Jason Ball's TechBytes

Entrepreneurial Leadership Speaker Series

2009-09-15T20:24:00+01:00

Hussein Kanji has organized a venture capital and entrepreneurship lecture series starting in October, which will be held at London Business School. Current speakers announced are:

Robin Klein, The Accelerator Group, Thursday Oct 1
Stan Bowland, Icera, Thursday Nov 5
Stefan Glaenzer, Last.fm, Thursday Dec 3
Bernard Liautaud, Balderton, Thursday Feb 4
Jos White, MessageLabs, Thursday March 4
Herman Hauser, Amadeus, Thursday, May 6
Mike Hedger, KVS, Thursday June 3

Other speakers will be announced in the near future.

If you're interested in venture capital and entrepreneurship; then this is the series of speakers you need to get to...and it's FREE. It's a stellar lineup, and the price is right. Full details and bios available at the London Business School website or on Hussein's blog.

See you there.

Feeds 2.0 and the Netflix Prize

2009-08-19T21:30:00+01:00

I've blogged about my friends at Feeds 2.0 many times over the past few years; I've followed the Netflix prize out of interest since it was covered in Wired back in 2007, mainly because I was rooting for the Feeds 2.0 team...

For those of you who may not spend your weekends and evenings reading up on artificial intelligence, here's an overview of the Netflix competition:

Netflix released a large movie rating dataset and challenged the data mining, machine learning and computer science communities to develop systems that could beat the accuracy of their in-house developed recommendation system (Cinematch) by 10%. In order to render the challenge more interesting, the company will award a Grand Prize of $1M to the first team that will attain this goal, and in addition, Progress Prizes of $50K have been awarded on the anniversaries of the Prize to teams that have made sufficient accuracy improvements. Apart from the financial incentive however, the Netflix Prize contest is enormously useful for recommender system research since the released Netflix dataset is by far the largest ratings dataset ever becoming available to the research community. Most work on recommender systems outside of companies like Amazon or Netflix up to now has had to make do with the relatively small 1M ratings MovieLens data or the 3M ratings EachMovie dataset. Netflix provided 100480507 ratings (on a scale from 1 to 5 integral stars) along with their dates from 480189 randomly-chosen, anonymous subscribers on 17770 movie titles. The data were collected between October, 1998 and December, 2005 and reflect the distribution of all ratings received by Netflix during this period. Netflix withheld over 2M most recent ratings from those same subscribers over the same set of movies as a competition qualifying set and contestants are required to make predictions for all 2M withheld ratings in the qualifying set.

I was thrilled when I saw the final Leader Board: The Ensemble (Feeds 2.0 + others) was at the top:

The final winner will not be announced until next month; Netflix still has to decide which of the leading algorithms perform best and how they score on various tests...

So, as the latest Wired article says, it ain't over til it's over.

Good luck Nicholas!

Opera reinvents the web?

2009-06-23T21:39:51+01:00

"Opera today (well, last week. I've been a little slow getting this post out) unveiled Opera Unite, a new technology that shakes up the old client-server computing model of the Web. Opera Unite turns any computer into both a client and a server, allowing it to interact with and serve content to other computers directly across the Web, without the need for third-party servers.

Opera Unite makes serving data as simple and easy as browsing the Web. For consumers, Opera Unite services give greater control of private data and make it easy to share data with any device equipped with a modern Web browser.

For Web developers, Opera Unite services are based on the same open Web standards as Web sites today. This dramatically simplifies the complexity of authoring cutting-edge Web services. With Opera Unite, creating a full Web service is now as easy as coding a Web page." Full press release here.

Very interesting concept which I imagine Google will copy quickly, roll into Google Wave and Chrome...and leave in beta for 5 years. But they wouldn't be alone....

Nokia also has been working on making your phone into a server. I spent a lot of time last year looking into this space. It has some interesting implications on network usage and ease of use for photo sharing, etc... another problem that gets solved by having a local server is separation of data and application.

One of the problems with web apps is that the data and the application are intertwined. Separability of data and application was very clear in the desktop world- you could tote your word files with you anywhere... but with cloud apps, this is becoming much more difficult. (For example, have you tried to export your gmail messages?) As they say, if you can't take data with you, it's not yours... One of the benefits of having a "server" on your phone or laptop is that any pictures you take can still be accessed on Facebook, but you can host those on your own "server". (And we all know Facebook is trying to build their own private version of the internet. If you believe things like that.)

The current problem with having a local server on your machine (any machine) is that you need to be a geek to make it work. Opera is moving this towards the masses, but it's still a Yahoo Pipes mass appeal. Google needs to make this dead easy to use - maybe that's part of what their doing with Wave...

Qualcomm Ventures - Business Plan Competition

2009-05-07T19:23:00+01:00

Today we announced the Qualcomm Ventures Business Plan Competion.

It's open to startups in the US, Europe, China and India. Semi-finalists from each region will win $100k, and then compete for a further $150k at the Qualcomm Ventures CEO Summit in November.

We're looking for companies that impact the wireless space in the following areas:

Consumer/enterprise applications and services
Communication devices
Semiconductor and component technologies
Mobile platforms
Digital media and content
Healthcare technologies and services
CleanTech

Additional details on the Qualcomm Ventures' QPrize competition and submission guidelines are available at www.qprize2009.com. Deadline for business plan submissions is July 31, 2009.

European Startups... Still alive and kicking

2009-04-16T19:56:00+01:00

Just in case you thought innovation was dead (or maybe non-existent) in Europe, the guys over at Mashable have pulled together a short list of European startups. If you missed the The Next Web conference and are interested in monitoring the space, The Next Web is a great resource (with pretty swell twitter too).

Five Steps to Music Nirvana

2009-03-24T19:11:00+00:00

Step 1. Get Spotify

Step 2. Sign up for an account at last.fm

Step 3. Enable scrobbling inside the prefs pane in Spotify

Step 4. Check this site to find new artists based on your las.fm recommendations http://lutt.se/lastfm+spotify+new/

Step 5. Enjoy your new found music nirvana

The Future of Search

2009-03-16T19:20:00+00:00

I've been blogging about the search space for a couple of years, and this has to be one of the most promising developments I've seen: Wolfram Alpha.

While Nova Spivak has an excellent overview of what Wolfram Alpha is trying to achieve, this will give you an idea:

Where Google is a system for FINDING things that we as a civilization collectively publish, Wolfram Alpha is for COMPUTING answers to questions about what we as a civilization collectively know. It's the next step in the distribution of knowledge and intelligence around the world -- a new leap in the intelligence of our collective "Global Brain." And like any big next-step, Wolfram Alpha works in a new way -- it computes answers instead of just looking them up.

Doug Lenat has also posted his thoughts on Wolfram Alpha.

The wrapper comes off in two months for everyone to access the service. I can't wait.

Pitch your startup: VCIC 2009

2009-02-03T05:51:32+00:00

I've been a judge for the VCIC competition held at London Business School for the past few years. The school is actively looking for entrepreneurs willing to pitch to a room a VCs and MBAs learning to be VCs. The venture funds present (previously) were Accel, Atlas, Amadeus, Balderton, Doughty Hanson, et al plus corporates like Microsoft and Qualcomm Ventures.

London Business School is currently recruiting Entrepreneurs to pitch at either of the competitions- general requirements are:

Actively looking to raise capital
No previous institutional funding
Has product. Preferably has customer traction
Available to present on 20th /21st February and/or 27th February

It’s an opportunity for your start-up to present to several top VCs in one shot. If you are interested in pitching at VCIC please contact ccarrillo.mba2010@london.edu and/or for more information regarding pitching click here.

Amazon Web Services Meetup- London

2009-01-29T23:47:03+00:00

I received this in an email today, in case anyone is interested in learning more about Amazon's services in Europe:

Amazon Web Services Technology Evangelist for Europe Simone Brunozzi and Cohesive co-founder Alexis Richardson will be hosting the next AWS Meetup in London on Cloud Computing and AWS, with details on S3, EC2, CloudFront and the other services!

Details of this free evening event are as follows:

When: Wednesday 4th February, 6.30pm start - as usual afterwards we will go to the Crown for drinks and further discussion
Where: Skills Matter, 1 Sekforde St, Clerkewell, London EC1R 0BE
Format: Simone and Alexis will each speak for 20-25 minutes and there will be time for some Q&A after that.

For more details about the event and speakers please visit http://skillsmatter.com/event/cloud-grid/amazon-web-services-meetup

Registration is open and places are filling fast so register now at http://skillsmatter.com/event/cloud-grid/amazon-web-services-meetup

M&A Trends for 2008/2009

2009-01-18T16:12:45+00:00

Every year I start off with a retrospective of what's just happened over the past 12 months. I guess the difference this year is that everyone knows 2008 was simply awful across the board...

Icon Corporate Finance has provided the data points though, demonstrating that 2008 looked very grim:

You'll notice the vast majority of exits were sub $100M last year, while valuations outside of this band are falling fast. This means the venture portfolios are in for tough times... and capital intensive companies will find it much more difficult to raise capital. Already I'm hearing the "10yr limited life" venture fund model being challenged. People are realizing it might take longer than 3-4 years to build and exit a company. Plus LPs are simply choking...and VCs are feeling the pinch as well in terms of LPs reneging on capital commitments. Yes, some venture funds continue to raise new funds- this is the exception (Accel's $1bn closed in December and Balderton's recent $400M come to mind...)

To state the glaring obvious, 2009 will spell the end for many venture funds and venture backed companies. I believe there was always venture funding overhang from the early 2000s- that will have fully corrected by the end of this downturn...

The word on the street in California is "this downturn could be as bad as the great depression". The word on the street in London still seems to be, "what recession?". Look for "Sale Now On" signs to change to "Going out of Business Sale" in 2009.

Happy Holidays

2008-12-10T19:49:00+00:00

It's that time of year, and I'm heading off into turkey, present and (hopefully) gadget land for a few weeks.

No real posts (unless total boredom sets in) until 2009.

Happy Holidays everyone!

(Picture credit: gun show)

Google's Search goes open: Wiki-style

2008-11-21T09:15:03+00:00

I couldn't believe my eyes this morning when I ran a search on Google. If you are signed in, you can now promote results as well as leave comments. I had asked a Googler last year when they were going to meld Bookmark Sync (social ranking) to Google's PageRank. This is equally good/better.

Google's been wikified.

This appears to be a staged roll out, so here's a screen shot showing where you can promote, remove or comment on a result:

There's also a video on YouTube demonstrating Google's SearchWiki in action.

The Android Wars

2008-10-30T22:55:28+00:00

I was lucky enough to unbox a G1 yesterday. Pretty neat phone, it doesn't outshine the iPhone in my opinion, but it's a great device. Definitely 100x better than any other phone out there (minus the iPhone).

But what makes the G1 great is the apps that take full advantage of *everything* the handset has to offer. Wikitude (worst name ever for the coolest app I've seen to date). Just watch the video.

It doesn't really give the same effect as standing on the 9th floor in a Qualcomm building looking out over the mountains towards Phoenix - seeing your field of view populate with POIs in the area for miles around, but it gives you a pretty good idea... More info/background on Wikitude is available here.

What's clear is that Android is going to be a serious contender- and is a fully functional Battleship.

Go Green- Get out your Bike

2008-10-21T22:55:12+01:00

Yes, it's another bike post on my blog. I'm turning into a regular gear-head. The WSJ has a feature on cycling in London- approximately 500,000 trips are made via bicycle every day in London. Maybe the credit crunch is having an unexpected positive impact...

Spotify- The Next Great Music App

2008-10-07T20:35:31+01:00

Congratulations to the Spotify team- they've launched their public beta today allowing anyone to listen to music over the web, in what I think could be the next great music app.

I've been lucky enough (thanks Daniel!) to be one of the beta testers over the past several months- today's the first time I've seen (and heard) ads on Spotify- and they've come up with a great advertising supported music model that's legal. Yes, it's all legit...

Two things you've got to do: 1) Download the app 2) SHARE a playlist. Sharing music via Spotify has to be the most fun I've had in years. (Yes, VCs are kind of sad that way.)

And if you can't wait to get your hands on a beta invite- you can get the premium version of Spotify immediately which has no ads...

This is gonna be a great.

Would the real iPhone please stand up?

2008-09-22T19:21:00+01:00

I agree, the iPhone looks snappy in those Apple TV commericals. I love my iPhone, but it doesn't work *exactly* as advertised. Some guys with too much time on their hands decided to make this comparison video- the "TV" iPhone versus the "Real" iPhone.

Dropbox- how file sync should be

2008-09-07T15:24:37+01:00

My beta invite for Dropbox (funded by Y Combinator) arrived this weekend - and my initial impression is very positive. I've migrated my home mac use to a client/server (MacBook Pro/iMac) set up- with my iMac doing most of the heavy lifting.

I've tried multiple back up services and even tried to use iDisk as a "dropbox", but it never worked like it should. I'm now sharing my "Current" folder between the two macs seamlessly- and can even get access via the web if needed. Essentially, Dropbox is what iDisk should be - seamless cross-platform file sharing, complemented by web access:

Apple should acquire these guys ASAP and switch out iDisk for Dropbox...and getting access to these files via my iPhone would make a nice addition to MobileMe too.

Wii Sports Resort: MotionPlus

2008-09-03T21:31:04+01:00

Normally, I don't post anything portfolio related, but one of our companies, InvenSense, is launching some very cool technology inside the upcoming Wii Sports Resort. The best part is the Jet Ski demo at 2:24....

European VC takes a nose dive

2008-08-27T20:45:00+01:00

Don't say you weren't warned: It's back.... VC Doom and Gloom.

According to Venture Source and the NYT, European Venture has hit it's lowest point since 2000. Investment dollars declined by 35% to $1.3 billion and companies receiving investment were down by 42% to 167.

The upshot is that early stage investing isn't dead:

“Venture capitalists are being very selective about the companies they back but they’re by no means abandoning the European market. In the first six months of the year, 44% of venture deals in Europe were seed or first rounds—we haven’t seen this level of early-stage interest since the first half of 2001."

Which is great, b/c these companies can grow up during the downturn and hopefully come out swinging when times are better. For portfolio companies that are long in the tooth though...Fred is rumored to be lurking in his Vadar mask.

Critical Mass London- Get out your Bike [Updated]

2008-08-20T22:31:23+01:00

After further thought, I won't be attending. Possibly the most dangerous vehicle on the roads is the Irresponsible Cyclist.

While I agree that more cycle awareness and support for cyclists is needed, I don't think breaking the law, clogging traffic and generally causing mayhem is the best way to advance cycling in metropolitan areas.

One of the key criticisms I always hear about cyclists in London is that they "always break the law"- which is something I make a point of not doing. Responsible cycling is really the best way forward... with awareness and respect from motor vehicles- I can't see that Critical Mass promotes that type of protest, so won't be joining. Ping me or leave a comment if you know of any "positive protests" in the City...

</update>

Conditions for cyclists in London can range from pretty poor to extremely dangerous... I literally have *very* close calls on a daily basis. Luckily I haven't eaten any pavement yet, but I'm sure it won't be long, despite being pretty defensive out there.

If you'd like to join an awareness event for cycling, the next Critical Mass London is next Friday at 6pm on the South Bank under Waterloo Bridge, by the National Film Theatre.

What's Critical Mass? Here's a recent video from the WSJ on its origins: