This week’s ReadWriteStart Weekly Wrapup is chock-full of stories this week, so lets not waste any time recapping the top posts of the last week of February. We’ve got tips for keeping out the trolls, some advice for naming your startup, best methods for weeding out programming applicants, and an example of how Google Buzz can be used by startups to engage users. Also, our Never Mind the Valley series is back in full swing this week with profiles of Washington D.C. and Chicago.

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Keeping Out the Trolls: Relevancy in User-Generated Content

In the summer of 2008, J.R. Johnson sold Virtual Tourist to Expedia for $85 million dollars. While Johnson seems like the type of laid back Los Angeles entrepreneur that would take some vacation time, his quest for relevancy had him launching a new community the following March. Lunch.com is Johnson’s attempt to cut through the noise that has proliferated since he first started in the user-generated-review space in 1999.

What’s In A Name? For Startups, It’s Crucial

If you’ve been following our Weekend Reading series on Fridays for the last few weeks, you’ve noticed that we’ve been discussing the importance of personal branding for entrepreneurs. But branding is not only an important facet for individuals; for startups, branding is an essential step toward building a successful business. Mint founder Aaron Patzer, who speaks Tuesday at the Future of Web Apps Conference in Miami, Florida, recently discussed with CNET’s Caroline McCarthy how he believes Mint’s branding helped it become a breakout success.

Hiring Programmers: Screening Out Liars and Duds

Every entrepreneur will tell you that recruiting the right candidate is important. While startups are constantly trying to find programmers that mesh well with their culture, team and work-style, one article suggests that companies still struggle finding candidates that know how to program at all. Jeff Atwood published a post this morning entitled, The Non-Programming Programmer with a stunning look at how many interviewees misrepresent their abilities.

Startups: Don’t Don’t Be Be Redundant Redundant On On Buzz Buzz

Tuesday night, ReadWriteWeb announced that we would be taking a new approach to how we use social media to communicate with our readers. Instead of blasting out automated content on Google Buzz as we do with our Twitter and Facebook accounts, we will be using Buzz to interact on a new level by discussing anything and everything in Buzz’s forum-esque threads. I described it last night in a Buzz comment as “a better version of forums meets a less frantic chat room,” and many positive comments seem to be welcoming this new form of engagement. This also got me thinking about how startups, small businesses and entrepreneurs can take advantage of Buzz.

Never Mind the Valley: Here’s Washington DC

The words “fat cats in Washington” have been uttered in every corner of the nation from Texas to the Bay, yet DC’s tech scene is anything but sluggish. Companies like AOL, Nextel, MCI and Uunet found early success in the region and since then, a slew of young entrepreneurs have emerged to follow suit. Some of the companies include LivingSocial, Clearspring, CareerBuilder, OPower and iPhone app development service PointAbout. ReadWriteWeb caught up with some of the industry’s movers and shakers to find out what the DC scene has to offer for entrepreneur

Never Mind the Valley: Here’s Chicago

Holding down the proverbial fort for the mid-west, Chicago, the Windy City, is the third largest city in the U.S. and the most populous city that doesn’t sit on an ocean coast. The city, which does, however, rest on the shore of Lake Michigan, is home to a unique culture of nearly 3 million people and countless numbers of Fortune 500 companies condensed into its 234 square miles of city. Though the city is often passed over for Silicon Valley and New York in terms of startup cultures, Chicago has a expanding repertoire of companies, entrepreneurs, investors and organizations helping put the city on the startup map.

Discuss

You know those time-lapse videos that compress days, weeks or years into minutes? The ones with flowers budding, blooming and then withering in seconds? Or late-1990s Silicon Valley startups getting venture capital, blowing it on espresso bathtubs and Dr. Pepper fountains, and vanishing into receivership?

I think Twitter may be the same thing, except for language. In spoken English, it can take decades – even centuries – for new words to emerge, become part of common parlance, and then fade into disuse.

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But on Twitter, hashtags can live that entire lifecycle in the course of a day or two. A news story breaks, and competing hashtags vie for dominance. Then a few influential folks adopt the same one. Suddenly the conversation coalesces around it, the term trends, the spammers start using it, and then the conversation peters out as we move on to the next topic.

Is that the pattern? And how closely does it map onto the ways that words and phrases earworm their way into spoken language?

Maybe some up-and-coming linguistics student is already mapping the ways hashtags rise and decay, and getting ready to publish a dissertation… in 140-character increments.

Meanwhile, people, seriously – “snowicane”?

More Noise to Signal.

Discuss

Our readers know ReadWriteWeb as the blog that’s ahead of the technology curve. Our sponsors know us as that, too. Once a week we introduce our sponsors to our readers and let them know a little more about who they are and what they do. You can say thanks to the companies that make ReadWriteWeb happen by tweeting them (see the link below each sponsor) or following them using our Twitter list.

Interested in being a ReadWriteWeb sponsor? Our readers are smart, tech-savvy decision makers; 40% have a graduate degree or PhD, and over 45% play a key role in information technology purchasing decisions. More than 1 million people on Twitter follow us to stay abreast of the latest Web technology trends from around the globe. To find out more about our sponsor packages, visit our advertising page or email our COO.

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Skip to info about:
Tableau : Data visualization |
Crowd Science: Demographic data |
Medill School of Journalism: Digital journalism programs |
Mashery: API management services |
Rackspace: Cloud computing experts |
Global Delight: Mac and iPhone Producs |
Sproutbox: Start-up investors |
OptionsHouse : Online Brokerage |
Aplus.net: Web hosting |
Search Engine Strategies New York: Conference in New York |
Conduit: Customized components |
MyDomain.com: Domain registrar |
Toopia: Our iPhone app developer

Tableau

Tableau Public is a free service that lets anyone publish interactive data to the web in interesting and compelling graphs. Download Tableau Public and in minutes, you can create interactive graphs, dashboards, maps and tables from virtually any data and embed them on your website or blog in minutes. Anyone can do it. You don’t need to be a programmer or hire one – no language to learn, no plug-ins, no API. Your blog or website will stand out with colorful, interactive data visualizations. Bloggers using Tableau Public are averaging 3 times more reader comments.

And, once on the web, anyone can interact with your graph and the data. They can re-embed your work, download the data, or create their own visualizations. Check out our gallery to see some of the cool graphs bloggers have created. Or learn how in our 5 minute video.

Thank Tableau on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Crowd Science

Crowd Science gives online publishers reports on the demographics and attitudes of their audience. We at ReadWriteWeb have signed up to this new service, because demographic data is something we’ve struggled to get in the past. It’s important for any online business to know their audience, so Crowd Science is a welcome addition to the stats armory that most of us in the Internet biz use.

Sign up to get demographic data from Crowd Science.

Thank Crowd Science on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Medill School of Journalism

The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University offers programs that combine the enduring skills and values of journalism with new techniques and knowledge that are essential to thrive in a digital world. You might have a passion for creating finely crafted prose, or for telling stories using visual tools. Maybe you are invigorated by the possibilities of interactive publishing, or by videography for the small screen. Maybe you are an experienced professional looking to renew and retool your multimedia skills. You can find your niche in Medill’s graduate journalism program.

Thank the Medill School of Journalism on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Mashery

Mashery is a platform for Web services, allowing companies to manage their APIs using Mashery’s expertise. At the “Business of APIs” conference, Mashery CEO Oren Michels explained to the audience that while APIs are a technology, their use is a business decision. He went on to say that Mashery has helped customers such as WhitePages.com, Thumbplay, Compete.com, and Calais. Check out the white paper “Five steps to scaling your business development using Web services” to discover how you can use APIs for your business.

You can find out more about APIs and their business use at www.mashery.com.

Thank Mashery on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Rackspace

Rackspace is one of the world’s largest hosting providers, but it’s also competing in the cloud computing arena. Rackspace Cloud Hosting offers a suite of services which combines a scalable web and application hosting platform (Cloud Sites) with a cloud storage solution (Cloud Files) and on demand server instances (Cloud Servers). The addition of SliceHost a popular cloud computing and hosting provider and JungleDisk, a favorite online backup service that supports Cloud files, makes the Rackspace Cloud a powerful cloud hosting solution.

Explore Rackspace‘s hosting and cloud computing solutions.

Thank Rackspace on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Global Delight

Global Delight is a dedicated team of developers passionate about everything Mac, iPhone and iPad. Global Delight has churned out some of the widely recognized applications for Mac and iPhone. Voila, nominated as the Best Consumer Software in the Macworld Awards 2009, is a powerful screen capturing, image editing, organizing and sharing tool on the Mac platform. Voila enables users to quickly capture and annotate anything and everything on their screen, turning their manuals, documents, courseware and more into a visual delight. Camera Plus Pro, currently nominated as The Best App Ever 2009 under the Photography section, is a power-packed camera app for the iPhone, thrilling users worldwide with its amazing capturing, editing, managing and sharing options. It is the only iPhone camera app that offers geo-tagging, full-resolution photo editing, and multiple and simultaneous photo uploading to various sites.

Thank Global Delight on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Sproutbox

SproutBox is an elite team of product developers, creatives, and business experts that invest their talent full-time in start-ups. SproutBox’s new approach to venture capital has helped launch several successful companies including: CheddarGetter, a subscription billing and analytics tool; ScheduleThing, an online scheduling and reservations app; and Squad, a web-based collaborative code editor.

To apply for start-up funding or find out more information visit sproutbox.com.

Thank Sproutbox on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

OptionsHouse

OptionsHouse is an online broker, serving self-directed investors interested in options, stocks, and IRAs. We offer a streamlined, professional-grade trading platform and some of the lowest, most competitive rates available in the industry.

Thank OptionsHouse on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Aplus.net

Aplus.net offers a variety of services relating to Web hosting, including shared hosting, Web design, marketing and online advertising services, search engine optimization, e-commerce solutions, and domain registration.

You can register for Aplus.net here.

Thank Aplus.net on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Search Engine Strategies New York

Taking control of your business’s online destiny at Search Engine Strategies New York: From Social Media to Mobile, Video and Local Search, Search Engine Strategies New York will guide you through the complexities of search marketing and take you beyond the everyday fundamentals. Discover how this seemingly innocuous art touches and affects every aspect of your business’ online existence, and how mastering it will transform both your brand and your profit margins.

Register now through Jan 15 and save $600. Enter RWW15 to save an additional 15%.

Thank Search Engine Strategies New York on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

Conduit

Conduit enables Web publishers to distribute their offerings both directly and through its global network of 220,000 publishers and their 100 million users. The Conduit platform is a powerful marketing tool that allows you to offer the best of your site through a custom App or Community Toolbar, send desktop alerts to your users, and much more.

The Conduit platform opens a new world of content sharing. Your site visitors can add your content right to their browser by clicking on a branded 2go button that you place on your site. You can also share your content in the Conduit Marketplace, where all the publishers and users in the Conduit network can grab it.

The platform has been adopted by major brands such as Fox News, iWin, Major League Baseball, TechCrunch, and Travelocity, as well as thousands of small and medium organizations in 120 countries.

If you would like to Conduit your website, go to www.conduit.com.

Thank Conduit on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

MyDomain.com

MyDomain is a leading ICANN-accredited provider of domain name registration and online business solutions. For over 10 years, MyDomain has offered low-cost domain names and free domain services including complete DNS management. Today, sub-$10 domains without the constant upsells you’ll find at some competitors are the norm at MyDomain. MyDomain’s complete range of solutions include Web hosting and VPS hosting, email, SSL Certificates and more.

Toopia

Nicolas Koenig is the developer who made our beautiful iPhone app a reality. He runs an iPhone development shop from the Netherlands called Toopia. Toopia also created the Thermometer iPhone app, which enables your iPhone or iPod touch to get the current temperature based on your location. The RWW app lets you read us on the go, follow us on Twitter, share stories on Facebook and Twitter, and browse at your leasure using Read it Later and Instapaper. Download the ReadWriteWeb iPhone application here.

Thank Toopia on Twitter for making ReadWriteWeb possible.

The companies above pay our rents or mortgages and we appreciate it. We hope you’ll stop by their sites and see what they’ve got to offer.

Have you got a smart company that could use some more visits by the sophisticated readers of a blog like ReadWriteWeb’s? Drop us a line and let’s talk.

Thanks to all our sponsors and our readers for your support!

Discuss

Google announced via Twitter this week, that public status updates from Facebook are now included in the search engine’s real-time search feature. That means the largest social network in the world is getting play in Google’s real-time search alongside Twitter, MySpace, and others, and these real-time results are often featured prominently on the first page of search results for the hottest queries.

Apparently only updates from Facebook PAGES are indexed, and according to Danny Sullivan, that includes links, status updates, photos, videos shared by page owners (not comments made by the fans).  Any Facebook update (from regular user profiles) can be shared publicly, so I wonder why these aren’t being pulled. Results from Twitter and other places aren’t only from branded sources.

>>Become a fan of WebProNews on Facebook <<

This seems to indicate that brands should be getting a good amount of play for Facebook appearances in Google’s real-time search results, and possibly in the real-time search results in general (due to Facebook’s huge user-base). Right now, Facebook isn’t dominating the results, but that is bound to change with it being the largest (by far) social network on the web.

A lot of brands who don’t have Facebook pages in place are likely going to consider this a new reason to create one. Here are some tips for making a good one and promoting it.

This should also lead to Facebook Pages getting more fans, due to the increased exposure. Beware, however, that running a promotion on your Facebook Page may cost you ten thousand dollars, because Facebook’s policy guidelines indicate that you must get written approval from a Facebook account rep. In order to get one of those, you must spend that much in advertising, according to Eric Eldon of Inside Facebook.

Now Google’s real-time search results include (as listed by Sullivan) Facebook, MySpace, Twiter, Google Buzz, FriendFeed, Jaiku, Identi.ca, TwitArmy, Google News links, Google Blog Search links, new web pages, and freshly updated pages. At this point, Google generally only shows the real-time results for newsy/trending topics. 

Note: At the Online Marketing Summit out in San Diego, WebProNews talked about a different kind of real-time search that involves local businesses, with RateItAll president Lawrence Coburn. It’s not local search as you would traditionally think of it, but it involves location, which one might consider a new kind of query.

Cloud computing means many things, but almost all definitions include some key value propositions: scalable on-demand resources, a metered pay-per-use model, access over the Internet, and infrastructure management and optimization that is better than most data centers.

At a more conceptual level, cloud computing abstracts away all the undifferentiated IT tasks. Most businesses don’t add any value to their customers or create any competitive advantage for themselves when they buy, build, configure, and manage servers and storage. This is doubly true for disaster recovery equipment and data centers.

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Conversely, poor performance in these tasks can cost value and competitive advantage. There is no benefit in doing these tasks well, but there is cost to doing them badly. This is like the opposite of a financial call option – lots of downside risk, but no upside.

For companies planning their first disaster recovery data center, with the associated selection, build, and maintenance tasks for servers, storage, and networking, cloud computing seems like an obvious fit. They can trade the capital expense that buys them no new value, for a no-commitment operating expense that probably buys better operating practices than they could achieve themselves.

Solutions are beginning to grow up around this idea of cloud recovery. The name is a little optimistic because most offerings today are traditional backup solutions, with little or no ability to actually recover in the cloud. Although a lot of vendors in the backup industry are making cloud announcements, they are mostly just letting users store backups in the cloud. In order to really deserve the cloud recovery title a solution should have the following features.

1. The ability to recover workloads in the cloud: The cloud can offer more than just a place to dump your backup files. It can provide the computing systems to run your recovered systems, and after a production system fails, the ability to quickly restart a complete replacement with data, applications, and complete configuration in the cloud.

2. Effectively unlimited scalability with little or no up-front provisioning: A few vendors can offer rapid, off-site recovery, but they don’t really qualify for the cloud title unless they provide lots of stand-by capacity with no up-front reservations or configuration. While this seems like a lot to ask, this is the promise of cloud computing.

3. Pay-per-use billing model: A defining characteristic of cloud computing is that we only pay for the things we use. Use a little this week and pay a little; if we use a lot next week then we pay more, but only for that specific week.

4. Infrastructure that is more secure and more reliable than the one you would build yourself: When we decide to outsource any part of our operation, we worry about the security and reliability of our vendor. The best cloud providers have not only large scale equipment, but also large scale expertise. This means that they can be much better at security and reliability than any of their customers, and their data center is better than one we might build for ourselves.

5. Complete protection and automated recovery: Non-expert users should be able to recover everything they need by default – the current crop of solutions is shockingly bad at this. This is the cherry on top because it makes everything so easy. No one wants to go through a “run book” full of recovery procedures and bring in experts for each system to assist with getting recovered systems back online. Depending on the type of disaster, experts may be scarce, and the run book is probably out of date. Why not make the run book part of the automated system? Instead, simply push a button that says “recover now”, wait for the files to copy, and then log in to the perfectly configured system, running right in the cloud.

In summary, the trouble with traditional backup solutions is that they are really focused on dumping the data onto tape or disk (and now onto cloud storage), and maybe restoring it back onto the original hardware. If you must recover to different hardware or a different virtualization platform, they don’t generally do much to help with the inevitable incompatibilities. And for equipment failures, you really have to have some hardware standing by.

So while cloud computing means many things, it is fair to say that any cloud recovery customer who doesn’t get all five of these features will be disappointed.

Photo credit: Suresh
Discuss

The big news of the week was Google’s efforts to remove censorship from its search results in China – read on for our coverage and analysis of this news. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet trends of 2010, including Real-Time Web, Mobile Web and Internet of Things.

Note: We’ve refreshed the format for our longest running feature, the Weekly Wrapup. It now focuses more explicitly on the key trends that ReadWriteWeb is tracking in 2010, as well as giving you the highlights from the leading story of the week. Let us know your thoughts on the new format.

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Story of the Week: Google vs. China

• Chinese Hacker Behind Google Attack Found
• Despite Tough Talk, Google Still Censoring in China
• Italy Attacks Web Democracy with Google Convictions

More China coverage and analysis

Historic Conversation in NYC: Ai Weiwei, Jack Dorsey & Richard MacManus

On March 15, at the prestigious Paley Center in New York City, a conversation will take place between Chinese digital activist and artist Ai Weiwei, Twitter co-founder and chairman Jack Dorsey, and yours truly, Richard MacManus, ReadWriteWeb founder and editor in chief. The moderator will be Orville Schell, the director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York.

The topic of the event is the emergence of digital activism for fostering positive social change. The onsite event is invitation only, but it will be live streamed exclusively on ReadWriteWeb on Monday, March 15, at 6:30 PM EST (-5 GMT), from the Paley Center for Media, New York City.

Mobile Web

• The Truth about Mobile Application Stores
• Mobile Cloud Computing: $9.5 Billion by 2014
• Our Hottest New iPhone App Discoveries: February Edition

More Mobile Web coverage

Check Out The ReadWriteWeb iPhone App

We recently launched the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone app. As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch, we’ve made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app. We invite you to download it now from iTunes.

Internet of Things

• Everyware: Interview with Adam Greenfield, Part 1
• Why The iPad May Save The Internet Fridge
• Are Modern Web Apps Killjoys?

More Internet of Things coverage

Real-Time Web

• Google Takes First Shot at Facebook Search Results
• How the Real-Time Web Will Impact Social Change
• Buzrr Wants to Be Tweetmeme for Google Buzz

More Real-Time Web coverage. Don’t miss the next wave of opportunity on the Web supported by real-time technology! Get ReadWriteWeb’s report, The Real-Time Web and its Future.

ReadWriteStart

Our channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.

• Never Mind the Valley: Here’s Washington DC
• What’s In A Name? For Startups, It’s Crucial
• Startup Visa Introduced: Is it a No-Brainer?

ReadWriteEnterprise

Our channel ReadWriteEnterprise is devoted to ‘enterprise 2.0′ and using social software inside organizations.

• Are The Fortune 100 Now Beginning To Embrace Social Media Tools?
• Is Jive Software Taking Steps Toward An IPO?

ReadWriteCloud

Our channel ReadWriteCloud, sponsored by VMware and Intel, IS dedicated to Virtualization and Cloud Computing.

• Weekly Poll: Why Is Apple Building a Massive, $1 Billion Data Center
• A First Look at Apple’s Massive Data Center
• Microsoft to Government CIOs: Choice is Here

That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Discuss

There’s plenty of new stuff on this week’s calendar but nothing comes close to Global Ignite Week. And with more than 50 events all around the world, it’s likely that there’s an Ignite close to you. Remember, they’re almost guaranteed to make you smarter. Like the the Ignite motto says: “Enlighten us, but make it quick.”

How do you like your events calendar? As a world map? As an iCal (and Google Calendar-importable) file? You can also import individual events using the link beside each entry. Know of something cool taking place that should appear here? Let us know in the comments below or contact us.

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1 – 5 March 2010: Worldwide

Global Ignite Week

From March 1-5, 50-plus Ignites will take place in cities around the world. Upwards of 10,000 entrepreneurs, technologists, DIYers, creative professionals, and enthusiastic knowledge-seekers will gather in local pubs, theaters, and other convivial venues for an evening that is a unique blend of networking, information, and fun, encapsulated in

In talks that are exactly five minutes long, Ignite presenters share their personal and professional passions, using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds.

Global Ignite Week is both an in-person and online phenomenon. Local Ignites will stream live video during the event, and those videos will be archived on the new Ignite video site that is being launched in conjunction with the event. At least 500 five-minute session videos will be available on the new site when it debuts.

4 March 2010: Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley VC and Angel Conference

At FundingPost‘s next event, a panel of investors who will focus on early-stage venture investing. We will be discussing trends in early-stage investing, sectors that these Angels and VCs look at, things that are most important to them when they are considering an investment and the best and worst things an entrepreneur can do to get their attention. Entrepreneur summaries will be given to the investor speakers and attendees – all of the investors will get your company description and contact info!

Additionally, there will be an optional pitching workshop lunch where we will completely deconstruct your elevator pitch, and work with you on formulating a clean and concise elevator pitch giving the important information that investors need to hear to make an educated decision on your company! Then you get to give your new elevator pitch in person to the panel of investors during the event! Click here for more information.

11 March 2010: Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles VC and Angel Event

At FundingPost‘s next event, a panel of investors who will focus on early-stage venture investing. We will be discussing trends in early-stage investing, sectors that these Angels and VCs look at, things that are most important to them when they are considering an investment and the best and worst things an entrepreneur can do to get their attention. Entrepreneur summaries will be given to the investor speakers and attendees – all of the investors will get your company description and contact info!

Additionally, there will be an optional pitching workshop lunch where we will completely deconstruct your elevator pitch, and work with you on formulating a clean and concise elevator pitch giving the important information that investors need to hear to make an educated decision on your company! Then you get to give your new elevator pitch in person to the panel of investors during the event! Click here for more information.

15 – 16 March 2010: London, England

2nd Annual Social Networking World Forum — London

The 2nd Annual Social Networking World Forum takes place at the Olympia Conference Centre in London. The two-day event features four dedicated conference streams:

• Social Networking World Forum
• Enterprise social media
• Social TV World Forum
• Mobile Social Networking Forum

The event features key speakers from global brands, organizations, social networking publishers and developers, pioneering social media leaders, top agencies, content producers, and more.

• Full workshop program within exhibition area
• Evening networking reception
• Pre-show online meeting planner for delegates
• Free pass for exhibition only

22 – 26 March 2010: New York City

Search Engine Strategies New York Conference & Expo

Go beyond search at Search Engine Strategies New York. Learn the newest trends, strategic action plans, and technology that industry leaders are employing today. Our experts will trace the natural evolution of search exploring topics such as: digital asset optimization, mobile application development, transition from search to discovery and more.Book your pass today. Enter RWW15 to save 15% off the registration. Sessions include:

• Digital Asset Optimization
• Deep Dive Into Analytics
• Augmented Reality: It’s a Brave New World
• Bringing SEO In-House: The Pros and Cons
• Advanced B2B Search Marketing
• Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues

23 March 2010: San Francisco, California

S.F. Beta 4.0

After a long winter’s hiatus, S.F. Beta is back, for its forth year straight! Join hundreds of founders, investors, developers, and technologists for a lively evening of demos, drinks, conversation, and new connections. Early bird tickets are available, and they’re going fast. Register now for discounted admission. As always, we feature startup demos all night. This time around, the theme is Search & Discovery. If you’re building the next Google (or the next Google acquisition), we want you here! Email cperry@sfbeta.com for more info.

26 March 2010: San Francisco, California

Freemium Summit

The first Freemium Summit is a one day event focused on exploring what it takes to succeed under the freemium business model. Across all segments of the media landscape, entrepreneurs and executives are pioneering models that combine a free offering with a premium, paid offering. This hybrid business model is one of the most exciting areas of business model innovation impacting the world of media and the Freemium Summit will explore the most important topics on the minds of leading practitioners.

Confirmed Speakers: Toni Schneider, Automattic (WordPress); Matt Brezina, Xobni; Aaron Levie, Box.net; Phil Libin, Evernote; Tom Conrad, Pandora; Drew Houston, Dropbox; Ranjith Kumaran, YouSendIt; Ben Chestnut, Mailchimp; Lance Walley, Chargify; Isaac Hall, Recurly; and Lincoln Murphy, Sixteen Ventures.

7 – 9 April 2010: Sydney, Australia

ConnectNow

ConnectNow brings together international specialists and thought leaders in social media, emerging technologies and their intersection with business. Learn how the realtime web, location based services, augmented reality, ubiquitous computing and personalised services are changing marketing and communications. Understand the importance of trust in relationship marketing and what is “social currency”. For more info email info@connectnow.net.au.

13 – 15 April 2010: Dallas, Texas

PubCon South

PubCon, the premier search and social media conference, features the industry’s biggest names and key players shaping the future of the Web. PubCon South will include cutting-edge panel sessions exploring tracks dedicated to search, social media and affiliate marketing, an intensive professional search and social media training program, and some of the world’s top keynote speakers. PubCon South at Dallas will also hold a one-day, two-track slate of intensive educational training programs led by some of the industry’s most respected search professionals. The event takes place at the Richardson Conference and Civic Center. Register here.

16 April 2010: Mountain View, California

Under the Radar: Cloud

Under the Radar: Cloud is must-attend event for dealmakers and heads of IT from large enterprises, SMBs, service providers, carriers and media companies who are responsible for helping their companies leverage new technology and innovation in the fast-evolving IT ecosystem. Join us for the 15th Under the Radar conference, featuring a hand-picked selection of the world’s most innovative cloud startups among 350 top tech, media, telcom and finance executives. For ticket and more information, visit http://undertheradarblog.com.

16 – 17 April 2010: Royal Oak, Michigan

FutureMidwest

FutureMidwest is the region’s largest technology and knowledge conference. Founded by Adrian Pittman, Jordan Wolfe and Zach Lipson, FutureMidwest is the fusion of two successful conferences held in Michigan in 2009 – the Module Midwest Digital Conference and TechNow.

Both conferences highlighted how technology and digital tools have dramatically changed the way we do business and the effect this transition has had on companies. FutureMidwest kicks things up a notch with presentations, group breakout sessions, relationship-building opportunities and influencers who are taking action to redefine business in the digital age. Register here.

19 – 21 April 2010: San Francisco, California

DrupalCon

DrupalCon is the premier conference focused on Drupal, the award-winning open source content management framework that is galvanizing social publishing and web development today. For a registration fee of $195, attendees get three full days of sessions led by the best and brightest Drupal experts.

Drupal has been downloaded over 2 million times since its inception, and project growth has doubled annually for several years. Drupal is used to deliver a wide variety of application types including blogs, wikis, community networks, digital media portals, and web content publishing and management.

26 April 2010: San Francisco, California

Future of Money and Technology Summit

The Future of Money & Technology Summit will bring together the best and brightest thinkers around money, including visionaries, entrepreneurial business people, developers, press, investors, authors, solution/service providers, and organizations who work where cash and commerce collide. We meet to discuss the evolving ecosystem around money in a proactive, conducive to dealmaking environment. Featured speakers include Jolie O’Dell from ReadWriteWeb, as well as representatives from Wells Fargo Bank, Kiva, SharesPost, Jambool, Founders Fund, Outright.com, SoftTech VC, and many more.

Use discount code “rww” to get 10% off registration.

11 May 2010: San Francisco, California

FinovateSpring

FinovateSpring 2010 will again showcase the most cutting-edge financial and banking technology innovations to Silicon Valley and the world. With Finovate’s signature mix of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) from handpicked companies and intimate networking time with their executives, this conference packs a ton of unique value into a single day.

Come see the cutting edge of banking and financial technology and network with hundreds of the leading financial executives, venture capitalists, press, industry analysts, bloggers and fintech entrepreneurs. Early bird registration rates are available.

15 – 16 June 2010: New York City

Corporate Social Media Summit

The Corporate Social Media Summit is a two day conference focused exclusively on how big businesses can take advantage of social media to enhance their marketing/comms strategy. Featuring:

• Practical and relevant insights from peers who have already used social media successfully
• 20-plus corporate speakers (including PepsiCo, Whole Foods, Dell, McDonald’s, General Motors, Citi, Johnson & Johnson),
• Best practice, benchmarks and practical next steps you can use to take advantage of social media in your business
• A tightly-focused agenda with 14 in-depth, practical workshops giving you knowledge on only the most critical business issues surrounding corporate use of social media

Save $400 if you quote RWW400 when booking. Book here.

29 – 30 June 2010: London

Cloud Computing World Forum

The 2nd annual Cloud Computing World Forum is the perfect event to learn and discuss the development, integration, adoption and future of cloud computing and SaaS. Building on the success of the 2009 show, this two day conference and free-to-attend exhibition will provide a focused platform for the global cloud and SaaS industry. Show highlights include:

• Co-located with CloudCamp London
• Co-located with Green IT conference
• Free-to-attend exhibition with seminar and scenario theatre
• Free-to-attend evening awards presentation
• Hear from leading case studies on how they have integrated cloud computing and SaaS into their working practices
• Learn from the key players offering cloud and SaaS services
• Evening networking party for all attendees

5 October 2010: New York City

FinovateFall

FinovateFall will return to Manhattan on Tuesday, October 5 to showcase dozens of the biggest and most innovative new ideas in financial and banking technology from established leaders and hot young companies. The Fall event is the original and largest Finovate and features a single day packed with our special blend of short, fast-paced onstage demos (no slides are allowed) and intimate networking time with top executives from the innovative demoing companies.

FinovateFall is a unique chance to see the future of finance and banking before your competition and find the edge you need in today’s market. Early bird registration rates are available.

Download this entire events calendar in iCal format.

Discuss

The big news of the week was Google’s efforts to remove censorship from its search results in China – read on for our coverage and analysis of this news. We also continued our exploration of the significant Internet trends of 2010, including Real-Time Web, Mobile Web and Internet of Things.

Note: We’ve refreshed the format for our longest running feature, the Weekly Wrapup. It now focuses more explicitly on the key trends that ReadWriteWeb is tracking in 2010, as well as giving you the highlights from the leading story of the week. Let us know your thoughts on the new format.

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Story of the Week: Google vs. China

• Chinese Hacker Behind Google Attack Found
• Despite Tough Talk, Google Still Censoring in China
• Italy Attacks Web Democracy with Google Convictions

More China coverage and analysis

Historic Conversation in NYC: Ai Weiwei, Jack Dorsey & Richard MacManus

On March 15, at the prestigious Paley Center in New York City, a conversation will take place between Chinese digital activist and artist Ai Weiwei, Twitter co-founder and chairman Jack Dorsey, and yours truly, Richard MacManus, ReadWriteWeb founder and editor in chief. The moderator will be Orville Schell, the director of the Center on U.S.-China Relations at the Asia Society in New York.

The topic of the event is the emergence of digital activism for fostering positive social change. The onsite event is invitation only, but it will be live streamed exclusively on ReadWriteWeb on Monday, March 15, at 6:30 PM EST (-5 GMT), from the Paley Center for Media, New York City.

Mobile Web

• The Truth about Mobile Application Stores
• Mobile Cloud Computing: $9.5 Billion by 2014
• Our Hottest New iPhone App Discoveries: February Edition

More Mobile Web coverage

Check Out The ReadWriteWeb iPhone App

We recently launched the official ReadWriteWeb iPhone app. As well as enabling you to read ReadWriteWeb while on the go or lying on the couch, we’ve made it easy to share ReadWriteWeb posts directly from your iPhone, on Twitter and Facebook. You can also follow the RWW team on Twitter, directly from the app. We invite you to download it now from iTunes.

Internet of Things

• Everyware: Interview with Adam Greenfield, Part 1
• Why The iPad May Save The Internet Fridge
• Are Modern Web Apps Killjoys?

More Internet of Things coverage

Real-Time Web

• Google Takes First Shot at Facebook Search Results
• How the Real-Time Web Will Impact Social Change
• Buzrr Wants to Be Tweetmeme for Google Buzz

More Real-Time Web coverage. Don’t miss the next wave of opportunity on the Web supported by real-time technology! Get ReadWriteWeb’s report, The Real-Time Web and its Future.

ReadWriteStart

Our channel ReadWriteStart, sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark, is dedicated to profiling startups and entrepreneurs.

• Never Mind the Valley: Here’s Washington DC
• What’s In A Name? For Startups, It’s Crucial
• Startup Visa Introduced: Is it a No-Brainer?

ReadWriteEnterprise

Our channel ReadWriteEnterprise is devoted to ‘enterprise 2.0′ and using social software inside organizations.

• Are The Fortune 100 Now Beginning To Embrace Social Media Tools?
• Is Jive Software Taking Steps Toward An IPO?

ReadWriteCloud

Our channel ReadWriteCloud, sponsored by VMware and Intel, IS dedicated to Virtualization and Cloud Computing.

• Weekly Poll: Why Is Apple Building a Massive, $1 Billion Data Center
• A First Look at Apple’s Massive Data Center
• Microsoft to Government CIOs: Choice is Here

That’s a wrap for another week! Enjoy your weekend everyone.

Discuss

Google Buzz has been a magnet for skepticism, controversy, and criticism since it launched earlier this month. The skepticism is a result of past Google social media efforts not having the greatest track record. Much of the controversy and criticism has been the result of privacy, and more recently copyright concerns from users.

Google Buzz launched with auto-following, and among countless other complaints, that led to one woman complaining about being re-connected with her abusive ex-husband, just because they had previous correspondence through Gmail. Google addressed this, and has made various changes to Buzz since launch based on user feedback.

This week, blogger Jesse Stay raised the issue of content being shared on Buzz without the ads that go with it, while Google shows its own ads. Google quickly responded to this as well, saying that they expected to have the issue fixed by next week.

For all the criticism, there are still plenty of people out there that view Buzz as a good tool, and a step in the right direction from Google, with regards to social media. Some even think the extensive criticism has gone a bit further than Google deserves.

"As a big company, Google has an incredible microscope focused on their every activity," Silicon Valley blogger Louis Gray tells WebProNews. "Those people who are naturally distrusting of large companies with high market share are aggressively looking for ways to highlight weakness or issues with Google Buzz. While Google no doubt made some early missteps, and has apologized for them, the reaction has far outweighed the potential issues."

A common sentiment seen throughout the Blogosphere is that Google simply rushed Google Buzz out a little quicker than it should have. Even many of Buzz’s critics have no problem admitting that Buzz has a great deal of potential to thrive. I discussed this potential at length upon the launch of the service.

Right out of the box, it seemed clear that Google was onto something with Buzz that it had not been able to tap into before – a way of taking its existing services and building its own social network in and around those – a strategy some of us have been expecting for quite some time. Buzz quickly drew in users (some didn’t have much of a choice if they were Gmail users).

It’s important to consider that Buzz hasn’t even been around for an entire month yet. It’s already gotten tons of publicity (even though some has been negative, Google has been pretty good about turning much of that around). Publishers and bloggers have been quick to jump on the Buzz bandwagon and promote their Buzz profiles. How long did it take people to "get" Twitter? Some people still haven’t gotten there.

Google will be integrating Buzz into more of its products, and will no doubt be adding more useful features as time goes on, most likely making it more appealing to users. It’s just in Google’s nature to crank out new features for its products. The biggest advantage Google has with Buzz is that Google already has so many users among all of its products, and ultimately, it can put Buzz wherever it wants. I have a feeling Buzz has barely scratched the surface of what it will be. But we’ll see.

Earlier this month we noticed PRManna climbing up the Hacker News front page and reached out to the creator for an interview. Ryan Waggoner started PRManna in his spare time and was open in saying that the project was inspired by Peter Shankman’s Help a Reporter Out. The difference between PRManna and HARO is that Waggoner’s product was specifically meant for startup companies to answer blogger and journalist tech queries. Whereas, HARO is a general news service. The question is, are the sites far enough apart to be considered different products?

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In the Hacker News thread Waggoner acknowledges that in the time that he’d developed his site, Shankman’s HARO had transitioned from a listserv to a more comprehensive tool saying, “Unfortunately, I took a look at HARO today and they’ve apparently launched something very similar, rather than just the old mailing list that I was competing against. So what do you think of this? Should I just drop it or should I add features to make it more valuable? Alternatively, is there something else I could use it for?”

As of today Waggoner may not have the opportunity to change tactics. The developer wrote a blog post detailing a cease and desist letter sent by Shankman’s lawyer. As a community with your finger on the pulse of tech launches and entrepreneurial resources, we want to know whether or not you believe Shankman’s takedown notice is warranted. Let us know in the comments below.

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Last year, the ARToolkit, a fundamental building block for creating augmented reality applications, was ported to Flash in the form of the FLARToolkit. This was a watershed moment for AR, as it became exponentially easier for Flash developers to create their own augmented reality experiences. Before then, AR had been a high-tech concept that experienced developers and companies had been experimenting with; by becoming more accessible to Flash developers, AR took off in popularity last year.

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Now, in 2010, the ARToolkit has once again been ported, this time to Microsoft’s Silverlight platform. German .Net developer Rene Schulte recently released the SLARToolkit which will allow augmented reality applications to run in Silverlight.

“SLARToolkit is a flexible Augmented Reality library for Silverlight with the aim to make real time Augmented Reality applications with Silverlight as easy and fast as possible,” says Schulte. “It can be used with Silverlight’s Webcam API or with any other CaptureSource or a WriteableBitmap.”

The SLARToolkit supports detection of multiple markers, both from simple black and white, and custom markers, and is based on the Matrix3DEx Silverlight library. The port to Silverlight is another important step for augmented reality, and could lead to the further expansion of AR both on the desktop and on mobile devices running Windows Mobile.

Earlier this month we saw Adobe Flash and AIR gain support on the Android Mobile OS, and Flash on the iPhone has been a recurring rumor since the device was first released. AR may not be the biggest mobile market, or a killer feature for mobile phones, but with the expansion of the ARToolkit to Silverlight, and the Flash support on Android, it has taken a big step toward wider exposure to more users.

SLARToolkit – Silverlight Augmented Reality 3D projection sample from Rene Schulte on Vimeo.

Discuss

When a startup entrepreneur tells the story of his/her mistakes and how they’ve corrected them, it’s endearing. When an investment associate for one of the more prestigious VC firms does it, it’s surprising.

Union Square Ventures’ Andrew Parker recently started a Got It Wrong Series on his Gong Show blog where he identifies his own mistakes and mis-judgements about the industry.

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While investment analysts and associates don’t directly control the money in the VC world, a large number of our readers believe associates help drive the decision-making process. When someone like Parker decides to air his mistakes for all to see, he’s giving us a glimpse at the information that guides the future of the tech landscape and whether or not the funding will follow. Some of Parker’s mistakes have included:

1. Privacy: Parker was adamant about user privacy and assumed that others were the same. He watched as personal finance site Mint, Loopt and Twitter gained ground despite the expectation that privacy concerns would prove to be a bigger barrier to adoption.

2. Mobile Browsers: In 2006 Parker told investor Fred Wilson that he did not expect the mobile browsing experience to catch up to the laptop in the next 5 years. He believed that the form factor of handheld devices was to small to make it easy to reformat pages on the fly, design mobile web pages and zoom into regular pages. Parker admits he was proven wrong by the iPhone.

3. Taste-maker Risk: Parker explains that certain sites succeed on the ability to popularize content from taste-makers. When he first saw the Huffington Post close a $5 million dollar round he was unsure of the investment thesis. Says Parker, “In hindsight, I think I have a blind spot when it comes to first-party content and editorial choices in web services.  The taste-maker risk is a risk, but it’s not nearly as important as I thought it was, and additionally, it’s a risk that smart technologists can navigate well.”

To keep an eye on the series visit Thegongshow.tumblr.com.

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It’s rare when you will see a post in this blog about Saas and its place in the financial markets. But a report by former ReadWriteWeb-er Bernard Lunn shines an interesting perspective on the SaaS market.

The report is noteworthy as it comes on the heels of the annual earnings report from Salesforce.com, the first SaaS provider to hit $1 billion in annual revenues. We feel the SaaS market may be the most pivotal sector of the cloud computing world and we expect several other companies in the SaaS market to also reach the $1 billion mark.

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We think it’s important to look at the market from an investor perspective to get a view of the overall enterprise sector, which is now deeply affected by the onslaught of cloud computing.

SaaS providers should be smiling about this kind of report as it demonstrates that they have a place in the IPO market. Jive Software is believed to be moving toward an IPO.They are just one example of many companies we expect to see move in this direction.

The report looks at the following:

• Early stage companies, in particular those with venture capital funding
• Mature ventures with the financial strength to be IPO candidates
• Publicly traded companies

For our purposes, we find the Salesforce.com analysis of most interest. The report gives reasons why Salesforce.com is either over or undervalued.

Here’s an excerpt from the report about why Salesforce.com may be overvalued:

“Marc Benioff is selling shares. This was announced in the previous quarterly report on November 25th 2009. The % of his shares that he “may” be selling is significant. He has basically announced that he “may” sell 2,750,00 shares out of a total of 13,371,006 shares he owns. That is 21%. Whether investors are concerned about this remains to be seen. Insider selling is often a trigger for smart outsiders to sell. Currently he is selling shares at a rate of 10,000 per day. Maybe he wants to give serious money to charity and who can fault him (or Bill Gates) for doing that? Concern factor: low.”

And undervalued:

“Internet market leaders are never cheap stocks. Waiting for these leaders to become bargains has seldom worked. The only times they are bargains are when other stocks are super- bargains.”

The market is still young even though SaaS is mainstream. A report like this one helps provide additional perspectives on the state of the market.

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Highly recognized Silicon Valley venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki is not only the author of the inspiringly titled blog How to Change the World, but he has also penned nine books on various business and marketing topics. After attending college at Stanford and receiving his MBA from UCLA, Kawasaki cut his business teeth at a jewelry manufacturer called Nova before eventually being bitten by the “computer bug.”

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After a brief stint at an educational software company, Kawasaki was hired by Apple where he was responsible for marketing the original Macintosh computer in 1984. After the success seen at Apple in the mid-80s, Kawasaki left and started his own software and database development companies, Fog City Software and ACIUS.

Following a short return to Apple in 1995 “to maintain and rejuvenate the Macintosh cult,” Kawasaki started Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage seed fund, with Craig Johnson and Rich Karlgaard in 1997. Today, Kawaski is the Managing Director at Garage, and the co-founder of Alltop, which he describes as “an online magazine rack”.

Of Kawasaki’s nine books, perhaps the most lauded has been 2004′s The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything, which is an essential read for any entrepreneur. Kawasaki fills the chapters of his startup handbook with GIST, or Great Ideas for Starting Things, as well as tips on marketing, branding, customer development, pitching, recruiting and any of a number of valuable lessons.

More recently, Kawasaki published Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition, a book focused on a similar vein as 1996′s How to Drive Your Competition Crazy: Creating Disruption for Fun and Profit. The book’s description says its time for a reality check “if the two most popular words in your company are partner and strategic, and partner has become a verb, and strategic is used to describe decisions and activities that don’t make sense.”

Kawasaki has tuned his storied marketing history into a successful venture capital and writing career. These books and others, including Rules for Revolutionaries and The Macintosh Way, have provided excellent resources for entrepreneurs and startups, and are must-reads for anyone starting any kind of business.

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