musi2k is back!

musi2k

March 9th, 2010

6:30pm – 9:00pm

169 11th Street

Having previously hosted Pandora’s Tim Westergren and SomaFM’s Rusty Hodge, musi2k now welcomes SoundCloud’s Henrik Lenberg and ArtistData’s Brenden Mulligan for a talk on how their websites have become foundations in the “new music economy” — an idea that first emerged in 2007, now being actualized and scaled thanks to services like SoundCloud and ArtistData.

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Microsoft launches private beta for free-to-play Age of Empires Online

Microsoft acknowledged the ongoing trend for massively multiplayer online game by launching a free-to-play version of Age of Empires.

There are many common points with the likes of FarmVille, CityVille, MafiaWars…:

  • “It looks more like a cartoon”
  • The game is free-to-play, but you can pay to add new game play and new experiences. “The real sales trick for Microsoft is to convert as many people to paid accounts as possible. Typically, only 3 to 5 percent of players will pay, but that generates enough revenue to make a lot of games profitable.”

There are some differences too:

  • The game is downloadable, which “means users must download it to their computers before they can play it.” Downloadable games offer a better graphics experience than browser game though.
  • “Age of Empires has sold more than 25 million copies in retail stores over the years.”

Source: GameBeat, Will Microsoft conquer free-to-play games with Age of Empires Online?

Everything you need to know about 2011 trends in the mobile market

A presentation published by VisionMobile aims at defining mobile megatrends for 2011.

The presentation shows how companies use open and closed strategies to foster their strategic goals:

  • While open source licenses are now standardized, they only represent the tip of the iceberg: what truly matters is governance.
  • As with Android and Webkit, many open licenses are used with very closed governance.
  • “Openness is used as a business strategy to commoditize product complements while protecting core assets”

Among the other interesting ideas:

  • Dell-ification of mobile is currently happening: “the mobile handset market is approaching PC-like commoditization”
  • There are three new roles for OEMs in the post-Android era: leaders (Apple), would-be innovators (Samsung) or assemblers (Dell, Acer)
  • For “old guard” OEMs, Android is only a short term life support, as they are constrained by their heavy cost structure (while Android phones mostly involve razor-thin margins)
  • On mobile, “software is a loss-leader, monetized by ads (Google), hardware (Apple), content (Amazon), services (RIM)”
  • Internet players are at top of the food chain and are becoming increasingly assertive: speed of innovation is not defined by hardware/networks companies (Nokia, Vodafone) anymore
  • App stores are not made to generate revenues, but to control
  • Google is threatened by web silos, app stores and micro-payments

The presentation concludes by analyzing the situation of mobile carriers, which are in an identity crisis, “with no innovation in their core business” during the last decade. It then tries to identify their true value:

  1. Leverage apps to drive core business, not generate revenues
  2. Divide and conquer among app stores
  3. Increase power over OEM suppliers
  4. Become the VISA of mobile
  5. Invest in retail differentiation
  6. Customer experience management
  7. Drive wholesale business beyond mobile
  8. Handset customization: focus on merchandising and addressbook

Source: VisionMobile, Mobile megatrends 2011

CoWorking Week In Downtown Jacksonville, Florida!

CoWork Jax – a coworking space based in downtown Jacksonville is having a “Coworking Week” all of next week from Feb. 28th – Mar. 4th, 2011 (9am – 4pm EST).

The event, made possible by Downtown Vision, Inc. (DVI), the Downtown Improvement District, and CoWork Jax and is hosted by AT&T Tower 301.

If you are a freelancer / Designer / Jack of all trades who work from home a lot and live in or around Jacksonville, Florida, do take advantage of this free all week event.

For details, see this post on downtownjacksonville.org and to register for the free event, visit the event page here.

cowork-jax-coworking-week-photo

Coworking Week In Jacksonville, Florida.

Written by

I am the editor-in-chief at oObly a tech blog based in San Francisco, California.

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Data is a currency via @radar

For Edd Dumbill, the trade in data is only in its infancy:

Since the advent of computers in enterprises, our interaction with business has caused us to leave a data imprint. In return for this data, we might get lower prices or some other service. The web has only accelerated this, primarily through advertising, and big data technologies are adding further fuel to this change.

Read full article on O’Reilly Radar

Do you need to differentiate and how?

April Dunford, an expert at marketing, explains how you should differentiate:

  • take your consumer’s perspective: “vendors often assume that customers are much more savvy about offerings on the market than they really are”
  • identify your true competitors: “for most startups “do nothing” is the toughest competition you will face”
  • don’t focus on features, you’d rather highlight value: “it’s the value that those features enable that’s important”

Sources:

How to Manage Your Board of Directors – SF Roundtable

February 24th
8:30am-10:30am
L’Atelier, Dogpatch District

Join us for the Founders Space San Francisco Roundtable, where founders gather around a table to share knowledge and work together to solve problems. To join a Roundtable, you must be a founder or C-level executive at a growth-oriented startup or emerging company. To register, click here.

The topic this time around is: How to Manage Your Board of Directors

Presenters: Tom Kellerman & Scott Karchmer of Morgan Lewis, Marc Galletti of Longitude Capital, and Co-founder & CEO Jad Dunning of DriverSide Inc.

Note: This is not a typical panel discussion–you are welcome and encouraged to participate and ask questions.

Join your peers and subject matter experts to discuss the burning issues facing your business today. Feel free to bring up issues beyond this topic-we’re here to share and help!

psst…the first 10 people to sign up through pariSoma will receive free tickets. Just email Peter Seidel at peter.seidel@waveplayllc.com with your name, company name, email address and mention this post on pariSoma!


Microsoft takes a further step towards a wider adoption of Kinect

Microsoft announced that it will release an SDK for its Kinect device this spring. This move will hasten the creation of an ecosystem and ultimately drive sales, as the iPhone and Android ecosystems have already shown.

Kinect, dubbed “fastest-selling consumer electronics device in history” by Microsoft CFO Peter Klein, is part of the Entertainment & Devices division which generated $3.7 for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 2010. EDD is the firm’s fastest growing business, up 55% from last year.

While it has already been hacked to run on other devices than the Xbox 360, Kinect is due to be compatible with PCs later this year, Steve Ballmer said.

Watch this TED video to preview what a game changer Kinect could be:

 

Sources:

See Google, Microsoft, and a $3 million data challenge at the Data 2.0 Conference



What do Twitter, Netflix and climate change all have in common? Their biggest problems are data problems. And we are turning to Data 2.0 for the answers.

The Data 2.0 Conference is a one-day conference on April 4, 2011, in San Francisco that answers the question: How can improved access to data impact your industry? The U.S. government is opening up its data; social networks are exposing their APIs; and data-as-a-service is a new and growing business model. How can you use this data to better target new customers? What are new business models for your data? Data 2.0 tackles the big questions about the growing importance of data in business.

Get 20% off your ticket with discount code “data2reader”


// What can I expect?

Speakers include Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of Palantir; Vivek Wadhwa, columnist for BusinessWeek and contributor to TechCrunch; Jay Adelson, CEO of SimpleGeo; Gil Elbaz, CEO of Factual; representatives from Google, Microsoft, and over 40 more.

The world’s largest data challenge, the $3 million Heritage Health Prize, will launch at the conference on April 4. Data analysts will compete to predict health outcomes using hospital data. This is the largest data challenge since the Netflix Prize.

Are you a data startup, entrepreneur or analyst? Apply here to participate in the Data 2.0 Pitch Day on April 2. Accepted applicants will get the opportunity to pitch to Silicon Valley investors and receive 75% off their Data 2.0 Conference ticket prices. Winners will pitch on-stage at the conference to over 800 decision-makers.


// What is Data 2.0?

Data 2.0 is about making online data more reusable. The new data economy requires us to rethink how we access data. ReadWriteWeb named SimpleGeo the Most Promising Company of 2011 because SimpleGeo data powers the new generation of location-based apps. Data 2.0 is about the “division of labor” of data, where many companies play varied roles in the supply chain of discovering, managing, distributing and licensing reusable data. Our prediction for 2011: the Internet will act more and more like your new database.


New pariSoma Partnership with: One Medical

pariSoma is pleased to announce our latest partnership with One Medical.

Not your typical doctor’s office: One Medical Group provides high-quality, convenient medical care centered on you and your needs. The New York Times recently profiled the membership-based primary care practice ($149/yr) which offers same-day appointments, longer office visits that start on time, email access to your doctor, and online appointment scheduling and prescription renewals. And bonus: One Medical accepts most major PPO and HMO insurance plans and offers competitive out-of-pocket pricing for those without insurance. With five convenient SF locations, they’ve got you covered.

Sign up online at onemedical.com and get 20% off the $149 annual membership fee for your first year*! This discount is only available to pariSoma members, so join us now to get access to this and many other great partnerships.

*Offer is good through 12/31/11. Valid for new One Medical members only.