ClickCaster Inc. Gives Back to Colorado's Entrepreneurial Community

ClickCaster Inc. has donated 1% of it's equity to EFCO, the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado. This is a very worthy organization and we are proud to be a part of it.

PRESS RELASE

ClickCaster Inc. Gives Back to Colorado's Entrepreneurial Community

ClickCaster Inc., a provider of worldclass IPTV & Media Middleware Platforms announces it's support in EFCO, the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado.

[ClickPress, Tue Oct 09 2007] The company has pledged to donate one percent of it's overall equity to EFCO, a program targeted at angel and VC backed companies based in Colorado. The organization is focused on creating an endowment that let's young companies, through the gift of their equity, give back to the communities we live and work in.

"We learned about EFCO several months ago and decided on the spot to participate as soon as it made sense" says ClicKCasters CEO, Scott Converse. "Being part of the local community and giving back to the different institutions, organizations and entities that make Colorado such a great place to start a company is something every young company should consider doing".

ClickCaster is joining a growing group of Colorado based early stage companies in helping to build a permanent endowment to provide community grants for arts, civic involvement, education, the environment, and health and human services. Upon a liquidity event, the cash or stock that has been given by participating companies will be distributed to the appropriate Community Foundations.

About ClickCaster Inc.
ClickCaster Inc. was incorporated in Sept. of 2006. ClickCaster's technology has matured into a premier media middleware platforms with the ability to handle virtually any media type available today. With an emphasis on IPTV, ClickCaster and it's partners provide server and client device products and services to meet the most demanding needs of our customers. ClickCaster was founded by Scott Converse. He brings his expertise from companies such as Apple Computer, Paramount Pictures, Motorola and MCI to create the best media delivery platform products in our targeted markets available today.

About Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado:
Four companies - Tendril, Rally Software, Collective Intellect and Me.dium - are the founding grantors for the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado. The founding trustees are Brad Feld (Foundry Group), Kyle Lefkoff (Boulder Ventures), Tim Connor (Sequel Venture Partners), Ryan Martens (Rally Software), Bill Roberts (Hogan & Hartson), and Michael Platt (Cooley Godward Kronish). In addition, the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado has formed an alliance with the Entrepreneurs Foundation, an organization formed in 1988 with affiliates in Silicon Valley, Austin, Southern California, New England, Dallas, Portland, Atlanta, Hawaii and Israel.

If you get a chance, and want to learn more about EFCO, click here.

Top 100 Alternate Search Engines

I tend to take this kind of thing with a grain of salt, but hey, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Seems my company's product ClickCaster (www.clickcaster.com) is listed in the top 100 search engines by the site www.altsearchengines.com.

According to their about section:

The unique approach of AltSearchEngines is to expand coverage of search engines to include the hundreds of alternative / niche search engines. While the editorial attitude will not be “anti-Google”, it will certainly be “pro-alternative search engines” - a showcase of cutting edge innovation. Our goal for AltSearchEngines is to make it the definitive destination for everything related to alternative search engines - over 1,000 of them!

I wonder if they even know about semi-clandestine www.castlister.com. Maybe they do and that's why they say it's still in beta (which CastLister is and ClickCaster isn't).

Check out the list here alongside the other 99 (or so).

UPDATE: Apparently, I misread that one. From the author of AltSearchEngines (Charles Knight):

"Greeting! I am the author of the Top 100 Alternative Search Engines list on AltSearchEngines.

You are actually thinking of the Top 100 video search engines Guest column by Mark Robertson."

Apparently, this was originally on the REEL SEO blog and I happened to find it on AltSearchEngines. To see REEL SEOs blog, click here.

Game & Software "Studios" and Technology Giants

Bungie, the makers of Halo, and 'owned' by Microsoft, have taken controlling interest of their company back from Microsoft.

So what you might ask? Well, considering this one game, in it's three iterations, is somewhere around a billion plus business all by it's lonesome, it IS a big deal.

This is very similar to Pixar doing all the Merlin work for Disney.

I'm wondering if we're seeing the beginning of a new relationship model for software companies that, in some ways, reflect the Hollywood system.

The independent studios (software companies making cool products) sell a single, specific property to a particular software company. Instead of being bought by Microsoft, you sell a specific product to Microsoft for an amount similar or maybe a little less what they'd buy you for, but you stay independent as a company/entity.

Microsoft still gets it's 2 year's out of you (you sign up to support and grow the product just as company founders bought by Microsoft are usually required to enter into a 12-24 month employment contract to work for Microsoft as part of the deal terms), but in this scenario you're not a Microsoft employee.

You get the benefit of money and/or stock for your product but keep your independence and freedom to innovate outside of the stifling environment most BigCo's (including most technology companies) operate in.

Microsoft gets your source code for that particular product, the customer base for that specific product and a significant part of your mindshare working on things for them for the next couple of years.

One year, it's Microsoft, another, Apple, another, Google, then maybe an interesting Oracle or Cisco side deal for that code that supports a smaller product they're interested in exploring. You expand your staff to handle the various relationships.

I wonder if smaller companies can learn a little from this Bungie deal and, maybe, take some pointers from the entertainment worlds loosely coupled studio system as a way of doing business in the future.

Seems, at least to my aging brain, like a better fit for startup founders than the current 'go public, get bought or go away' model we live with today.

RIAA Wins It's First Lawsuit and Alienates All It's Customers

Well, here you have it:

The recording industry won a key fight Thursday against illegal music downloading when a federal jury found a Minnesota woman shared copyrighted music online and levied $222,000 in damages against her.

See the full story here.

First, I've gotta wonder what the jury in Minnesota was thinking here. Most folks from Minnesota that I know are pretty level headed. Or... could it be... they're sending us an oh so subtle message?

Subtle you ask? Why, yes! I think they did this intentionally to send the message to every music fan out there: Don't you go supporting these RIAA folks, the letter of the law, which my not be a good law, but is a law, says this poor girl owes them about... oh... $222,000.

Now, ya all go out and tell all your friends about this. First tell em this law is dumb and has plenty of letters to follow, but no spirit, no spirit at all, and they should make sure their lawmakers know that. Then, make darn sure they know that supporting any artist who publishing through any label that's a member of the RIAA is, deep down inside, a self centered narcissist who's music isn't to be supported by fans cause they signed away their creative souls (not to mention all their rights for anything their creative souls might think up), for a few dollars, to groups of kinda slimy people that just can't understand that they're destroying their own business, and their artists, by trying to hang onto an old dated and irrelevant business model and ignoring the realities of the digital world. Did ya all get that?

Good.

We're going home now to have some Lefsa.

Linux Wins over Vista

I've got a lot of boxes (PC's) scattered around my life. Most run Windows XP, a couple are Mac OSX machines and exactly one runs Vista and as of a couple weeks ago now, my personal laptop, runs Ubuntu Linux.

I'm running the Vista and Linux boxes next to each other and now that I've turned off my CableTV and no longer find a need for MediaCenter software, it's a no brainer win for Linux (although there are Media Center like programs for Linux as well, I still don't need it).

There are hundreds of blog posts up about the whys of this so I'm not going to repeat it all yet again. Here's one, and another and another (you get the idea).

Even Bob, My IT director, a guy I've known for years as a Windows bigot (and I mean, B I G O T- I can't count the number of times I had to referee a flame war in email between him and one of our linux guys), also just made the change. All his servers, desktops and laptops are running Linux. I think he has one Windows machine still running to play games on, but that's it.

His reasoning? Vista. He considers it incredible resource hog requiring huge amounts of memory and processing power (with no advantage to the user) and a form of DRM infection (among many other 'really serious issues').

When hard core lifelong Windows guys who make their living off of knowing the weirdness of Windows switch to Linux, you know something's up.

Me? I just want a machine that runs my Firefox browser. I live about 95% of the time on the web. The only times I work locally anymore are on presentations and particularly large spreadsheets (OpenOffice!) and multi-track recording (Audacity!)- and yes, both are free and both run great on Linux. Everything else is a website and GoogleDocs.

The vast majority of people using computers today don't care alot about getting deep into technology. They want to create and edit documents, presentations and spreadsheets. They also want to do email and manage contacts and calendars. And, they want to access the internet via some browser that supports the functions websites support through Flash and Java (any browser will do, really- unless is Safari on an iPhone... but I digress).

That's about it. I would bet that list above covers at least 80%, and maybe even 90% of the people using computers today.

Ubuntu Linux, finally, meets and exceeds those needs. And it does it in a way that's as easy to install and use as Windows XP and easier to use day to day than Vista.

Oh.. it'll run quite nicely on a 3 year old laptop to boot.

I wonder if Microsoft (and Apple, for that matter) really understand what's going on out there with this shift to web based services and free easy to use and fully compatible Opensource software vs. standard shink wrap software. I know both (particularly Microsoft) are trying, but that legacy boat anchor around their necks makes looking up and seeing that mondo wave come at you really, really hard.

I now have a free and very viable alternative to Windows and OSX. It's not quite ready for my Mom to use, but damn it's close.

I give it 12 months, tops.

Ahhh.. the iPhone Debacle

Heh.. I just knew this would happen with the iPhone.

The reality is Apple's history and inclination means it just can't help itself. Here's a short blurb from today's New York Times :

It was not unexpected that Apple would try to stop people from unlocking the phones, as this threatened to cause problems for AT&T, Apple’s exclusive United States partner for the iPhone.

“I don’t blame them for fighting the unlocks,” said Brian Lam, editor of Gizmodo, a blog devoted to gadgets. “They are trying to make money, as a business. I get that.”

Still, he said, that disabling someone’s phone, “instead of just relocking it and to wipe out the apps, it seems like Apple is going way too far; I’d call it uncharacteristically evil.”

There you have that 'evil' word, again, being applied to Apple. I do think 'uncharacteristically' isn't exactly right. I also think evil isn't exactly right either. It's a bit more complicated than that.

As some of you know, I worked for Apple in Cupertino from the mid 80's to the mid 90's and got a very up close and personal view of the company, how it worked and how it tended to think. I was one of the converted when I joined them and, by the time I left, I had very mixed feelings about the company.

I still do.

On one hand, this is a company that makes truly wonderful products. It's basic DNA is all about making technology useful for the average person. And it knows how to infuse beauty and elegance into products like no one else on the planet.

But the dark side of this equation is it's control freakness. This is largely a result of Steve Job's personality, but I was at Apple during the time that Jobs was not part of the company and that control freak nature was alive and well without any one person egging it on.

I could name dozens of examples but one that sticks out is when Gasse' (then president of the R&D organization) found a group secretly porting the MaxOS to the Intel platform. This was the second half of the 80's. And, they'd done it. Gasse' (I'm told) saw it for the first time and immediately fired them all and shut it down. Same thing happened again a few years later when John Sculley was CEO and David Nagel was in Gasse's shoes. I was told Sculley sanctioned it, it got to the point of being real and Nagel convinced Sculley to shut it down (they didn't fire everyone this time though).

Why be so weird about not having Apple hardware running Apple software?

Copy protection of Apple's software.

Seriously.

What do you think a Macintosh is? It's hardware copy protection, Apple's own take on DRM, if you will, for what Apple considers is crown jewel: The MacOS.

This is one of the main business reasons you can't buy a the MacOS without a a Mac. Oh, sure, it also has to do with controlling that experience (there's that control word again) but in the end, it comes down to the dollars involved.

Going from a (when I was there) an $11B hardware/software company to a $2B software (only) company was something that couldn't even be contemplated. Still can't.

Same thing is happening here with the iPhone. That hardware (and it's locked down services) are a form of copy protection for the real value: The software that makes the phone so easy to use. And that revenue number for hardware AND software just looks a hell of lot better on the balance sheets. It certainly makes the stock price easier to justify.

So....Control Freakness for sure, but also a way of doing business that Apple hasn't really moved off of since the Macintosh was first shipped in 1984.

What complicates things are how the MacOS is now built on top of BSD. Many many Open Source, what's fair, what should you share kind of questions here.

Apple's built a great set of products on top of the work of others now. It's not all Apple's sweat anymore.

You'd think, with that in mind, they'd be a little more open. I can see locking down the cellphone service. There's a lot of investment and business contracts circling that particular relationship.

But locking out all third party applications? That's not only a little bit evil, it's just plain dumb.

And I will bet you an unlocked working iPhone that it's all Steve Jobs doing.

King of the control freaks; back in the saddle again.

Games: Bigger than the Movies

Anyone wonder why creative types spend time on making movies anymore?

Halo 3 Breaks Records, Pulls $170 Million First-Day Sales

Microsoft grabbed first-day sales of $170 million on Halo 3, the latest edition of its ultra-popular Xbox series. The tally easily eclipses any first-day album sales total, though it also bests record-setters within film and other forms of media.

The comparable, record-setting total in Hollywood comes from Spiderman 3, which grabbed estimated worldwide debut-day revenues of $117 million - and $151 million over the course of its opening weekend. Halo 3 also trumped the recently-released Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which shifted 8.3 million copies on its opening day.

Microsoft quickly trumpeted its newfound record for the highest-grossing launch day in entertainment history. But the biggest rewards could come from ramped sales of Xbox consoles, especially ahead of the critical holiday sales season. The result further reinforces the ultra-powerful role that gaming now plays in the entertainment world, and that stronghold is attracting more promotional energy from labels and artists.

Man o man.. not me. It's REALLY clear where creative people who are also interested in getting the biggest return for their time and the invested buck should be focusing their energy.

Skip Hollywood. Game On!