Category: Web

Tim O’Reilly wonders if Microsoft is colluding against Google

Tim O’Reilly is sitting next to me. For the past hour he was typing furiously. So, I just visited his blog to read what he was writing.

He wrote, in a post titled OCA vs. Google Print Library Project?: “This PR positioning makes me think that the OCA, a worthwhile effort (to which O’Reilly has contributed content), is being hijacked by Yahoo! and Microsoft as a way of undermining Google.”

I leaned over and said “I wish we were that smart.” We both had a good laugh about that.

More on Picaboo

So, yesterday I visited Silicon Valley startup Picaboo. They are doing a photo sharing and book making service. Their first office is the famous office on University Ave where Google, PayPal, Logitech, and a few other famous companies started up.

They showed me their next version. It was most impressive. Fun, easy to use, graphic, creative.

One of the naysayers in my comments yesterday made the point that having a download and install app is “so yesterday.” Yeah, that certainly is a belief that’s very popular one here in Silicon Valley.

But, sorry, you simply can not do what they’ve done on the Web.

What I find interesting is that they do both an application for creating photo experiences, and they have a Web component for sharing those experiences.

That’s very powerful. Use the right tool for the job.

By the way, they are already heavily using Visual Studio 2005 (which isn’t even released yet). They said that’s their competitive advantage because they can add more features faster than their competition can.

For a Silicon Valley startup that’s very important. Why? Cause startups don’t have unlimited cash. They have a small window in which to get a product out or they go out of business and join the pile of many many Silicon Valley failures.

Trulia, real estate listing winning raves in Silicon Valley

The ScanR folks are raving about Trulia, which is a new Real Estate Search page. Very interesting. A couple of Stanford kids started it.

Speaking of which, in 10 minutes I’ll be in the office where Google, Logitech, and Paypal started their business lives. I’m meeting the current company: Picaboo (they do a peer-to-peer photo sharing application). Are they the next Google, or even Flickr? Well, we’re heading across University Ave. to get a look.

Ahh, tons of people are emailing me base.google.com (that’s a link to John Battelle’s blog, since I’m getting an error when I hit it). No, I still can not confirm, nor deny, where I’ll be the next two days. Let’s just say I’m not in Redmond anymore.

Yes, I still work at Microsoft and am still VERY excited about Microsoft’s future.

Cool cell phone apps coming soon

I’m sitting with Chris Dury, VP of marketing of ScanR. Really cool cell phone service. You take a picture of a whiteboard and it processes and and uploads and forwards the image. But a lot better cleaned up than if you were only moderately skilled with Photoshop. Same for business cards. The service runs on Windows Server 2003, they run on any phone, and have specialized apps for Windows Mobile phones. Coming soon, they are planning their coming out party for the CES show in Las Vegas in January.

They are thinking of other kinds of things you can do with cell phone cameras, too and talk about some of their ideas on their blog.

Zvents: interesting events and calendar site

I’m sitting here with the Zvents team. In a house on Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley. I love the smell of startups!

They have an interesting site that lets you find things to do. Right now it only works for the San Francisco Bay Area. They also have an interesting Web-based calendar where you can even keep track of your family and friends.

There’s so much to say. Run a lot by tags. Good search engine. Found things like air shows, wine crushing. More later, I’m late for my next meeting. Can they solve that? Heheh.