Rafe's Radar- Page 11

Startup Secret 42: No time like the present. I mean, future. No, past.

"We were too early."

-- numerous founders

It's a common self-criticism of the founders of flopped startups that they launched a product into a market that wasn't ready for their brilliance. Few regret it, though.

As Ole Lutjens of MX (Reporters' Roundtable: The Second Screen) says of his previous and mostly fizzled venture, Beta Lounge, "Maybe I should have waited. But the upside was experience, and defending the idea, and making connections to people who otherwise wouldn't be interested in talking." He says that people remember enthusiasm and conviction, which, if you've … Read more

Pocket Doorbell: Dumb, yes, but kind of cool, too.

Pocket Doorbell (app store link) is a pretty dumb app. Or so it appears at first. Actually it's fun and kind of useful, and part of a major trend: The virtualization of the world.

I just invented that trend. Hang on and I'll explain it. First, more on Pocket Doorbell.

This little app is a button on your iPhone that you press when you arrive at a friend's house and want them to come open the door for you. Instead of pressing the doorbell, and disturbing the whole house or apartment, and instead of bothering to look … Read more

Reporters' Roundtable: The couch potato, version 2

Next week, on March 7, Apple will introduce the next generation of iPad. Why is the tablet form factor working so well? What is it about a machine that is best used on the couch?

One growing use case for tablets is the "second screen." It seems we aren't satisfied with just watching TV anymore. Now we need a second screen to keep us engaged. Businesses are growing up to build second screen apps, and programmers are starting to take the multiscreen user seriously.

Today I have two guests who are working on these apps who will discuss the emerging market space:

Ole Lutjens, chief creative officer and co-founder of MX Jeremy Toeman, chief product officer, Dijit

Startup Secret 41: Young at heart

"Being a startup is a state of mind, not a company size."

-- Christian Springub, co-founder, Jimdo

Every time I hear some big-company exec say they run their company "like a startup," I am convinced I am listening to delusion. I have worked on startup teams and at several big companies. The difference is huge.

Maybe I'm not working at the right company. Christian Springub, co-founder of the Web site creation and hosting platform Jimdo, which I reviewed in 2007, reached out to tell me that his company just turned 5. It's got 5 … Read more

Are Facebook and Zynga about to break up?

Zynga today is announcing a big new plan to seduce Facebook's users and steal its third-party developers. Does this mean it's the end of the relationship between the two companies?

It doesn't. The companies' fortunes will remain deeply intertwined for the foreseeable future. An emancipated Zynga would be bad for Facebook, but Zynga can't exactly make it alone, either.

If Zynga could easily leave Facebook, it already would have; paying Facebook's rent is not cheap (according to Facebook's IPO filing paperwork, Zynga accounts for 12 percent of Facebook's revenue). But there are ways … Read more

Zynga readies 'private cloud' to run partners' games

Zynga was once a big buyer of cloud computing services. Today, it's becoming a seller.

In 2009, when FarmVille started taking off--it grew to 10 million daily active users in six weeks, 25 million in five months--the company began to lean heavily on rented resources to handle the load. Zynga used Amazon Web Services, and over time, shunted more and more of the day-to-day load of running its games to AWS. By January 2011, AWS was handling 80 percent of Zynga's load. Only 20 percent was on servers that Zynga owned.

But at Zynga scale, using that infrastructure … Read more

Zynga takes its first step toward a post-Facebook future

Zynga appears to be separating from Facebook with two major changes it's announcing today. These moves will help the company grow and give it a measure of independence from Facebook.

First, the company is rolling out its own games portal, Zynga.com, where players can jump directly in to some of the Zynga games they've been playing so far on Facebook. The portal will also have its own game-focused social network functions. It will also allow players to find and play against people who are not in their Facebook friend networks.

Second, Zynga is beginning to open up … Read more

Startup Secret 40: The trinity of startup disciplines

"It's easy to develop something innovative that is still useless."

-- Mark Drummond, CEO, Jildy

Mark Drummond is one of those technology-focused CEOs. He creates products that tend to have their science a bit closer to the surface than many startups I see. Check out his latest product, Jildy (story), which does network analysis of your Facebook friends. He previously worked on the social search startup Wowd before social search was a thing.

Mark sent me an interesting confession:

When I first got into startups, I thought something was worth doing if it was fundamentally innovative. It … Read more

How would you fix LightSquared? Here's your chance

LightSquared, the wireless network company recently shot down by the FCC, is looking for a new CEO.

In light of the failure of the company to hold on to its waiver to operate a wireless network in satellite spectrum that is adjacent to GPS signals, the company's CEO, Sanjiv Ahuja, has resigned his post. According to a statement, he will continue to serve as chairman of the company's board.

Philip Falcone, CEO of Harbinger Capital, which contributed to LightSquared's $14 billion funding and who is now joining the company's board, said in the statement, "We … Read more

You'll be using this soon: Karma social gift-giving

Karma is one of the most well thought-through gift-giving services I've seen. It combines smart analysis of users' Facebook streams, with a carefully curated storefront and a unique payment cycle.

The experience starts with an app that does some semantic analysis of a user's Facebook content. It watches your friends' updates and walls for messages that are likely to fit into certain emotional categories. For example, you'll see someone pop up in the "Tough day" category if they're getting a bunch of "I'm sorry to hear..." notes on their walls. The … Read more