicate the vision that I wanted to create. What I've found is that you don't necessarily need to have tech skill yourself, but you do need to be able to clearly communicate your vision to others, to excite them to join you in your journey. - Eric Bahn, Beat The GMAT

8. Develop Tech Skills As You Grow

I've learned most of my tech skills on the job. Currently, I'm teaching myself to program in Python. I've been in business for years and I'm always picking up a new skill set. You don't need too much in the way of tech skills right out of the gate. You'll learn a lot out of sheer self-defense as you go along, especially if you need to judge the work of technical hires or sell a technical product. That said, being an entrepreneur is easier if you've got at least some of the skills that you'll need to execute your idea in place before you start. - Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world's most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC recently published #FixYoungAmerica: How to Rebuild Our Economy and Put Young Americans Back to Work (for Good), a book of 30+ proven solutions to help end youth unemployment.

Futurist's Cheat Sheet: Human Augmentation

As long as there have been humans, there have been dreams of super humans. Eyeglasses started sharpening vision in the 1200s, pacemakers have been implanted to extend lifespans since the late 1950s, and the first strength-amplifying robotic exoskeletons shipped earlier this year. But those innovations are only the beginning. With advances in technology, the ability to vastly enhance human capabilities is right around the corner. Here is an overview of current efforts and their potential. (The "Futurist's Cheatsheet" series surveys technologies on the horizon: their promise, how likely they are, and when they might become part of our daily lives. This article is Part 1.)

What Is It?

Human augmentation is the ability to supplement human brains and bodies with technological improvements. The notion has been part of science fiction lore for decades. Ever hear a sports announcer say, 'that guy has a cannon for an arm!' Well, what if he had an actual cannon for an arm? RoboCop, Mr. Gadget, Star Wars (what is Darth Vader but an augmented human?), and the Bourne Identity all offer visions of how human augmentation could one day be achieved. 

But it's already well underway. With the buzz around Google Glasses and Oscar 'Blade Runner' Pistorius' speedy artificial legs, the notion of creating a better human body through machinery and computers is the subject of much theory and research these days. 

How It Works

There are many paths to human-machine augmentation: wearable technology such as Google Glasses, sensor implants, using DNA and chemical processes to enhance brain function and muscle functions, nanorobotics, performance enhancing surgery. Some theorists, notably Ray Kurzweil, believe the brain will be encoded as software someday, allowing it to be reprogrammed, enhanced by peripheral technology, tethered to a robotic body, and immortal. (Until the next backward-incompatible system update.)

Potential Impact

The idea is to enhance the human notion of 'normal.' At the same time, human augmentation can be used to repair parts of the body, such as cochlear implants for the hard of hearing. Laser eye surgery is a good example of both reparative and enhancive human augmentation, as it could be used to help the sight of the visually impaired or enhance the vision of people with normal eyesight. Many professional athletes, such as baseball players, get laser surgery. 

Research firm Gartner notes that there will soon be a market for human augmentation to create 'superhuman' characteristics, such as a suit that improves endurance or adds extra senses to the body. There have also been recent advances in implantable technology that can monitor health-related data, such as heart rate or insulin level. 

The Challenge

Miniaturization and advances in wireless technology enable many sensor-based technologies to be implanted into human bodies now. Moreover, the combination of computer and genetic technology could enable people to retrofit themselves with superhuman characteristics going forward. 

In the short term, researchers are working with the tools already available. Advances in mobile technology and wireless data transmission along with sensor enhancements are creating a new field in the biomedical industry. As scientists continue to crack the human genome, DNA augmentation will become increasingly powerful and controversial. One day, doctors may be able to completely rebuild body parts with computer and mechanical engineering and have them look and function just like normal flesh and bone.

In the long term, society will be challenged to cope with superior human beings. The notion of a mechanically-enhanced human has already entered the thoughts of lawmakers. Several U.S. states have passed laws banning employers requiring employees to implant computer chips in their bodies. As human enhancement becomes more common in the decades and centuries to come, there is a real danger of discrimination between the augmented versus the standard human.

When Will It Be Ready?

Depends on the type of capability you are looking for. Strength-enhancing exoskeleton suits have been sold to the military and rehab hospitals. Google Glasses should be released as a consumer product in 2013 or so. Implantable, sensor-based technologies are just starting to hit the market. This is one field to keep an eye on as technology and biology merge to create the true ubermench that Nietzsche surely knew was coming.

Further Information

Technology Review: In Pursuit of Human Augmentation

Wired: Be More Than You Can Be

Bloomberg: Advances in Human Augmentation: We Can Rebuild Him

Association for Computing Machinery's Augmented Human

 

Inside The Mysterious World Of Online Reputation Management

In the Whack-a-Mole game of online reputation management, it's not so much about completely erasing all the bad things that are being said about you on the Internet: it's about replacing the stuff you don't want people to see with things that you do want them to notice.

The Internet has a memory, and anything of note that happens to anyone is bound to find its way onto sites where everyone can see who you are and what you've been doing with yourself. All of it: the good, the bad and especially the really ugly.

It could be incidents that at the time, seemed funny or cool, but upon later examination turn out to a source of embarrassment. It could be the indiscretion at that beach party back in '05, or something more serious, like a minor drug possession charge when you were a kid. Or maybe your online persona is out of date - not reflecting a mid-life career change, for example.

Companies have similar issues, where their online presence can be marred by misdeeds or other issues, or could even be 'hijacked' by outsiders or competitors with different agendas.

You might think that there's little you or anyone else can do about how you're perceived online - that you're stuck with being defined by your unflattering court records or your ex-husband's bitter complaints about your personality flaws.

But there's a growing cottage industry of reputation management firms devoted to 'fixing' these kinds of problems. But how exactly do they work?

The Reputation Management Process

According to Reputation Changer, the typical reputation management story goes something like this:

1. The client - an individual or a company - has a problem with negative search engine listings and social media content
2. The client engages a reputation management firm to address the problem
3. The firm posts a series of positive content about the client is placed on the Internet.
4. This new, positive, content, if delivered properly, begins to push down the negative content off the top pages of search engine results
5. Eventually, the negative listings no longer show up on the first page of search results, which represents a much better situation for the client.

How much better? An AOL study revealed that on Google, page one search results received 89.7% of all click-through traffic. The next page of results drives just 4.4% of traffic.

Based on the case studies displayed by Reputation Manager, the positive content is delivered through the use of press releases that emphasize the aspects the client would rather see on the Internet, as well as the creation of new websites with the client's information prominently displayed, even within the URL.

A names-withheld case study from Reputation Changer offers a typical scenario: When an auto repair shop started getting hammered with negative reviews created by a local competitor, the service worked to emphasize the positive reviews the repair shop did receive, and made sure more content was posted to the Internet that highlighted the better qualities of the shop.

More Than Glorified SEO?

So is reputation management basically nothing more than glorified search engine optimization (SEO)? For Reputation.com's CEO and Founder Michael Fertik, it's using lot of knowledge and a lot of technology to craft a message that the client would rather see out on the Internet.

Just how much of what Reputation.com does is social engineering vs. technological engineering? Fertik says its a mix of the two, but there's more technology than you would think.

The firm's clients usually have an idea how they'd like to be viewed online, Fertik said. Working with that goal, Reputation.com applies the client's data to its database of social expectations and data outlets that most closely relate to the client's needs.

This is a massive dataset, Fertik explained, and his team of PhDs and engineers use big-data analytical tools to help find the best way to distribute content that more closely reflects what the client wants to project. 'Our technology stack helps us to be more scalable,' Fertik said. 

Reputation.com's tools help publish content on the appropriate outlets and monitor that its effectiveness in changing Google results and chatter on social media channels. The company also takes an active role in identifying factual errors in online content and working to correct those errors.

Context Is Key

Fertik didn't go into his company's secret sauce, naturally, but a lot of what his company's dataset manages for clients is the context of the information posted and how it affects reputation and sentiment. What works in the communications sector might not work so well in the medical sector. And context can be very different, he added, in Korea vs. the U.S.

Then there's temporal context: information about the Olympics today has a different impact than when the London Olympics were actually taking place a couple of weeks ago. Reputation.com's dataset algorithms will even track the mood of a monitored writer, determining clarity, sarcasm, or irony, just to name a few emotions. Determining the mood context of a writer can help determine if the content will work for or against the client's reputation. "Context is a lifetime project," Fertik said. "This is something that takes years to build."

Another example of how this dataset works is the sub-system devised to score the writing styles of individuals on the Internet who have publicly revealed their Myers-Briggs personality ratings. This score, based on grammar, linguistic skills and temperament, can match up individuals writing about the client to writers with the same Myers-Briggs rating in order to help determine the content writer's intent and motivation.

Fertik explained that his company sees two primary types of clients: those who need to deal with an emergency, such as some sort of attack on one's reputation; and those who want to cultivate a different image for himself. Initially, the base clientele for Reputation.com were the professionals'doctors, lawyers, business owners - but it is now seeing more people and businesses facing life-altering situations. These moments can be good or bad, but they are usually something that needs to be managed for the long term.

Reputation Management Critics

Ironically, the reputation management industry has a reputation problem of its ownw: Thor Halvorssen, president of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation, takes a dim view of reputation management firms that work with oppressive governments in Africa.

'PR agents do not create 'economic opportunities' ' they alter reality so that certain deals and foreign aid can flow faster and in larger quantities ' all the while being rewarded handsomely,' Halvorssen wrote in a recent BBC publication focusing on Africa.

Clearly aware of the issue, Fertik claimed his company doesn't work with those trying to hide criminal activities. 'There are certain kinds of people we won't help,' he said.

Managing Your Own Online Reputation

Like many other things on the Internet, online reputation management is moving towards self-service solutions. Last week, Reputation Changer announced dashboard software designed to let its users monitor their own reputations. Other reputation management companies have similar tools in place or in the works. 

Here are three key tips for managing your own reputation online:

1. Accentuate the Positive. If there are reviews about you or your company online, be sure to highlight the better ones, either on your website or on your Facebook or Twitter account. If there are real negative reviews out there, by all means address them with a sincere conversation and apology.

2. Get the Word Out. You can manage your online reputation by getting your own content out there, either on a blog or strong use of social media platforms. Be real, be yourself and be present.

3. Keep Talking to Clients. Whether online or off, keep the lines of communication open with your customers. Listen to their concerns and you may be able head off small problems before they explode online.

Managing your reputation online is an ongoing process. Everyone makes mistakes, and there will always be troublemakers. But consistently putting forth content that tells your side of the story is essential to helping you and your company weather trouble spots and keep your reputations as positive as possible.

 

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

7 Pearls Of Startup Wisdom From Investors and Innovators Who Matter

From the art of the pitch to a smooth sale and everything in between, these seven tenets come straight from the annals of successful startups. 

Last week, Vancouver's GROW 2012 conference convened some all-stars of the startup scene, stirring together corporate leads from Indiegogo, Eventbrite, Zite, Paypal, Cheezburger Inc. and more with infamous super angel Dave McClure and a smattering of high profile venture capitalists from firms like Bessemer and the Founders Fund. We crunched it all up into seven bits of bite-sized startup wisdom that bear repeating:

1. Don't Be F*cking Boring

Pitch with emotion. This is obvious, but you'd be surprised how often it's ignored. If you don't believe in your product, how can you possibly expect an investor or reporter to care? In the sage, profanity-laced words of super angel Dave McClure, "You should totally be dancing your f*cking balls off."

2. Building A Great Product Is Not. Good. Enough.

Know your business model from the get-go. Too many startups create a great product and try to figure out a revenue model later, says Urban Airship's Scott Kveton. That is putting the cart before the horse - even if it doesn't seem like it.

3. Fake It 'Til You Make It

If you say you built it, they will come. When Box COO Dan Levin took the stage, he drove home the power of turning perception into reality with some striking anecdotes. In its earlier days, Box asserted that it belonged in the same league as Microsoft's SharePoint, the market leader. The media picked it up as a David vs. Goliath story, and sure enough, it became true. Create the perception that you're a market leader too - but don't forget to deliver on the promise.

4. Dont Be Afraid To Be Ridiculous

At Grow 2012, everyone was buzzing about an unlikely Facebook game in which you battle roosters against one another (presumably to the death). The creator of the game - called Kawk Fighter - pranced around the entire conference in rooster red pants, spouting phallocentric double entendres. He barely had to explain his product to make it to the final round of Grow's Startup Smackdown competition. He didn't drum up buzz because his product raised a huge round of capital, or had a business model that was particularly lucid - it just made for a good (if easy) joke. Obnoxious, sure. Memorable? Definitely. Wear the proverbial red pants if you have to.

Grow 2012 attendees listen intently to a keynote with Vancouver Harbour at their backs

5. Get It All On Paper

Don't be naive. Unless you want the bottom to drop out, get it all in writing. Zite CEO Mark Johnson (who recently sold the company to CNN for more than $20 million) stressed that when it comes to acquisitions, you don't want to be empty handed with a bunch of unfulfilled promises if management changes or if there's less follow-through than you'd expected.

6. Hire Hackers, Hustlers And Hipsters

Focus on building a team, when it comes to skills and personalities. McClure suggests bringing together three main types: hackers, hustlers and hipsters. The hackers build the product, the hustlers sell it, and the hipsters make the design look good. But beyond their immediate skillsets, the personalities that converge early on will set the tone for your company's climate, especially if it explodes.

7. Look Beyond The Valley

If the conference proved anything, it was that Silicon Valley doesn't have the market cornered on innovation or investing. Among Portland, Seattle and Vancouver, the Pacific Northwest corridor is bustling with ideas, investors and fledgling companies well beyond the solipsistic forcefield of technology's startup-glutted beating heart. 

Analysts Reveal Exactly How Much Windows 8 Will Boost Flagging PC Sales

Analysts at IDC said Friday that the launch of Windows 8 in October will be directly responsible for boosting the flat U.S. PC market into a period of moderate growth next year. And they were surprisingly specific about how big a bump Microsoft's new operation system will deliver.

David Daoud, research director of personal computing at IDC, said the firm is attributing 5 percentage points of U.S. PC market unit growth to Windows 8.

From Flat To Up

'In other words, for 2013, the market otherwise would have been flat,' Daoud told ReadWriteWeb. 'But for Windows 8, we boost it by about 5%, so that gives it 5% growth. That's essentially the premium given to Windows 8.'

On Thursday, IDC reported that PC growth was slowing in advance of Windows 8's launch in late October. Just 367 million PCs will ship into the market this year, up less than 1% from 2011 and marking the second consecutive year of growth below 2%, IDC said.

Despite the advent of Windows 8, IDC also reduced its worldwide PC forecast for the next few years. IDC now estimates that that worldwide PC shipment growth will average 7.1% from 2013-2016, down from the 8.4% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) previously forecast for 2012-2016. IDC did not formally break out numbers for individual regions.

Next year, however, worldwide PC sales in units should jump from 0.9% this year to 6.5%, with growth accelerating to 7.0% and 7.5% in 2014 and 2015, respectively. Much of that demand will come from emerging markets, whose residents are still buying their first PCs, as well as purchasing Windows 8 replacements for those they already own.

Part of IDC's adjusted forecast can be explained by its definition of a PC: IDC still defines a PC as a box with an associated keyboard, whether it be a notebook or desktop computer. As more consumers choose tablets, which typically lack those discrete keyboards, the number of 'PCs' sold decreases. Daoud also said that IDC factored in macroeconomic conditions; although U.S. GDP growth is expected to be about 2.0% next year, Europe is struggling and the Asia-Pacific region is 'cooling off,' he said.

Windows 8 Driving PC Differentiation

One way that PC makers plan to cope is by using Windows 8 to drive new kinds of PCs. The Windows 8 PC designs Daoud has seen show that PC makers plan to differentiate their products. 'So we do think there is the opportunity for growth,' he said.

Still, Daoud wasn't prepared to cast Windows 8 as an unmitigated success, citing increased uncertainty 'Windows 8 will have positive repercussions, without any doubt,' Daoud said. 'That's why we're witnessing consumers waiting for that operating system to hit the market.

'But there's a lot of unanswered questions: the price point, the design, how consumers will receive the product,' Daoud added. 'So it's also a wild card' We're certainly moving to a crossroads in the industry: we're moving to a new OS, new user interface, user behavior, new usage model, new software delivered through the app store, which is a new delivery mechanism. So we're seeing a totally new type of environment, meaning that consumers will need to be educated about this.'

PC Makers Getting Hammered

Given the anticipation and uncertainty surrounding Windows 8, the slowdown in PC shipments before the launch of the new operating system should have come as no surprise. But PC makers were apparently caught unprepared.

In a conference call with analysts this week, Hewlett Packard chief executive Meg Whitman acknowledged that the number of PCs sold through the channel 'softened' or slowed during the second half of July, driving the amount of stock in retailers' hands 'higher than our acceptable ranges,' Whitman said. All told, the company's commercial revenue slipped 9% and consumer revenue declined 12% year-over-year, HP said.

Dell's results were even worse: consumer revenue slipped 22%, and a combination of weak consumer environment and macroeconomic concerns prompted Dell to cut its revenue forecast by 2% to 5%.

'In the quarter, we saw the channel drawing down inventory in anticipation of the Windows 8 launch,' Brian Gladden, Dell's chief financial officer, reported. Dell's strategy of maximising profits at all levels of the business failed to pay off, as the only growth the company saw was in the low-value segments, Gladden reported; high-end customers, who undoubtedly knew Windows 8 was coming, held off purchasing PCs.

Arrow image courtesy of Shutterstock.

YouTube's "Gangnam Style" Viral Hit Portends Kpop Explosion

South Korean popster PSY's 'Gangnam Style' is an absurdist tour de force of a four minute viral video. It's also an object lesson in how YouTube is driving global culture. Now that kpop (short for South Korean pop music) has broken through to the mainstream, get ready for a whole lot more of it.   

Uploaded to YouTube on July 15th, Gangnam Style, by 34-year-old singer Park Jae-Sang,  has racked up 52.8 million views, collecting at least 2 million views every day since August 1. The video occupies the #2 spot on YouTube's yearly chart, second to the infamous agit-prop film Kony 2012. 

Western press mentions of "Gangnam Style' abound, from France and Canada. The Atlantic 'dissected' all the 'subversive meanings' behind the song and video this week, and the Washington Post noted the 'invisible horse dance' craze sweeping the media. Predominantly male (and not kpop friendly) redditors went gaga for Gangnam Style with the video sitting on the front page of the social news site on July 30. Gangnam Style even beat Justin Bieber as the most watched video on iTunes.

No other kpop song has seen this kind of global reception. Even Stephen Colbert's fake feud with Rain in 2007 and 2008 did not bring Western success to the Kpop star. The song's words are very South Korean specific, referring to a ritzy neighborhood in the capital city Seoul.  The song wasn't made for a global audience, and its reach has startled even PSY.

How did this happen? The answer isn't just that the music video is ridiculous. Kpop has been creeping into the mainstream international market for years. YouTube has been instrumental in exposing the music to the global audience.

Because of the large fan base in Asia, any new music video uploaded to YouTube enjoys at least half a day on the video-sharing site's front page due to high view counts. Today's example is kpop girl group KARA's latest video, sitting at the number 3 spot on YouTube's music charts with 2.3 million views, right under 'Call me Maybe' (which is under, you guessed it, "Gangnam Style").  

Not only do kpoppers use YouTube to stay on top of new hits (as it is nearly impossible to get the music outside of South Korea), kpoppers also make fan videos discussing the over-the-top fashion sense of kpop bands, unboxing videos of elaborate kpop merchandise, and English translation videos. 

The global success of 'Gangnam Style' might very well change the musical, and cultural, landscape, especially if the Justin Bieber collaboration pans out. 

Etsy Bans Body-Part Sales. Where Do I Find Them Now?

It's right there in fine print: "No human remains or body parts (excluding hair and teeth)."

This month the community sale site Etsy changed its sales policy and banned human skulls, bones, skeletons, organs and bodily fluids. That means, right up until an August 8 policy change, you could have bought and sold all that and more on the site.

Looks like people have to look elsewhere for blood and bones. 

But fret not, fetishists. Hair and teeth are still acceptable trade goods on Etsy. Why, exactly? 

In a recent blog post, Etsy cited a desire to maintain a safe community. Etsy wouldn't comment for this story, but the posts says the change was made to reflect the perspective of Etsy's shoppers and the company itself. Hmm. Does this mean people weren't buying the human skulls anymore, or maybe there was some kind of legal crackdown we're not aware of. In addition to the body part ban, the site also just cracked down on the sale of crack pipes - good job! Maybe the site's management felt like it was time to cleanse body and soul?

Etsy's staff is contacting violators and explaining the rule changes in an effort to shut down human body part traffickers. The site is also asking members to contact Etsy if they find banned items (which also include firearms and smoking products.)

All the same, Etsy isn't going after purveyors of animal parts, such as a preserved doe deer heart on sale for $75. Yup, a deer heart in a jar for less than a hundred bucks. What a steal!

Cartoon: Mars Needs Megapixels!

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Why Starting A Non-Profit To Create Social Change Is A Bad Idea

Combine their penchant for creating social change with their innate entrepreneurial inclinations, and it you might expect a wave of Gen Y-owned non-profits to launch in the next few years. That might still happen, but the latest research suggests that non-profits may not actually be the best way to drive social change.

Much has been made of Gen Y's dedication to social change. A study from Walden University and Harris Interactive, released last year showed an astounding 81% of Millennials had 'donated money, goods or services' to promote positive social change. The 'Social Change Impact Report' also indicated that '70% of Gen Y adults have educated others about a cause or issue, and 68% have participated in volunteer work or service.'

This apparent desire to change the world has carried over into Gen Y's career plans as well. Steve King and Carolyn Ockels of Emergent Research make the preliminary argument citing among other studies a Pew Research report that says 22% of Gen Yers believe 'having a job/career that benefits society is 'one of the most important things in their lives.'' Just 14% of adults over age 35 believe that.

So bring on the non-profits, right?

Not so fast

For Profits Can Do More Good

It turns out that starting a non-profit might not be the best way to change the world. Geri Stengel, the founder and president of Ventureneer, a company that helps educate socially-responsible small business owners and social entrepreneurs, says there are several options startup entrepreneurs should consider before launching an organization dedicated to social change.

She suggests your 'first choice when starting a company to create a social impact should be a for-profit business,' because she says, the 'revenue streams are more reliable, and there are more dollars available (both debt and equity) for starting and growing.'

Hal Shelton, a small business mentor who sits on the board of directors of The SCORE Association, agrees that starting a nonprofit is not your best choice. 'True, one of the few advantages of starting a nonprofit,' he says, 'is that you're eligible to receive grant money. And contributions to your nonprofit are tax-deductible for donors.' But non-profit founders still have to aggressively raise those funds.

Non-Profits Are Harder To Start, Sustain

Shelton adds that it's a bit more cumbersome to start a non-profit. You have to establish a formal board. Paid employees (including founders) are generally not eligible to sit on that board, which could limiting your independence. In addition, he says, every state has different not-for-profit regulations, so entrepreneurs need to check with their state regulators before they even get started.

Stengel says there are better options that allow you to launch a for-profit business, yet still enable you to effect social change. One way is to create a B Corporation (an option I wrote about several months ago in ReadWriteweb). Or you could become a L3C, or 'low-profit' corporation. The state of Vermont, the first state to enact this type of company, explains that an L3C is 'a cross between a non-profit organization and a for-profit corporation. The entity is designated as low-profit with charitable or educational goals.' So far only a handful of states have passed L3C legislation, though other states are considering introducing it.

4 Good Ideas

Both Shelton and Stengel suggest starting a for-profit company, and then use the profits to establish a foundation to do your good works. Or, Stengel suggests, you can implement these ideas:

' Give a percentage of profits [or revenues]to an existing non-profit that supports causes important to you.

' Match employee donations to non-profits of their choice.

' Source ethical suppliers.

' Minimize harm to the environment.

If you still insist on starting a non-profit, Stengel says 'make sure you know where your long-term reliable revenue streams are going to come from.' She advises founders to 'Look at comparable non-profits to determine how they generate money. Does the government pay them fees for service? Does their money come from foundations or individuals? If individuals, are they small donors or major donors? Or do they generate revenue from cause marketing or licensing?'

The key is that entrepreneurs can still effect social change whether they operate a for-profit or non-profit business. As Stengel says, your company can 'make a social impact by using an innovative approach to solving a social or environmental problem, and using business discipline to ensure your business thrives, so you can develop sustainable solutions for the problem.'

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

New Reality: No One Wants A Cheap PC Anymore

For years, Windows PC makers won customers by selling low-priced systems that were good enough for most computing needs. That business model no longer works, and finding a new one is going to be painful.

That suffering has already begun. This week, Hewlett-Packard and Dell cut this year's profit forecasts, partly due to low PC demand. Acer, the world's third largest PC maker, has also lowered its sales expectations for the rest of the year.

Very little is expected to change when Windows 8 PCs hit the market in the fall. Even the most important upgrade in years to Microsoft's nearly 30-year-old operating system has failed to excite people who in the past would have been heading to retailers in droves to buy the latest PCs during the holiday shopping season. IDC projects less than a 1% increase in PC sales this year. 'That's a pretty weak performance, even compared with the 2011 anemic growth of 1.7%,' IDC researcher David Daoud said.

The Industry's Pain

What's hurting PC makers is dramatic change led by Apple. In 2008, the Mac maker introduced the highly successful MacBook Air, which set new standards for laptop portability. With Windows 8, PC makers have the OS they need to compete on features. What they don't have are the cheap components to lure customers with a much lower price.

To compete with the Air, PC makers' ultrabooks will need the same expensive items that make the systems roughly three quarters of an inch thick and less than three pounds. Add a high-definition display or touch screen and the licensing fees for Windows and you have a price tag of around $1,000. While for Apple customers that would seem reasonable, for PC buyers, that's out of the ballpark. Windows 7 laptops started at less than $300.

'We are likely going to see a reduced gap between the price of PCs and Mac products,' Daoud said.

And prices are not expected to drop soon. Because of high demand, the cost of the more expensive components is projected to go down slowly. 'There's nothing happening right now that's going to cause the cost to drop drastically,' Kevin Keller, analyst for iSuppli, said.

Other Options

Of course, ultrabooks won't be the only option. People could turn to larger laptops, but they will seem ancient by comparison. As a result, many people may decide to leave the laptop world for good in favor of tablets, another market Apple started and dominates.

Again, PC makers won't have any price advantage in competing with the iPad. Apple has set the standard for touch screen quality and performance and matching those will cost money. It's unlikely, the lowest priced Windows 8 tablet, which will run on an ARM processor, will be much less than the lowest priced iPad at $499.

IDC estimates that the materials alone to build the cheapest Windows 8 tablet will cost $300. When you add manufacturing, marketing and sales costs, 'a $400 unsubsidized Windows 8 on ARM (tablet) is probably the low end of the range,' Daoud said.

Change Is Here

Change in the hardware people use for everyday computing was inevitable, given advancements in technology that made components thinner, lighter and more powerful. As a seller of premium-priced products, Apple could afford to use those components early, setting the bar for the rest of the industry.

To compete, PC makers will have to replace their pitch from being good enough at a lower price to as good or better for the same price.

Google's Plan to Steal the Election Audience

NBC, CBS, ABC: Watch out, Google has you in its sights. If the company has its way, viewers looking to follow the U.S. elections won't tune in to network and cable news outlets - they'll log on to YouTube.

To achieve this, the company launched the YouTube Election Hub, a multi-sourced video channel designed to aggregate coverage and commentary from across media outlets old and new. Alongside clips from the likes of ABC News, Al Jazeera, Wall Street Journal and BuzzFeed is a curated feed of videos from other sources. YouTube will also be streaming debates and other important election-related events live from this landing page. 

In 2008, Net-centric viewers could stream the presidential debates from a laptop hooked up to one's TV, but not in a particularly elegant fashion. This year, debates and other key events will all be housed on YouTube's new politics channel, which can be accessed from the browser, AirPlayed to an Apple TV or viewed on any of the native YouTube apps for Boxee, Apple TV or Roku. For cord-cutting Americans who just jumped through hoops to watch the Summer Olympics, the election season should be relatively painless. 

But Google's plan promises to be much more than that: It may be a glimpse of the post-television future. Funneling everything onto one page potentially will give viewers a 360-degree view of November's elections, candidates and issues. By collecting a range of sources and perspectives in a single hub on a very popular site, YouTube will break down the institutional and ideological barriers have have historically existed between outlets. 

It sounds Quixotic, but if anyone can beat the networks at their own game, it's the Google/YouTube colossus. By virtue of its size and relationships with content owners, YouTube stands uniquely positioned to make a major impact. Television is still very much dominant, to be sure. But YouTube has been aggressively repositioning itself to compete more directly with traditional TV, and it has already eclipsed radio as a source of free music among U.S. teens. Depending on how viewers react, the elections may end up being a referendum not only on the state of union, but on the future of television.

Why Apple's iCloud Doesn't Just Work

'It just works,' the Apple marketing slogan goes. But for the syncing features in iCloud, that promise has proven too good to be true. On Thursday, the first iOS app launched that eschews iCloud in favor of a new third-party service called Simperium. If you use an iPhone or iPad, you'll want to know why.

iCloud is not a discrete thing. It's actually an ad hoc bundle of different syncing technologies, and they're just buggy enough to be unsettling to users. We take Apple at its word that 'it just works,' but every so often, an app that syncs with iCloud takes five or ten painful seconds to open. This only has to happen once in a hundred times to shake our faith in the system.

Our instinct is to blame the app when it's actually iCloud's fault. Greg Pierce, the developer at Agile Tortoise released Drafts 2.0 and Drafts for iPad Thursday, and he decided to avoid this problem.

Drafts (which I love) is the quickest way to jot anything down on the iPhone, and now it syncs to the iPad version. But rather than take the heat for iCloud's problems, Pierce decided to make Drafts the first app to sync via third-party provider Simperium.

Building Drafts 2.0

'Drafts is designed around speed and simplicity,' Pierce says, 'so I knew the right sync solution would have to be fast and simple.'

Dropbox is a proven option for syncing whole documents, but that's not how Drafts works. Drafts saves all your notes in one database, which makes the app faster, but Dropbox sync would be much slower than a solution that can just sync little changes to the one big database.

So Pierce initially considered iCloud's Core Data syncing, which is designed for exactly this. 'Many of the initial setup steps were deceptively easy,' Pierce says, 'but as I dug deeper into providing a complete implementation, it became clear to me that I was going to find many rabbit to chase.'

The first problem was speed, which is pretty much the selling point for Drafts. iCloud sometimes slows an app's launch to a crawl, a deal-breaker for Drafts.

The other problem Pierce found with iCloud was more philosophical. iCloud syncing is restricted to apps sold within Apple's App Stores. As of now, there's no way for Web-based apps to sync with iCloud, nor for Mac apps sold outside the App Store or on other platforms. While Pierce has no specific plans for Drafts to sync more widely, he wanted to give himself the flexibility to build it later.

So when you first launch Drafts 2.0 on your phone or Drafts on your iPad, you'll be prompted to sign up for Simperium if you want syncing features. All you need is an email address and a password, and you're likely to see Simperium in more apps in the near future.

What The Heck Is A Simperium?

Simperium is actually the in-house syncing service for the beloved note-taking app Simplenote, but the company has decided to abstract it and make it available for other developers to implement.

'You can think of Simperium as a post-PC circulatory system for data,' co-founder Mike Johnson says. It's built to speak to all kinds of devices and services and be easy to implement. 'The result is that developers can use Simperium like a Lego brick,' snapping together different applications and devices with data that fits, allowing 'pretty much any feature where data needs to move quickly and reliably from one place to another.'

Why Is Sync So Hard?

The short answer for why syncing doesn't 'just work' is that conflicts in the data always pop up. 'Conflicts happen a lot more often than many developers realize, especially at scale,' Johnson says. 'The symptoms are duplications, corruption, or in the worst case, outright data loss, all of which are unacceptable.'

iCloud handles the headache of resolving conflicts, but it does so at great cost, such as preventing the app from loading while it sorts things out. 'It pains us to see apps, some of them very prominent, with bad syncing, or no offline support, or interfaces that block the user while waiting for network data,' says Johnson. 'These are inexcusable user experience blunders.'

Sync was one of Pierce's most requested features for Drafts after it launched on the iPhone. It sure is convenient for our data to sync everywhere. But the implementation of that magic is much more delicate than meets the eye. Pierce found a solution that works, and if you check out the new Drafts, it surely won't be the last time an app asks you to log into Simperium.

Top 10 Windows 8 Features #4: Windows To Go

The basic premise of Windows To Go sounds like it escaped from an alternate universe: Now you can take Windows home with you from work, and run it on your living room PC. "That's crazy," you might respond, "it's already on my living room PC!" But this is Windows 8, which is so, so different that the ability to create take-home, bootable OS instances on a thumb drive actually makes sense in a number of important ways. Ironically, though, Windows To Go isn't really about Windows 8 at all. It's about the benefits of getting Windows into a space that used to be too tight for it to fit - and also an experimental, bottom-up approach to implementing tighter network security.

Easily the biggest threat to businesses' network security has come from their employees' ability to connect their PCs to corporate networks, both directly and remotely. Most unwanted activity derives from the outside, which is partly why typical security models adopt the 'fortress mentality' ­­' a scheme which is largely incompatible with openness of cloud computing. Similarly, the trend toward Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) to work was intended to save on capital expenditures, but somne companies end up spending the savings on network maintenance: remediating all the malware and other unwanted content that employees bring with them.

So Windows To Go is an experiment in what Microsoft calls an 'alternative workplace scenario.'

The Open, Closed System

Here's the basic premise: Businesses need to be able to manage the workspaces on which their applications are being used, but employees may not want their personal computers managed for them by their bosses. Borrowing an idea from virtualization, Windows To Go creates an environment that can be managed separately from the personal environment, letting employees lend businesses the use of their processors without signing over the deed to their computers. Employees use the business workspace while the Windows To Go thumb drive is plugged in and operating. Once it's removed, the computer resumes being personal again.

The Windows To Go thumb drive is something admins will have to prepare themselves; it's not a device you buy from Microsoft. Back in 2006, Microsoft premiered a concept called Windows Image Manager (WIM) which is a system for preparing installations of Windows that already include both the policies and the software (including third-party) that businesses prescribe, so that it can be painted onto multiple users' systems in one step like wallpaper.  With the new Windows Server 2013, admins can use this same WIM to paint Windows 8 Enterprise images onto thumb drives. So a Windows To Go image is a copy of Windows 8 that's licensed to the business, not the employee. The worker can use it at work or at home, and it contains either the applications or access to the applications that the admin directly manages. And even if a worker does take her own PC to work with her, she can use the Windows To Go image during work hours separately from the (presumably licensed) operating system installed on that PC.

To pull this off, Windows To Go makes some very significant tradeoffs, some of which will render the whole idea a non-starter for some businesses and users.  The biggest sacrifice is that the user's local hard disk is inaccessible from the Windows To Go environment. If there is any single way to absolutely ensure that the Windows To Go workspace doesn't get infected by downloaded malware, it's completely annihilating access to the local hard drive.

So where are you supposed to store documents, you may ask? A PC with Windows To Go can access the storage devices of systems in its local network.  Microsoft provided me with a Windows To Go drive using the last Windows 8 Release Preview for my own experiments. I have several PCs in my peer-to-peer office network, some with Windows 7, others with the Windows 8 Release to Manufactuing (RTM) version. Ironically, I had no trouble sharing documents with the Windows 7-based machines; the Windows 8 devices had more difficulty, in some cases with the whole notion of password-protected sharing.

In a test involving three PCs (one Windows 7, one Windows 8 RTM with OS provided by Microsoft, and the third Windows To Go), the Windows To Go machine appeared to kick the Windows 8 RTM machine out of the homegroup (more about that concept in a moment). While the Windows To Go machine was booted, the homegroup password created earlier by the Windows 7 machine was considered invalid. But once the Windows To Go machine was powered off, the same password was accepted.

It's enough that admins have to deal with networking issues between their own PCs, without having to introduce a truckload of new issues with their colleagues' PCs. Besides all that, assuming networking connections are not a problem, not everyone will have the luxury of more than one PC at home.

Given all that, the preferred response to the question of where you store your documents is, 'In the cloud' ' specifically Microsoft's own SkyDrive. After all, Microsoft has always tried to leverage its strength in one platform to promote another. 

An Interesting Experiment

Windows To Go is most definitely an experiment (though not a terribly costly one for Microsoft) to see whether businesses have any influence over what operating system gets used at home. If admins like the idea of a controllable business environment that isn't a virtual machine, that's administrable through System Center or other common tools, and that's guaranteed to be disconnected from the key delivery source for malware in businesses, they might just get employees to swallow it like candy. In turn, those employees get the new Windows 8 and probably Office 2013, plus a channel for syncing documents.

Here is where the enticement may start to fall apart, for both parties: The reason a consumer would want to try Windows 8 is to play with all its cool features, including the Windows RT apps installable from the new Windows Store. But such apps would have to be installed on the Windows To Go device, not on the PC. It's doubtful that admins would permit users to do this.

For companies, the whole point of administrator control of business workspaces is to have control over the Desktop. Administering the Desktop, by definition, is taken to mean keeping it stable. But the Windows 8 Start Screen, which sublimates the old Desktop, is as unstable as NBC's fall schedule. By design, it's a bubbling cauldron of change, intended more to be cultivated like a garden than administered like a bookcase. Typical company manuals instructions like, 'To launch the application, double-click on the icon in the second column of the fourth row,' are pointless for the Start Screen, whose tiles for Office apps can literally float off the screen if the user bookmarks enough pages in Internet Explorer.

Security & Reliability Are Still Issues

Believe it or not, there's also the issue of security ­­' which was supposedly the whole point of Windows To Go's existence. Because the operating system is stored on a thumb drive ' an easily copyable unit of memory ' it cannot be considered a trusted device by any security system that relies on a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) for authentication.  

For some business networks, that's the ballgame; if you can't log on from a system that doesn't have TPM, forget it. What's more, Microsoft's own BitLocker ' which encrypts and protects content stored on thumb drives and other removable storage ­­' prefers the presence of a TPM for authenticating its encryption keys. You can go without it, but in a TPM's absence, Windows To Go's alternative is the use of something called a 'secure password,' which these days ranks up there with 'safe school' and 'affordable health insurance.'

The final leg to stand on is reliability, and Windows To Go teeters here as well. A big part of Windows 8's value proposition is synchronization, which takes place through what's now called the Microsoft Account. When you log onto a new Windows 8 machine using an existing Account, many of the settings from the previous machine (your avatar, choice of colors, Desktop wallpaper among them) carry over. For syncing to happen reliably, each Windows 8 machine must be registered with Microsoft as 'trusted.'

That's a tall order for a device that isn't really a machine at all. If you tell Microsoft to 'trust' a Windows To Go instance as though it were a machine, and anyone were to copy that thumb drive, suddenly you've cloned the machine. Which one does Microsoft trust now? What's the value of a trusted machine if any one of them may not actually be a machine, or that one could be more original than the other?

The quandary doesn't end there. After having Microsoft officially 'trust' the 'machine' it loaned me, I had difficulties getting Windows To Go join the homegroup. On two occasions, after I shut down the laptop running Windows To Go, the fact that the machine with my Account wasn't in a homegroup synced with the Windows 8 RTM tablet that was, subsequently kicked it out of the homegroup and forced me to retrain it to recognize my own network.  

You have to ask whose genius idea was it to synchronize a setting stating explicitly the lack of connectivity, over a machine that must obviously be connected in order to sync in the first place?

Why Windows To Go Matters

It's the type of ridiculousness - with a capital 'M' - that I've gotten all too used to over the decades. And yet I rank Windows To Go #4 on my Top 10 list of Windows 8 features. Am I an 'oxy-moron?'

Here's my thinking: One of Microsoft's distinguishing features has been that it rarely quits anything after the first try. There is clearly something to the idea of giving employees a safe workspace they can hold in their hands. Windows 7 tried separating workspaces virtually with the homegroup concept ' a way of separating home policies from work policies, so that unwanted content in one does not infect the other. Homegroups typically work well (at least in Windows 7-only scenarios), but because homegroups and workgroups share local hard drives, the concept is not perfect. And delivering virtual workspaces as virtual machines doesn't change this fact.

If you could run an entire workspace without the need of the local hard drive, and without impacting performance, you could improve business network security tremendously. This is why Windows To Go is such a big deal: It could lead, eventually, to huge savings for business. User Account Control was a big deal for Vista too, and as you'll recall, Microsoft didn't get it right the first time or the second time. But the third time was the charm and I look forward to a similar progression for Windows To Go.

See All of the Windows Top 10 Windows 8 Features

No. 10: Refresh and Reset

No. 9: File History

No. 8: Storage Spaces

No. 7: Client-side Hyper-V

No. 6: Secure Boot

No. 5: Live Performance and Reliability Charts

 

 

Is Apple Supplier Foxconn Finally Giving Its Workers a Fair Shake?

Apple and its factory partner, Foxconn, have made great strides in bringing Foxconn's labor conditions into compliance with local laws, the Fair Labor Association said Tuesday. Not surprisingly, independent labor rights monitoring organizations remain skeptical that real progress has been made.

In a status report made public on Tuesday, the FLA reported that all of the 195 remedial actions that Foxconn had agreed to complete to come into compliance had been accomplished. More significantly, 89 action items were completed ahead of their deadlines, with another 76 due to be completed by the end of July 2013.

Not Really Made by Apple

Although products like the iPod and iPad bear Apple's logo, their assembly and production are carried out by a network of factories across Asia and Taiwan. There, wages are a fraction of that of the United States, and working conditions aren't as strictly regulated. But the cost savings are also passed along, resulting in higher profits for the manufacturer and lower price tags for consumers.

For several years, Apple has performed health and safety audits of those factories, provided reports of whether or not those suppliers conform to local labor laws - a practice that other companies do not emulate, at least publicly. Apple itself found that in many cases, suppliers failed to comply with Apple's own code of conduct: just 38% of its suppliers met Apple's mandated limits of 60 hours worked per week, for example.

In January, a firestorm of controversy erupted when The New York Times began publishing a series of investigative stories on working conditions within Foxconn, the largest supplier to Apple and many other top companies. Following that criticism about the working conditions at Foxconn, including conditions that led to an explosion at one facility, Apple agreed to allow the FLA to conduct a thorough investigation of those suppliers, beginning with three factories at Guanlan, Longhua, and Chengdou in China.

4 Areas for Improvement

The FLA identified four main categories of remedial actions that Foxconn needed to undertake:

1. Reducing working hours
2. Improving health and safety
3. Improving employee relations
4. Supplying overtime pay and necessary worker insurance.

In its report, the FLA said that Foxconn is moving ahead:

'Our verification shows that the necessary changes, including immediate health and safety measures, have been made. We are satisfied that Apple has done its due diligence thus far to hold Foxconn accountable for complying with the action plan, including the commitment to reform its internship program,' said Auret van Heerden, president and chief executive of the Fair Labor Association, in a statement. 'When we finished our initial investigation in March, Foxconn promised to address concerns with its internship program by ensuring that student interns do not work overtime, their work has a more direct connection to their field of study, and they understand that they are free to terminate the internship if and when they wish.'

FLA representatives did not return calls for comment.

Documents posted to the FLA website indicate that Foxconn addressed many of the required changes via new policies issued in May or June.

Doubts Remain

But Scott Nova, executive director of the Workers Rights Consortium, which monitors worker conditions in factories overseas, said that it is unlikely that Foxconn could have solved its institutional problems in so short a time.

'The FLA's position, as we understand it, is that it's fine for Foxconn to continue violating overtime labor laws if they promise to clean it up by some time next year,' Nova told ReadWriteWeb. 'And we don't think that's reasonable. Apple and Foxconn should obey the law, now.'

Nova also said that the reforms proposed by the FLA omit 'the long track record of harsh, psychologically abusive management practices at the factories. There are no meaningful recommendations in that regard, and very likely no progress.' Nova also said he also doubted that allowing the workers the freedom to associate, form worker groups or unions and collectively bargain would occur in any meaningful sense.

'It's hard not to be skeptical of a report that says that Foxconn has hit every single one of its commitments and done so ahead of schedule,' Nova said. 'That is a radical departure of a decade-long track record at Foxconn.'

Looking Beyond Foxconn

Just as important, these issue stretch far beyond Foxconn. In a report issued in late July, China Labor Watch claimed that labor violations are not only still rampant at Foxconn, but also at other companies in Apple's supply chain. That report specifically called out Ri Teng, a subsidiary of Pegatron, where an explosion injured several employees in December 2011.

On average, Ri Teng workers are on the job nearly 12 hours a day, compared to 10 hours a day at the Foxconn factory, the report found. The Ri Teng workers get only about one day of rest each month. There, the average hourly wage is 8.2 RMB or $1.30, China Labor Watch said, versus the average Foxconn hourly wage of 10.2 RMB or $1.62.

So while progress may be occuring, it's unlikely that the controversy will go away anytime soon.

 

Generic factory image courtesy of Shutterstock.