PlumReward in a nutshell

What is it?
A device (or kiosk) and reporting system that enables you to send timely coupons and promotions as text messages to your customers on their cell phone while being able to track their visits and coupon redemptions at your business.
 

How does it work?
There are two ways that PlumReward works:

1.
When a customer makes a purchase at your business, they enter their cell phone number into the PlumReward device. They will receive a text message that asks them if they would like to receive coupons and promotions via text messaging.  Once they respond YES, then you can send them text messages with coupons and promotions to their cell phone. Each time they make a purchase at your business, they enter their cell phone number and PlumReward logs their visit. They can earn free items or discounts based on the number of times they’ve made a purchase at your business.

2.
In all of your other marketing (eg. newspaper, radio, TV) you can tell people to text a certain code (eg. PIZZA) to 50240 to receive a coupon.  They will then be signed up, and the system will operate as stated above.

What are the benefits?
 

• Increased revenue. Proven success rates with targeted messages sent directly to a subscriber’s cell phone.
• No more loyalty cards. Your customers can log each of their visits using their cell phone number and earn rewards for visiting more often.
• Track customer actions. Our web reporting tool will tell you who has received coupons, redeemed coupons, when your busiest and slowest times are, which marketing campaigns are the most successful, etc….

To read more about PlumReward go to http://PlumReward.com

Cloud-based computing promises to revolutionize distributed applications, capitalizing on the ubiquity of the internet and allowing corporate IT departments to provision a wide variety of information services without having to assume responsibility for every piece of the puzzle.

This is how Libertas Technologies, one of our partners, begins their recent whitepaper in which Linxter and Amazon’s Simple Queue Service (SQS) are compared. Comparing Cloud Messaging Platforms, an eight page no-nonsense report, does a great job stepping through a series of benchmark tests and highlighting key differences between Linxter and Amazon SQS. The differences primarily came down to ease of use and performance.

What their chart says:

• Linxter was almost 10x faster than SQS for messages sent per second and 6x faster for messages received
• SQS sends 7.7x more data packets and transmits 6.9x more bytes than Linxter when sending the same number of small messages – the difference is much greater when the messages are larger than 8KBs

What you won’t find in the chart, but you’ll find in the report:

• Linxter is much easier to use with far less coding
• Linxter’s fees are simpler and more straightforward (with SQS you are charged for each request and it can take between 4 and 7 requests to send a single message from point-to-point)
• Linxter provides these additional features which are not available with SQS
  • asynchronous – both message sending and receiving are non-blocking to your program and run in the background
  • message polling – no need to write your own message polling code
  • local transactional queues for sending – messages are not taken off of local queues until it is verified they are received, even when a program instance is shutdown and restarted
  • communication channel management – back-end management of communication channels and ability for program instances to self-manage their own channels
  • automatically created individual cloud queues for message retrieval – no need to parse messages in a shared queue to determine who they are for
  • self-managed cloud queue awareness – no need to write code for updating your program instances on what queues to use, this is all self-managed and dynamic

Additional features that Linxter provides:

• built-in Internet connection retries
• automatic message sending and receiving retries
• dynamic endpoint reconfiguration
• tags for messages
• message non-repudiation
• file attachments for messages
• file chunking

In conclusion, Libertas suggests that both cloud messaging services are great in that they are both solid offerings that eliminate the need to “roll your own” communication foundation to connect disparate apps or integrate disparate systems. However, because Linxter and Amazon SQS differ significantly in implementation, price model and performance, Libertas suggests thoroughly evaluating both solutions before implementing. Lucky for you, we’ve even made evaluation a snap! You can run your own benchmark tests using our open source Performance Tester.

With Linxter, you can focus on the core value of connected applications instead of the communication infrastructure needed to connect them. There is no need for hardware or specialized coding. Integration takes just minutes. Complexity is not just moved off of your servers and onto ours — it is eliminated. All of the communication plumbing is provided in an easy-to-use configurable environment that gives you granular control over how your programs interconnect and interact.

Applications that are Linxter enabled can exchange messages – regardless of their platform, network, or location – while maintaining independence from each others’ internal processes. No special holes need to be opened in your firewalls or those of your remote offices, business partners, customers, or the service providers they use. You can modify any configurations on the fly (that’s right, no downtime) to meet your business needs, even as they change.

Adaptive business solutions are critical today when change occurs faster than ever. Everything around us is quickly becoming Internet enabled (iPods, clothing, toasters… anything), and it is essential that we have a system in place to securely, easily, and dynamically connect all these things for free-flowing exchange of data. This is Linxter, a client/cloud approach to middleware that provides superior flexibility and scalability over the traditional client/server model.

Read more about Linxter at http://www.Linxter.com

Taken from http://thelaunchpad.org/global-entrepreneurship-week-2009

The event is called KickStartz Entrepreneurship Weekend. The event will be held at DeVry University in Miramar on June 18-20, 2009. We will have lots of food, a number of industry experts speaking, and will have lots of great prize giveaways. Now the first question I always get is, isn’t this like Startup Weekend? My answer to this is no it is not. Although the format is similar (multi-day event) it has many differences. First and foremost we are a not for profit that selects a charity to sponsor for each event. Additionally, we employ the concept of Open Space Technology to administer the event. We are focused on putting Florida’s startup community on the map. The event at DeVry will be our first but we expect a good turnout. I will blog more about the event as more information comes out as well as how it went.

My name is Marc Asselin and I am the new blogger dude for Florida Startup Blog. So a bit of info about me; I am a passionate family man, entrepreneur, and lover of food. My IT career spans more than 20 years. I’ve acquired quite a few bumps and bruises along the way so hopefully my past experiences can help someone out there. I currently am CEO of MKA Ventures which is a technology and startup venture company. I also run KickStartz Entrepreneurship Weekend. The goal with KickStartz was to get Florida’s startup scene noticed. When I was approached by SpringStage, I jumped at the chance to further my cause. My focus will be to blog on as many Florida startups, events, and activities as humanly possible. I hope you join me in getting Florida to the top of the list for startups.

Marc

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To say this past week has been “tumultuous” would be an understatement. Late Friday afternoon, I found myself having conversations with local bankers about the worst case scenarios, while bartenders stood there saying, “man, maybe I won’t deposit my check - maybe I’ll stick that in my pocket.” Well, we awake this morning to what is apparently a new world, as it seems that the “bailout compromise” is going to get done.

Simultaneously, I’m finding Jason Calacanis’ email send (entitled, “(The) Startup Depression”) in my inbox (sorry, no link yet), and finding Howard’s great blog post that references Andy’s amazing article from last week. Without getting into the whole mess of agreeing or dis-agreeing with the bailout (I’ve done both in the last week - hasn’t everyone?), let me just say that A) I do side with Andy in thinking this might be one of the greatest “trades” the U.S. could ever make, and B) I couldn’t agree more with Howard — it just isn’t profitable to “bet against the U.S.”

All of it has me looking out over a cloudy Gulf, remembering the 2001-2003 timeframe, and thinking about how momentous this event really is. So, you guessed, I’m resorting to the bullet list:

1. Anyone that underestimates how important this bailout will be is a fool. Howard mentions “new trends” - and I agree. This thing will REMAKE the financial landscape as we know it. It’s akin to “the new deal” in terms of societal impact, and is easily as important as Smoot-Hawley or Glass-Steagall.

Jason’s email send has lots of pretty typical “tactical advice for entrepreneurs” in it, but the one thing that really bothered me was his prognostication that “things are gonna get really bad.” It is simply IMPOSSIBLE to know that right now. This bailout could very easily put a floor under mortgages, save the banks, open the credit markets back up, strengthen the dollar (very weirdly - see andy), help the deficit AND make the U.S. “gubmint” a whole bucketload of money to play with. In short, I’m nowhere NEAR willing to think that we should all be “hunkering down” for 2-3 years of startup nuclear winter. It very well could be that after things sort out (and we may get a rate cut in here still, don’t kid yourselves), this market — and the accompanying economy absolutely lights on fire. Could be. Maybe. No one knows.

Am I planning for “happy times?” Of course not. I’m planning as I always do — to be a long distance runner not a sprinter. Survival is key, but mapping out survival for most people should only take about 5 minutes. After that, you have to consider both A) disaster and B) complete upside surprises - the key here is to give at least equal weighting to both, while knowing that in all likelihood, the upside to disaster ratio is probably preternaturally disposed to at least 60/40 (the universe worked that out long ago).

2. Will lots of startups fail? Yep, undoubtedly. But lots of startups will stay alive too. And they’ll slowly spend money. And they’ll come to conferences. And they’ll get focused and tough and lean. Startups always fail - that’s the name of the game, but startups also always find a way to stay alive. Bottom line: people can talk all day about the benefits of being in silicon valley, but one of the huge downfalls of it is that when times are good, EVERYBODY gets funding. This whole market phenomenon will scare and hurt the “valley” startup scene way more than it will Boulder, Pittsburgh, Austin, the Twin Cities, Atlanta, Research Triangle, or good ole Florida.

3. What should you do? Everyone I know that’s been around the block agrees on this one - START A BUSINESS. What am I doing? Launching a new conference (more on that later). Why? Because I remember January 2002. I remember meeting Andre Durand for lunch in downtown Denver and watching his eyes light up talking about “digital identity.” At the time, I was making ends meet in the web design/copy writing business, and it was just refreshing to see anyone excited about technology — after all, at that point, the entire software industry only had like 25 people still working (HA!). In any case, I didn’t get Andre’s idea. It sounded so…..boring. Three days later, I woke up in a cold sweat with my head filled with ideas about digital identity. I couldn’t read about anything in tech land without seeing how identity was the solution. I had become completely myopic.

I called Andre back and told him that I wanted to be involved “no matter what” - it wasn’t about money, and it wasn’t about startup greatness; the world NEEDED this dammit - and we were just the guys to bring it to life (or so we thought). Within days, I’d met Phil Becker (who has since become my absolute #1 business mentor - and a true, close friend) and the whole thing was off and running. Ping Identity (software company) came to life, and Digital ID World (tech conference) came to life.

People thought we were absolutely nuts, by the way, for starting a tech conference. Comdex had just announced bankruptcy. There were barely any tech conferences around, much less new ones launching. And “digital identity” was kind of a joke (remember Microsoft’s Passport? yea). Well, we muscled through - and made just enough money the first year to allow us to do it all again (which is to say none of us made a dime on the conference in year 1). Needless to say, it all worked. Digital ID World grew (and was sold in 2005). Ping got funding (when it was impossible to get funding). It all came together. There were times when Andre would call and tell me that Ping would be outta money in two weeks if he didn’t raise cash, but it did all come together. Bottom line: start a business.

At the end of the day, every thing’s changed, but every thing is also still the same. The markets will sort this out. Good companies will make it. Defrag will be here in 2009 (so you have that to look forward to). The sun will still rise. And, if I was a betting man (oh wait - I am), I’d bet on U.S. innovation to win out in the end - again.

Smile. Think abundance, not scarcity. Get optimistic. To quote U2, “it’s a beautiful day.”

P.S. Don’t think there isn’t a certain irony/indicator in the fact that the conference that really kicked off this whole last cycle (Web 2.0) has people like Lance Armstrong and Al Gore speaking. That just wouldn’t have happened in 2002. Ever. And here we are again. It’s really not a matter of “never learning” - it’s human nature, market cycles and rhythm. Just keep focused on dancing, and give up on “dancing with the stars.”

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