Life in the startup lane

I will be speaking at the Rockies Venture Club dinner meeting on February 9, 2010 at the Denver Athletic Club. The title of the event is “Filtrbox – A Case Study from Start-up to Exit”.

It will be “be a fascinating look at how you go from startup, through funding, to building out the sales to investor management to exit – all in two years!”. It’s a review of Life in the Startup Lane. If you are interested in attending, register at the Rockies Venture Club web site here.

PS: For speaking engagement requests, contact me at tom [at] tomchikoore.com

Today we announced that Filtrbox has been acquired by Jive Software.  First, I would like to thank the team that we assembled at Filtrbox – just a bunch of smart guys who simply kick ass.   Next, I would like to thank all the family, friends, investors, supporters and fans of Filtrbox. We are grateful for all the support that we got from everyone.

Today we have a lot of work to do so I will not say much, however, I will be blogging about social business software and social intelligence once the dust settles down.

And yes, this blog will still be called “Life in the startup lane”

You can find more details about the acquisition here

Of late I have been looking at a good number of resumes and interviewing some candidates for Java developer positions.  I must say that I was astounded by the number of candidates who do not know how to design any Java software that does not involve a servlets or  JSPs .  It is clear to me that there is a good number of Java developers out there who are oblivious to the fact that there is a world of Java outside the container.   And these developers are no slouches either. The developers that I interviewed were highly certified Java developers with strong Java fundamentals. 

I am still failing to reconcile the strong fundamentals of the Java developers with their inability to design outside the container.  I view the ability to design outside the container as something every Java developer should be able to do.  During interviews, that should not be a question that should be asked at all. In fact, I never used to ask the question at all until I noticed that each time I asked a candidate a design question, they made the assumption that there should be a container, servlets and JSPs involved.  When I dug a little deeper, I made the observation that there is an unbelievably high number of highly certified Java developers who fall short when asked to design anything that is not hosted in a container.

In my opinion, Java certifications and their emphasis on particular patterns are dumbing down the Java developer.  The world of Java consulting exacerbates the problem because it rewards those who solve problems by rote.  While I have nothing against patterns or consulting, I cannot help but observe that we might be losing a generation (in dev generation years) of Java developers in much the same way we lost a good generation of developers to 4GLs at the end of the last decade. Who is going to develop the complex stuff?  Who is going to innovate? Innovative solutions to complex problems cannot be solved within the constraints of containers.

As the saying goes, “In Boulder everything revolves around community”.  Thought I should bring to everyone’s attention one of the many good community efforts that  are happening in the Boulder technology community.

For the past nine months, I have been organizing the Boulder CTO Lunch, a monthly “meeting of the minds” lunch of Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) in the Boulder area. The mission of the CTO Lunch is to provide resources and support to local CTOs. 

Boulder is fast becoming a growing technology hub, especially for startup technology companies. Thanks to Techstars, several newly minted startup technology companies are pumped into the community each year. On average, each of these companies has a developer who is thrust into the role of a CTO overnight.   How does one transition from being an energy drink-fueled, all nighter-pulling rockstar coder into a CTO?  There are no schools or ready-made resources to help coders transition to CTO roles.  CTO Lunch attempts to fill in the gap. CTO Lunch harnesses the existing local CTO community to provide a network of resources to support CTOs of companies in the Bouder area.

In addition to helping startup CTOs find their feet, CTO Lunch is a resource for all Boulder CTOs. We have a good mix of startup CTOs, experienced CTOs, serial CTOs and on occasion we have had ex-CTOs who are now CEOs.

CTO Lunch is in the form of an informal roundtable idea exchange that is held once every month at The Bunker (Techstars Headquarters).  A guest CTO is invited every month to share their thoughts or expertise on certain topics. During the hour-long event,  CTOs discuss and exchange ideas with their peers.  The topics of discussion have become deeper over the last several months and usually reflect the technology issues of the day and challenges that face CTOs on a daily basis in the pursuit of keeping their companies technologically competitive. Peer interaction does not end with the monthly event; to keep the communications lines open among CTOs, there is a Google Group (”Boulder CTOs”) on which CTOs can discuss topics and exchange ideas at any time.

To be part of the Boulder CTO Lunch, send me an email at [tom][at][filtrbox][dot][com].  Boulder CTO Lunch is also part of the “Winter In the Bunker” events. Go to http://winterinthebunker.com/ to find out more information.

A couple of weeks ago I purchased an email-only mobile device called a Peek and I have been loving it ever since.  At a time when smartphones and PDAs are getting as much functionality crammed into  them, the guys at Peek have gone the opposite direction by creating a device which only does one thing and one thing only – EMAIL. No browser, no AppStore, no games, no cameras, no GPSes, compasses….just emails. To go even further in the opposite direction,there are  no contracts and no hidden fees. Instead, you  get a flat monthly rate, nationwide wireless coverage and unlimited email. Imagine a Blackberry or iPhone (an iPhone with ACTUAL nationwide wireless coverage) that only sends emails  and thats the Peek.

Here is how the Peek works: After you purchase a Peek, you simply enter 4 things –  First name, Last Name, Email address and Email Password.  The email address can be any e-mail address. For example, I used my [tom][at][tomchikoore.com] email address and Peek auto resolved my server. No entering IMAP and POP servers and ports  and authentication methods, none of that – just an email address and Peek figures out the rest. From the information that I gleaned from their tech blog (which I think is the most transparent tech operations blog of the tech operations blog that I know of), Peek is running EC2 instances that act as proxies to my email account. The EC2 instances perform some interval polling on my mail server and deliver any emails to my Peek. The Peek has nationwide wireless coverage and I think that is because they are working with nationwide providers.  I was able to prove this nationwide coverage while vacationing in the Black Hills of South Dakota during the Labor Day weekend; my Peek received messages while my iPhone had a several hiccups.

In addition to the simplicity of usage, I really love the Peek pricing and service plans.  I currently own the Peek Classic which I purchased for $19.95 with a $19.95 service plan (the service plan starts from $14.95).  With the Peek Classic, I can setup up to 2 email accounts and I can send and receive an unlimited number of emails.  For those who want a little more oomph, there is a Peek Pronto that costs $59.95, and supports up to 5 email accounts, instant email, unlimited email and unlimited texting (all for the same service costs that starts from $14.95). In addition to the 5 email accounts, the big difference between the Classic and the Pronto is the instant email (which I assume is simply higher polling frequency to your mail server) and support for text messages.  The physical device is the same for both the Classic and the Pronto.  It features a scroll wheel like a Blackberry and a QWERTY keyboard.

I am not sure how well Peeks have been  selling (since last year when the Peek debuted) but from a business strategy point of view, I think the guys at Peek are onto something for the following reasons:

1. Single Purpose Device

There is a good segment of the consumer market that simply wants mobile email and are not interested in anything else other than that.  Moreover, I do see a lot of potential for Peek usage by businesses, especially small businesses.   First, all the small businesses that have always wanted Blackberries but could not afford them, the Peek is a very low cost alternative. Second, I see applications for Peeks in small businesses that are characterized by  one way messaging to mobile field employees (for example:  the dispatch of instructions home contractors).  

2. Price

The low cost of the Peek devices and  service plan has the potential to bring mobile email to the masses.  Small businesses that wish to streamline field communications without huge hits to their budgets provide the biggest potential market for Peeks.

3. Simplicy

The Peek is very un-geek. It is very simple to setup and very simple to use.  No “Geek Squad” or “Genius” needed here. Take a Peek out of the box, enter your name, your email and password and you are good to go.  The simplicity makes it a very consumer friendly device and eliminates/lowers technical support costs for businesses.

I admire the thinking against the thought stream that the guys at Peek are doing and I think that they will be successful.  They have been harvesting a number of awards and thats a good sign.

On a personal note, I have developed a bias towards Peek devices because I have come to the conclusion that  the low cost and simplicity of the Peek device render it the perfect device that can be leveraged to mitigate some of the effects of  the ‘technology divide’.  Given that, I have chosen Peek to be the primary technology device for a non-profit project  that I have started  and that I will be announcing in the next couple of weeks.  Simply put – the Peek has a potential to democratize a lot.

Several weeks ago, at Filtrbox, we shared some of our internal functionality with the public via the Filtrbox Twitter Influence scoring page.  The Filtrbox Twitter Influence scoring page, which has turned out to be a hit among many, allows anyone to check the Twitter influence of any Twitter user. Some of our users have had some good fun with it for the purposes of ego boosting or ego busting. While we appreciate the versatility of purpose of our technology, the purpose of the Filtrbox Twitter Influence scoring page goes beyond a bragging rights tool.  The Filtrbox Twitter Influence scoring page provides a means to gauge the “reach” of mentions on  Twitter by measuring the influence of the “mentioner”  (Twitter is only one of the many conversation venues whose participants’ influence Filtrbox tracks). In this blog post, I would like to impress upon the reader that, going forward, the measurement of “influence” in social media conversation venues, such as Twitter,  should be integrated as part of all “message reach analysis” activity that a company performs.

Given the fact that conversation venues, such as Twitter, democratize the notion of “reach”  by providing a venue where anyone can mention anything (including your brand) to an organic audience (original target audience+viral audience), it is imperative that  brand protecting companies,

1) Track mentions of the company’s brand (s)

2) Analyze the influence (“reach analysis”) of the people who mention a company’s brand(s)

As social media networks become entrenched conversation venues where participants discuss anything under the sun including company brands, “reach analysis” needs to be expanded beyond messages that originate from a company’s marketing department.  This is the first step in acknowledging that there are other messages that are emanating from places other than your marketing department.  Those messages you cannot control. However, you can manage the conversations that the messages produce. In order to manage messages that result in conversations about your brand, regardless of their origin, brand mentions need to be effectively monitored and the message reach effectively analyzed.

Consider the following example: Every brand protecting company’s nightmare is seeing the following brand mention (message) on Twitter (or any conversation venue e.g. Facebook, Blog comment, Online newspaper comment)

“(put your brand here) sucks!!”

The next time people Google your brand; you do not want this to be the first brand mention they see. It well can be, if you do not properly manage the conversation that emanates from this mention. Therefore, before you react to the mention, it is important that you perform a “reach analysis” of the mention (measure the “influence” of the “mentioner”) in order to understand the authority of the person who made the brand mention, the nature of the venue in which it was made and the number of people who potentially saw the mention.  Performing such a reach analysis gives you the ability to assess an appropriate entry into the conversation and gives you a basis for formulating an approach on how to manage the conversation going forward. Products like Filtrbox simplify the “reach analysis” determination through Twitter Influence scoring and FiltrRank scoring.

In closing, it is important that ALL companies pay attention to “influence” in social media conversation venues. Think of “influence” as good old “reach analysis”, except the message whose reach needs to be analyzed is not coming solely from your marketing department – its coming from anyone, its coming from everywhere and, in a real-time information environment, its coming fast.

A couple of months ago, I watched an ex-driver of the President mention that as the President’s driver, he had to keep track of all the outlets to the safe houses and hospitals while he was driving the Commander-In-Chief.  I thought to myself, that’s what I do too, except, I have to keep track of all the Wi-Fi hotspots on the Denver-Boulder corridor while riding public transportation in case I need to tend to the servers. However, I have recently discovered a cool little iPhone app, TouchTerm, that has saved the day for me.  I now have complete SSH access to all my servers from my iPhone, no more keeping track of Wi-Fi hotspots.

Having used all sorts of monitoring tools for the servers, there is nothing like direct shell access from anywhere. I recommend this iPhone app to developers who are on the go.  This saves you time from spending time writing monitoring tools that you can access from the iPhone; TouchTerm gives you direct access to the shell.

TouchTerm has the following features:

• Complete server, connection, and password management.
• RSA/DSA Key-based authentication and public key distribution via e-mail.
• Rock-solid SSH implementation based on OpenSSL and OpenSSH.
• Wi-Fi and EDGE/3G support: access and administer your servers from anywhere.
• VT100 Terminal Emulation: Use top, screen, emacs, vi — virtually any console application.
• Landscape mode; Full-screen Mode; Configurable UI transparency, font size and color.
• A polished, intuitive, iPhone-standard interface.

TouchTerm screen shot

Several weeks ago, while purchasing a commemorative copy of the Rocky Mountain News, I came to the realization that two distinct stories, symbolic of the shift in media landscape, were playing themselves out on both ends of US-36. In Denver, The Rocky Mountain News, a symbol of traditional mainstream media, was closing down after almost 150 years of publishing. In Boulder, at Filtrbox, a young new media company, we were celebrating the release of the latest version of our service, Filtrbox G2. While the people at the Rocky Mountain News were probably not aware of Filtrbox, I had a keen eye on the daily goings on at The Rocky and I looked at the whole situation at the Rocky as a symbolic passing of the media torch.

As a long time resident of the state of Colorado, its was tough buying the last copy of the Rocky. As the CTO of Filtrbox, I lamented the loss of yet another mainstream content source. Contrary to what many may expect, in my opinion, the loss of content source like the Rocky is no cause for celebration at Filtrbox. The reason is that the death of a medium, such the newspaper, is a natural cycle; media have come and gone over the years. However, one thing that has remained constant is the content.  There is no substitute for good content. Whether Mike Littwin’s dispatches from the political stump or Dave Krieger’s Broncos inside scoop or Penny Parker’s celebrity sightings around town are delivered via pony express, the telegraph, the tabloid, the broadsheet, the web or a Filtrbox Daily Briefing, its all all great compelling content that I want to read on a regular basis. Thus, the death of the Rocky was by no means of verdict on content, it is a verdict on the medium in which the content is delivered. 

Filtrbox is providing new ways for discovering and delivering content using new media. Instead of a newspaper being delivered to your porch every morning, Filtrbox delivers a daily briefing to your inbox every morning.  In addition, Filtrbox provides various other means of consuming the content. But at the end of the day Filtrbox has to deliver content, quality content. The death of the Rocky results in one less source of content for Filtrbox users.  Content diversity is paramount if our users  are to be be well informed. Many have said, mainstream content will be replaced by blogs. However, that assumption is not reflected in the information consumption patterns that we see on a daily basis. At Filtrbox we interface with a variety of consumers of content and observe that information consumers like diversity.  Just as much as they want the thought stream in the blogosphere, they also want to know what is being said in mainstream media and on micro blogs and other sources. People simply want good content that keeps them well informed.

So, to the journalists who were at the the old media companies like the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post Intelligencer, I say, there is still demand for your content; newspaper as a medium to deliver your content may be dying but other means to deliver your content are on the rise. Keep writing great content, the content industry is not dead.

While there have been many wishes and predictions for 2009, mine is simple, it’s HTML 5.  The adoption of HTML 5 specs by browsers, rendering engines and content publishers in this coming year will make 2009 a good year for me. As I have written in the past (here and here), content extraction is an often overlooked challenge that gets in the way of deriving web content semantics. This is an issue that often gets overlooked but for those of us who are passionate about extracting web content semantics, we understand how much it gets in the way of making much of the good work being done now even better. As we have seen recently, this is not an issue that is challenging only the small players, some of the major applications that rely on content extraction such a Google Alerts are seeing a degradation in content quality as they provide articles that have keyword hits in the navigations bars, ads and other non-content related text on web pages.

HTML 5 had taken steps in specifying how web content (e.g. news story, blog entry) should be represented in a page. The specification has attempted to structure a web page by separating different parts of a web page such as headers, footers, navigation, content etc.  The elements of HTML 5 that will help with content extraction are <section> and <article>.

The <section> element is described in the HTML 5 specification as follows,

“The section element represents a generic document or application section. A section, in this context, is a thematic grouping of content, typically with a header, possibly with a footer.

Examples of sections would be chapters, the various tabbed pages in a tabbed dialog box, or the numbered sections of a thesis. A Web site’s home page could be split into sections for an introduction, news items, contact information.”

Having an HTML element that groups content is very welcome.  The <section> element can be used to contain content such as a news article.  HTML 5 has gone one step further to make this possible by introducing the <article> element which the specification described as follows,

“The article element represents a section of a page that consists of a composition that forms an independent part of a document, page, or site. This could be a forum post, a magazine or newspaper article, a Web log entry, a user-submitted comment, or any other independent item of content.

An article element is “independent” in that its contents could stand alone, for example in syndication. However, the element is still associated with its ancestors; for instance, contact information that applies to a parent body element still covers the article as well.”

 A structured implementation of the <section> and <article> elements by content publishers will go a long way in making content extraction simpler thereby providing for a small step in making web content semantic analysis easier.

The HTML 5 specification has been out there for some time, its time for rendering engines to start implementing some of the new semantic oriented elements in the specification (some rendering engines have already started implementing parts of the specification). 2009 sounds like a good year for rendering engines, content publishers and content generation software to come together and help chart the course for web semantic analysis-based applications.

NOTE: HTML 5 contains other descriptive elements that help with the expression of semantics of textual data. I will get to those in future posts.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Yahoo Open Hack Day at the Yahoo Campus in Sunnyvale, CA.  At Open Hack Day, Yahoo opened up all their technologies for a few chosen hackers to play with and evaluate for a weekend.  The technology that I was most interested in was BOSS (Build your Own Search Service). BOSS is “Yahoo!’s open search web services platform”.  Simply put, this means Yahoo has opened up its web index for anyone to use using the BOSS API.  This is unprecedented and opens up a ton of opportunities to advance some of the topics that I have discussed on this blog, primarily NLP: Unstructured thinking for unstructured data and 2008 Web Search is still in 1979.

As I have said in the past, the goal of the semantic web is still a long ways to be realized. However, rather than wait for every website owner to build semantic web conforming website (or retrofit their past content to be semantic web compliant), we should seek to derive web semantics at the application level using a whole new set of applications, web semantic analysis-based applications. Yahoo’s BOSS can be one of the missing components that pushes the ball forward towards this goal.

Surprisingly, one of the challenges of deriving web semantics is as simple as programmatically identifying and extracting the content from a web page (I have talked about this in a previous post: A case for standardizing blog templates).  Before semantic analysis can be performed on a web page, the proper content must be extracted fom the web page first. As humans, when we look at a web page, we can readily distinguish the “main content” of a web page from  navigation bar, header, links or ads.  This is not so easy for computer programs to accomplish.  At Filtrbox, we have developed algorithms to accomplish this with a very high success rate only because we have devoted time and resources into the algorithms because they are core to our business.  Other application developers wishing to leverage web content semantics may not have the time and resources to build such algorithms because that is not core to their business. This is where Yahoo BOSS comes into the picture. We know that Yahoo has built its massive Web index by indexing the “main content” extracted from web pages.  Yahoo has  invested time and resources to solve the content extraction problem. In addition, they have built a massive infrastructure to index and store web content.  Therefore, instead of re-inventing the wheel, developers of applications that leverage web semantics can take advantage of Yahoo’s content extraction through the Yahoo BOSS API. However, Yahoo needs to open up a little more for this to be possible.

Here is where Yahoo needs to open up: Although Yahoo currently performs content extraction and content indexing, unfortunately the Yahoo BOSS API is not geared towards applications that analyze web data semantics.  The Yahoo BOSS API in its current form is geared towards web searches.  It is keyword query-based and returns at least TITLE, URL and ABSTRACT/EXCERPT.  Unfortunately, to move towards web semantic analysis-based applications, the ABSTRACT/EXCERPT alone is not enough.  Instead, the Yahoo BOSS API should return the WHOLE “main content” (not links,ads and navigation etc) of a web page.  Returning the whole content enables applications to perform semantic analysis on the data from millions of web pages that is stored in Yahoo’s web index, thereby adding value to the data and moving the ball forward towards unlocking the hidden value in web data using web semantic analysis-based applications.