The Experience

So, okay, let's start with that -- at least the initial experience. (And no company, hands down, does that better than Apple.)  Which of the above phones would you rather have?  It all starts with the home screen, I guess. Now, granted -- on the Droid, if you touch the arrow on the tab at the bottom and slide up, you get a much better looking screen on with all your little app icons -- and without the mottled gray background (what's with that?) -- but, overall, I have to say that the visual experience with the Droid doesn't compare well with the iPhone.  And I say that even knowing that the screen is supposed to be higher resolution than the iPhone (personally, I didn't notice that much).  I guess it's really the "brand experience" I'm talking about here.  And that applies to the box, the packaging, too.  Motorola (or is it Verizon?) tried to come up with something here as good as the iPhone, but to me they missed the mark. Something about the darkness of the whole thing -- the black, the gray, and then that goofy little glowing red ball on the screen (on both the package and all over Verizon's promotional materials). Inside the package, though, the little "Getting Started" booklet is very nicely done -- love the fanfold, and it tells you everything you need to know, quickly.

(NOTE: See the "Update" added at the bottom of this post.)

The Feel

The Droid feels good in my hand -- solid, a little heavier than the iPhone. But that seems to be because it has more metal. And, heck, it does have a slide-open keyboard, so it should be heavier.  But that slight additional weight didn't bother me.  It's also a little thicker than the iPhone, as you would expect -- but that's hardly even noticeable.  It's a teeny bit narrower as well.  To be quite honest with you, though, that actually feels a little more natural in my hand than the iPhone does.

A Look at How the Droid Is Billed

So, here's how Verizon presents the new Droid phone on its web site -- including a big fat poke at the iPhone in a commercial they run at the front of this web page (hit "Skip Intro" if you've seen it). Funny how every new smart phone out there has to go after the leader. And Motorola, the manufacturer of the Droid with whom Verizon partnered, describes the phone thusly on its media center page for media and bloggers:

Introducing DROID by Motorola, a Smartphone powered by Android 2.0 developed in partnership with Google and Verizon Wireless, the nation’s largest 3G network. DROID delivers high-speed Web, voice-activated search, a super large touch screen and thousands of customizable apps and widgets from Android Market^™. With the thinnest full QWERTY slider available on the market, it’s a no-compromise supergenius in your pocket, multitasking at break-neck pace to get things done.

High-Speed Mobile Browsing

• See the Web at break-neck speed on the largest high-resolution display with a Flash 10 ready HTML browser.

• Look up favorite sites, video and music fast with a high-speed, cortex A8 processor and lightning-fast connection.

•View it all on the 3.7” display with more than 400,000 total pixels, which is twice that of the leading competitor.

• Work faster on the Web with double tap to zoom in and out.

Google Searches Beyond the Web

• Type your search to deliver results such as contacts and music offering a complete search experience on a mobile device. 

• Use voice-activated search to serve up both your contacts and Google search results, based on your location. 

• Find your way with free spoken turn-by-turn directions with Google Maps^TM Navigation (Beta), with Street View and Latitude^TM. View geographic information, such as My Maps, Wikipedia entries and transit lines, right on the map.

How It Worked for Me

I must say the Droid itself, and Verizon's service, worked pretty darn well, in the few hours I spent playing with the phone. The hardware is solid, and the service is fast -- whether accessing the web, the "Android Market" to download apps, sending emails and texts... it all was quite speedy. I downloaded about four apps, one at a time, and they were all on my home screen fast. I've never used the Android Market before to get apps (this is the first time I've ever even used an Android phone), and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised to see how well it worked. (I hear about 10,000 apps are available there now, versus 85,000 for the iPhone on the App Store.) I downloaded a few apps from Minneapolis-based DoApp Inc. (which already has 75 in the Android Market) -- I grabbed "MyLite," our local "WCCO-TV Mobile Local News," and a similar one for San Diego called "SD 6 News."  I also searched the Android Market for the app I use most -- "Tweetie" -- but no dice.  Also couldn't find "Twitterific," another one I've used.  But there were tons of Twitter apps in the Market, most of which I'd never heard of, or they were specialized apps for certain kinds of tweet content. The one general Twitter app that looked to be the most highly rated, in the five-star icons that appear with each app, was "Twidroid" -- but I didn't take the time to try it (I know how Twitter apps work).

I also tried the camera yesterday, and found it works okay, though it took me a while to figure out how to best use the skinny little camera button on the side. And I really didn't notice the camera's auto-focus function. I did email photos successfully.  They must be big files, because it's a 5-megapixel camera.

Built-in apps like YouTube worked great. Again, quick access -- and I searched on my name, and up came all my videos very quickly, in a nice interface, and even some I had favorited (all mixed together with my vids). The Maps app was awesome. Very impressive, and the GPS function was pretty darn accurate in instantly finding my location. There's a new "Layers" aspect to the Maps that I didn't really understand, but I clicked on "Traffic" and got a different view. Then I drilled in via the "Satellite" menu option and got a scary-good overhead view of my neighborhood -- up close and personal.  Maybe that higher-res screen is what made the Maps look so darn good on the Droid.

The slide-open keyboard worked okay for me, but my fingers (which really aren't very big) were fat-fingering that thing bigtime. I honestly would have no idea how anyone could double-thumb that keyboard -- except maybe someone with thumbs the size of a three-year old. I much preferred using the "virtual keyboard," which comes up automatically when doing searches, emailing, etc.  But the keys are much smaller for that in portrait mode than the iPhone's virtual keyboard -- making it horribly hard to use!  So, flip it to landscape mode, and you get much bigger keys. That option worked way better for me.

So, What's My Net-Net?

Okay, those are some of good things. I try hard to be a positive guy!  But now how do I really feel?  :-) Let me try to give my overall, bottom-line assessment...

Some things that really bugged me were the lack of the nice big, round home switch which I'm so used to at the bottom front of the iPhone. Man, I really missed that on the Droid!  Having to go to the top of the phone, and find that little tiny switch at the upper right was a real pain. I swear it takes two hands, or a real contortion of one hand, to press that damn thing!  That is a major user-experience mistake in my book.  I also found a lot of other things that just weren't intuitive about the phone's operation, or the navigation within apps, including email and texting. For example, I could not figure out how a text became a Draft when I was trying to send it, nor could I figure out how to retrieve that Draft so I could send it. Couldn't figure out how to delete some private messages I'd sent, either, before I turn in the phone. And, right now, I can't even get back to the home screen, no matter how many times I press the little home icon on the front of the phone.  Another weirdity: I have yet to see where I go for "Settings" -- there's no icon I can see for that, as there is on my iPhone.  So I could not, for example, shut off the damn machine-language guy saying "Dro-o-o-id" in a low, bass drone every time an email came in. Puh-lease. Also, it just never really seemed natural to use this phone -- which way to hold it... up or sideways, or slide it open... or what. And that home button way up top, then the camera button way down low. 

So, okay, my net-net ... you knew this was coming: it ain't no iPhone.  Now, if you really can't leave Verizon, and you really want to pay the same price as an iPhone ($199 with a two-year contract), just to stay with Verizon -- then, yes, it's a close experience.  But close is what you get, not the cigar.

Then again, if you really like Verizon all that much, why not just wait?  All us fanboys in the know predict Apple is sure to add Verizon as a carrier for the iPhone here in the U.S., just as soon as the AT&T exclusive expires. 

What do you think?  Lock yourself in for two more years with Verizon now, or wait for the iPhone?  What would you do?

UPDATE 11/6/09:
Wanted to cite an earlier, very comprehensive Droid review by Engadget, which appeared prior to mine.  (Amazing how being a paid blogger let’s you go to the lengths this guy did.)  Also wanted to give this local shout-out: Garrick Van Buren’s Droid review.  Finally, I point you to what I think is the best review of all — by the master himself, Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal, on November 3rd: Motorola’s Droid Is Smart Success for Verizon Users. In addition, here are some more local tie-ins: a growing, grass-roots local organization called Mobile Twin Cities, and their Google Group.  They’re focused on all things mobile, including marketing, and all mobile OSes, including both Android and iPhone, of course.  And, on top of that, we even have a burgeoning Minnesota Android Developers Google Group as well.

To see the real thing, go here: http://graemethickins.businesscard2.com.  When you click through to that link, mouse over the card and check out all the features!  Do you have one of these yet?  You should!  It's free, and so easy to set up.  Just go here to get your own: www.businesscard2.com. (Or there's a link in the footer of every card.)  Business Card2 is a powerful new tool that lets you easily manage and promote your online identity.

I'm happy to report that Minneapolis-based Workface LLC, the developer of BusinessCard2, is my newest client. Very cool stuff!  Please check out their web site. And stay tuned... because the story is just beginning.

But myself and my colleagues from Minnov8 decided, as we have for other recent conferences we've covered, to skip trying to live-Twitter the whole thing -- so limited by 140 characters and all -- and live-blog it instead using a tool called ScribbleLive.  And, when we wanted to tweet -- or when we needed to, when the wi-fi was challenged (which is was a lot) -- we had it set up with our Twitter streams feeding into that live-blog window, too.  So, all four of us had our mobile phones at the ready to tweet, as well as our laptops open to live blog.  We were jumping back and forth between the two, but it worked pretty well.

So, here's the result of that live-blogging/Twitter-feed combo: it's now archived here at Minnov8.com. And there's other Minnov8 coverage of the event as well from my colleagues: Steve Borsch did a great recap post, and Phil Wilson shot and edited a nice FlipHD video, interviewing attendees at the closing reception to get their takeaways.

I did some audio interviews, which you can listen to or download here:

• Graeme interviewing Rohn Jay Miller of interactive agency IconNicholson

• Graeme interviewing Mark Kurtz, VP New Media at Gage Marketing, a sponsor of the event

• Graeme interviewing Scott Severson, CEO of AdFusion

• Graeme interviewing Lee Odden, SEO guru and head of TopRank Online Marketing

Here's my Flickr set of photos from MIMA '09, such as they are (can you say grab shots?):

And, just for fun, here's a quick Animoto video I made for free using that photo set:

Finally, here's a video I shot with my new iPhone 3GS before the morning sessions got going:

I hope you enjoyed my coverage. There were many amazing companies that launched at this event, and I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more from them over time. For more details and reporting on this event, visit DEMO.com, and also search Twitter on the hashtag #demofall09. And, for some visuals, please check out my DEMOfall09 Flickr set.

Here's the page where my live blogging posts will appear, in real time as they are published: bit.ly/TWU3L.  (I'll be leaving this post here at the top of my blog as a "sticky post" for a few weeks.) To do this live blogging, I'm using a great tool designed just for this purpose called "ScribbleLive."  My coverage begins either Monday evening 9/21 (after the reception), or Tuesday morning 9/22 when the opening session kicks off, and goes through early afternoon Wednesday 9/23, when I must bolt for the airport. 

At the last three DEMO events I've attended, I have live-tweeted them rather than live blog -- and that works okay.  But this approach is better, for a number of reasons: (1) I'm not limited to 140 characters per post... (2) I find it a nice middle ground between doing short, often hard-to-write (and understand!) tweets and the more rambling long-form blogging... (3) it's as fast or faster than tweeting... (4) it's way faster than me trying to post quickly on my own Typepad blog here... and (5) it prevents many of my Twitter followers from getting mad and unfollowing me when I'm doing so many rapid-fire tweets at events, which for a DEMO can be upwards of a couple hundred! Another cool thing is that I can attach a photo to any of my live-blog posts as well. (Though I will also upload all my pix to a Flickr set during and right after the event.)  The tool also allows me to attach an audio or video file, if I wish, but I don't expect to do that.

For me, as a longtime event reporter, this ScribbleLive tool is really an ideal solution. Thanks to my colleague on Minnov8.com, Steve Borsch, who set up this tool for some of the other events we cover, and helped me with this one.  Here's an example of how our team of four Minnov8 bloggers used the tool simultaneously for the first time: it was at the recent Blogwell event at General Mills in Minneapolis.

I look forward to DEMOfall and hope I hear from you -- whether during the event, before, or after. I will likely be publishing some other, stand-alone posts here on this blog while at DEMOfall -- namely, audio interviews, as I did for DEMO '09 back in March. To communicate with me, you can always post comments here at my blog.  Or, talk to me via Twitter by putting @GraemeThickins at the beginning of your tweets -- since I will be monitoring Twitter search closely as I live-blog the event.  I'll be in my usual spot in row three of the press section, right down in front.

For this video, I decided to use music from one of my own iTunes tracks. (Again, Animoto is a free service if you're just creating 30-second videos, like this one, but you can buy an annual pass to create longer vids.) This video starts out with a shot of me in my cowboy duds on my deck before I left...

Thanks to the Minnesota State Fair folks (@minnstatefair on Twitter) for hosting us, to Fox-9 (@myfox9) for the TV crew (watch tonight at 9:00 pm!) -- and, especially, to my buddies Rick Mahn (@rickmahn) and Mykl Roventine (@myklroventine) and their crew for organizing such a fun event!

The highlight for me was the reading of the winning entries in the "Bacon Haiku" contest -- one of which was mine! Myself and the rest of the 10 winners each got a cupful of chocolate-dipped bacon strips... mmmmm! And another nice touch at the event was Chris Lower (@MrChristopherL) getting our famous local No Name meat company folks (@NoNameSteaks) to show up and hand out free coupons for a package of their great bacon! Hey, now that's social media word-of-mouth at its finest, huh?

I just uploaded a selection of my Flickr set from the Blogwell event, which I attended a couple of weeks ago (see previous post), chose an instrumental track, and -- sure enough -- I got the end-result in minutes. Pretty cool. Kind of a poor-man's way to do video... :-) Especially if you're like me and shoot a ton of stills at events of all kinds. Man, do I have the archive.

Hey, I just might make another video with the pix I shoot this Friday, August 28th, at our next Social Media Breakfast-Twin Cities -- it's at the Minnesota State Fair. That's right, "Social Media on a Stick!" I just might wear my cowboy boots and hat...

Wonder what music track should I use for that one? Hmm, the possibilities boggle the mind...

I participated in live-blogging the event as a member of the "Minnov8 Gang," with my colleagues Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, and Phil Wilson. Minnov8 was a media partner for the event. Please check out the archive of our live blogging at BlogWell at the Minnov8 site. We think it turned out great. It was the first time we've used a great new tool for this purpose called ScribbleLIve.  It even allows the archive to be presented in normal, chronological order (unlike typical blogging formats).

My Photos: As I usually do at events I'm covering, I point and shoot when I can, when I'm not heads-down on the keyboard. Or schmoozing. Or interviewing. I randomly grab shots with either my iPhone or my little (semi-worthless) Canon A560. One of these days, I'm going to get a better camera. Or, uh, become a better photographer? Someday. When I have time. Nonetheless, here's my Flickr set, for what it's worth.

My Tweets:  Didn't do too many at the event, since we were live-blogging in longer-than-140-character chunks, which arguably is a better way to cover events. But what tweets I did do (before, during, and after) you can scroll back and see here: @GraemeThickins ...and they're also mixed in with just a TON of tweets the flowed on the hashtag #blogwell all day yesterday -- and I see are continuing today.

My Interviews: I took along my trusty studio-grade handheld recorder (the Olympus LS-10) and grabbed seven brief audio interviews before and after the sessions, and during breaks. The last two featured wine, so you'll have to excuse the background merriment. Here are the MP3s, in the order I recorded them:

• Listen to my interview of my friend and fellow Minneapolis blogger Arik Hanson.

• Listen to my interview of Gia Lyons, evangelist for Jive Software.

• Listen to my interview of Don Smith, a social media guru at General Mills.

• Listen to my interview of Jesse Engle, CEO and cofounder of Cotweet.

• Listen to my interview of Jim Cuene, Director of Interactive Marketing, General Mills.

• Listen to my interview of Scott Monty, head of social media at Ford Motor Company.

• Listen to my interview of Andy Sernovitz, founder of GasPedal and Social Media Business Council.

“Seed funding is the earliest stage of venture funding. It pays your expenses while you’re getting started. Some companies may need no more than seed funding. Others will go through several rounds. There is no right answer; how much funding you need depends on the kind of company you start. At Y Combinator, our goal is to get you through the first phase. This usually means: get you to the point where you’ve built something impressive enough to raise money on a larger scale. Then we introduce you to later stage investors, or occasionally even acquirers.”  (More on Y Combinator’s About page.)

YC’s application process is well explained on their site, a process FanChatter went through earlier this year, before their selection in mid-April.  After sitting on this story for some time, waiting for the TechCrunch post to break first (which is the normal way YC companies get announced), what follows is the result of a phone and email interview I did over the past few days with FanChatter founders Marty Wetherall and Luke Francl, who remain in Silicon Valley through August. (The third founder, Norm Orstad, was not available.)

Tech-Surf-Blog: Tell us about how you came to apply for the Y Combinator program. Why did you think a MN startup would stand a chance, and why did you decide to do it this year?

Luke: It was pretty much my idea, but it was basically for the hell of it. I figured “why not?” We made a pact that if we got in, we would do YC for sure, no matter what. Being from Minnesota didn’t figure into my decision at all; YC doesn’t really discriminate based on geography. As for the timing, it didn’t occur to me to apply sooner. I think that worked out for us, as YC expanded somewhat for the Summer 2009 class, due to the $2M investment they had raised. [That was primarily from Sequoia Capital.]

Marty: I’d always heard about Y Combinator as this program where only the best and brightest startups were allowed.  It just sounded cool like that, even though I wasn’t very knowledgeable at the time about Paul Graham or Hacker News.  All I knew was that FanChatter needed something big to happen, so we went for it.

Tech-Surf-Blog: Give us the quick story on the process — starting from when you applied, to when you were invited to make the trip to Mountain View to pitch, and then how you were chosen as a finalist.

Luke: The application is straightforward. The most challenging part is the video. We spent more than two hours working on a one-minute video. The first inkling we had that we might get selected was when Paul emailed me to say our video didn’t work. Crap! But that showed they were interested.  April 6th was nerve wracking as we waited to hear if we’d gotten an interview. Finally, at 7:30 that night, we got the email that they wanted to meet with us. We picked a time and flew out the morning of the interview.  Afterward, you have to wait around until YC calls you that evening. We got called about four hours after our interview.  YC has standard terms which everyone knows in advance, so you pretty much just have to say “yes” or “no.”

Marty: Couple things.  First, I’m a film and TV guy with well-known Super Bowl spots on my list of credits, and this video was the simplest thing I’ve ever done.  That’s because I didn’t have the brain space to make it into anything more than dudes talking into a web cam — but we must have said something right because they told us it was good!  Second, there’s a photo on our blog of Luke getting the call that we were in.  It was a great moment.  It felt like FanChatter had arrived.  [Here's that photo of Luke taking the call from YC's Paul Graham, shot by Marty.]

Tech-Surf-Blog: The amount of seed capital each Y Combinator startup gets is not huge, but give us your take on the other benefits of being selected.

Luke: Yeah, the money is not really the main benefit of Y Combinator for a company like ours. I think if you were fresh out of college and used to living on ramen, $15,000 or $20,000 would go a long way, but we all have mortgages. On the flip side, we already have customers and so we can afford to take a little time and try to make this work. For the company, we get an incredible inside view of how Silicon Valley works, and a chance to pitch to the best angels in the Valley on Demo Day. For me personally, I knew I couldn’t turn down this adventure, even though I’m giving up income and living apart from my wife for the summer.

Marty: Definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity.  I’ve lived and worked in LA and felt how the film industry runs that town.  Colors everything about it.  It feels like that in Silicon Valley, but it’s tech.  In coffee shops, what you overhear is tech talk.  Startups, angels, and VC.  It’s been fun to experience this.

Tech-Surf-Blog: Once you were accepted into the program around mid-April, how were you able to keep it such a secret — and why did you have to?

Luke: Keeping this under wraps has been incredibly difficult, because we wanted to shout it from the rooftops. But we were advised not to blog about being accepted to Y Combinator, because then it wouldn’t be news when we launched, meaning we’d have a difficult time getting covered by tech blogs. This was a tough row to hoe for us because we’ve been around for a while. I kind of wish we’d announced it sooner — we could have easily been the first YC launch of the summer, but that honor went to our friends at Bump.

Marty: Once we knew we couldn’t talk about it until we launched, we decided we’d use a new piece of business for our coming- out party.  We got that with the debut of our new ChatterBox feature on the homepage of the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Tech-Surf-Blog: Tell us what the process was like to apply and, then, once selected as a semi-finalist, get up in front of the four judges to pitch FanChatter.

Luke: We spent a lot of time crafting the application. Every time I looked at the instructions, it seemed like there was some facet I’d missed, and I tried to hew very closely to the instructions, especially around answer length. I also paid close attention to the basics, like spelling and grammar, so there wouldn’t be any excuses to put our application aside. Paul and his partners look at hundreds of applications, so I didn’t want to give them a reason to pass ours by.

Waiting around at the YC office for the interview was the hardest part. I’d read horror stories about how you’d be able to get out two sentences and then Paul was just going to savage your idea. So, I practiced our demo, and Marty practiced our two sentences. There were a few other people waiting around so I showed them the demo, and I got to see theirs.

Once we got into the interview my nervousness was lifted right away. Paul was excited to see our demo. Paul, Jessica, Trevor, and Robert came around to the other side of the table and crowded around my laptop. [There's more about the four YC partners on YC's People page.] Then Paul sort of riffed on things we could do — I think he came up with about two years’ worth of work in about 10 minutes — while Jessica tried to bring things to a close so they could stay on time.

Marty: It’s true.  Luke kept grilling me the whole trip out here. “What are you going to do?” over and over. Not in terms of the interview, but in terms of the company.  So, we were ready.  The interview was easy once we got in there.  It’s definitely the closest I’ll ever get to feeling like a contestant on American Idol.

Tech-Surf-Blog: Being chosen as a winner required you to move to the Valley for the summer.  Marty, how did you, Luke, and Norm handle that, with respect to your “other” lives, and how long are you out there?

Marty: My wife and two-year-old daughter came out here with me, which has been both good and challenging. Startup life is round the clock, but we’ve made it work.  In many ways, it would have been easier as a young guy just out of college, as many of our YC classmates are.

Luke: I was already doing independent contract development work (hey, if this startup thing doesn’t work out, let me know if you need a good Rails developer!), so I finished up the contracts I was working on and that was about it.  My wife and I had planned to take a trip to Italy this summer (that was “Plan A”), so I had to pass that up. We’re out here until sometime in September, and then we’ll see after that.

Tech-Surf-Blog: Describe a typical day for you this summer in the Y Combinator program in Mountain View. Where do all these company founders work?  Are there events where you all get together?

Luke: For me, a typical day is programming, programming, programming. We have a quick stand-up meeting in the morning, and then I try to hack away at our products. I don’t see the other startup founders much, except on Tuesdays when we all get together for the YC dinner. That’s the social highlight of the week.  Almost everyone works out of their apartments, though I know of one group that’s living out of their office!

Marty: Our apartment is in Mountain View, just a few blocks from YC’s offices. Those Tuesday dinners at Y Combinator really define the program.  That’s where we meet and listen to amazing speakers from the startup world, including successful YC alums.  It’s interesting to check in with the other founders in our class to see what they’ve accomplished since the previous week.  I think it pushes all of us to keep up the momentum.  [Here's a photo of Luke and Marty, center, at one of the Tuesday night meetings, from a Flickr set by "socialmoth" - a YC alum named Paul McKellar.]

Tech-Surf-Blog: We’ve heard the mantra Y Combinator puts forth for its companies is to “Make something people want.”  What did FanChatter, which is not a brand-new startup, propose to “make”?  Did you essentially propose to improve your offering for consumers in order to be selected?  If so, how are you coming with that new work?  And when will new features be available to your existing users?

Luke: I think an increasing number of companies coming into YC already have products or working demos. They liked that we had customers — that was very attractive. We sort of pitched it as, “Look how far we’ve come working on this in our spare time. Imagine what we could do if we did this full time.” We’ve been rolling out new features to our existing customers all summer, as well as creating the new ChatterBox product. Paul’s been very helpful in helping us figure out the “big picture” of where we should be going: making more revenue for our clients (and getting a piece of that).

Marty: In our case, we’re making something that sports teams and other businesses who have fans want.  More engagement so they can make more money.  I’ve always believed that content sharing is the path to engagement, so that’s what we’re doing with Scoreboard Photo Sharing and the ChatterBox — and that’s just the beginning.

Tech-Surf-Blog: So, what is yet to happen in the Y Combinator summer program, as you’re now about two months into it — and what does the future hold for FanChatter?

Luke: “Demo Day” is what it all leads up to. [That's in late August at YC's offices, attended by many VCs and angels.] After that, we’ll see. We’re working on becoming ramen profitable, but also looking to raise some angel money.

Marty: Who knows?  Hopefully we’re on to something and fan engagement can carry us beyond sports and into music and TV and anywhere fans come together around a common interest.  There’s so much potential for interesting things to happen, and that’s where we want to be.

I certainly wish my friends at FanChatter all the best as they go forward. And I love the fact that they just happen to be doing great things for our sports teams here in the Twin Cities!  [The scoreboard at the new Gophers stadium should be awesome, and I'm sure hoping FanChatter shows up there.]  For more on the company, see its news release dated August 4.  And the TechCrunch story that broke August 1 is here: YC-Funded FanChatter Takes Social Media To The Ball Game.  Another good story followed that on MediaPost’s Online Media Daily.

If you’re a startup thinking of taking a run at applying for the Winter 2010 Y Combinator program, there are some great tips on YC’s site, and a FAQ page provides even more insight into how you might be able to take advantage of this excellent program.

What’s your take?  Will you apply?  If not, why not?  What are your picks for other promising startups here in Minnesota who should apply?  Or is this a complete fluke?  Speak out in the comments.

Called "PR 2.0: The New Tools of the Trade," the event will be held Monday July 13 from 8:00 am till 4:00 pm at the Westin Galleria, 3201 Galleria, in Edina, MN 55435. Jason Kintzler, founder and CEO of PitchEngine, is the keynote presenter.  PitchEngine, based in Casper, Wyoming, is "a social media release service" that enables PR professionals to package stories and share them with journalists, bloggers, and influencers via the social web. (By the way, if you want to follow Jason, here's his Twitter page, which tells us he's also a former journalist, a graphic designer, a fly fisherman, and a snowboarder.)

Said Jen in announcing the event (she's pictured below, and that's colleague Kary Delaria at right),  "If you’re in the business of sharing facts, telling stories, starting conversations, and monitoring dialogue about your company or client, this is stuff you need to know."   

 The conference will also feature eight breakout sessions reflecting the most cutting edge and innovative thinking on how to navigate this rapidly changing industry. I know most all these folks and can attest they know their stuff.

The breakout sessions include:

•  "Using Social Media Behind the Firewall" - Gary Koelling, Best Buy, and Cameron Gross, GreaterThan Media, a consultant to Best Buy.
•  "Pitching Using New Media Tools" - Eva Keiser, Senior Vice President, Risdell McKinney Public Relations.
•  "Online Reputation Management" - Greg Swan, Digital Strategy Manager, Weber Shandwick Digital Communications.
•  "Incorporating Podcasts and Video Into Your Marketing and PR Mix" - Albert Maruggi, founder of Provident Partners and Producer of the Marketing Edge podcast.
•  "Self Publishing for PR" - Arik Hanson, ACH Communications/Chief Blogger, Communications Conversations.
•  "How to Monitor Your Brand Through Social Media Channels" - Connie Benson, Chief Community Officer, Techrigy.
•  "Optimizing Content of Press Releases and Beyond" - Jolina Pettice, Senior Account Manager, TopRank Online Marketing.
•  "Small Brands. Big Results" - Blois Olson, Executive Vice President, Tunheim Partners.

In addition, there will be open lab periods where attendees can network with others and explore new online PR and marketing tools and applications.

The organizers tell me that remaining space is limited, but registration may still be available as you read this.  To register and see the list of those attending to date, here's the PR 2.0 event registration page. You can also see the press release for the event here: a PitchEngine release, of course!

Can't make the event but still want to schmooze?

You're in luck. Kane Consulting also announced they're holding a "TweetUp" after the conference from 6:00 to 9:00 pm at Tavern on France!  You may have seen some buzz about this on our local Social Media Breakfast (SMBmsp) site -- well, now it’s official.  It's your chance to meet Jason Kintzler of PitchEngine and hob-nob with the local PR digerati.  But you must RSVP here for the TweetUp.  It's open to all.  There’s no cost to attend this evening gathering, and you can simpy order food and drinks off the menu.

See ya there!

It's that time again, surf fans!  For the annual celebration of Lake Superior surf culture: Coldwater Surf Fest, brought to us by the Superior Surf Club. Time to gather for food, laughs, maybe a brew or two, and your chance to take a dip in the Big Lake They Call Gitchigumi.  But, regarding the latter (unless you're just wading), do bring your 6-mil or 5-mil wetsuit, hood, booties & gloves, as one never knows what the water temp may be, even in June (let alone the air temps and wind). The surfers in the group, of course, will be hoping for big winds blowing out of the Northeast to produce rideable waves!  Readers of this blog may recall I wrote about the 2007 Coldwater Surf Fest. And, for those of you who don't think surfing on Lake Superior is for real, here's a shot of our own Bob Tema surfing Stoney Point, north of Duluth: 

Event Details:

FRIDAY NIGHT 6/5/09:  Gather at Fitger's in Duluth for brews and grub, starting about 5:00 pm. (Map and directions.)

SAT MORNING 6/6/09 10:00 am:  Beach clean-up at Park Point "First Turns" Beach, sponsored by the MN-Superior Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation. (Map and directions.  Street parking available.)

SAT 6/6/09 NOON:  Party!  Pavillion at Park Point. BBQ, drinks, stories, trade/sell equipment, memorabilia. Raffle to benefit the Tom Blake Memorial: tickets $5. (More info on the Tom Blake Memorial.)  Map and directions.  Lots of parking available.

SAT EVENING 6/6/09:  After-party at somebody's place.

SUN MORNING 6/7/09:  Brunch at Pizza Luce's.

Come for part or all of the event -- stay as long as you can!  I'm driving up Friday afternoon and staying over through Saturday.  All are welcome: surfers, friends, relatives, spouses and kids, participants or spectators, and anyone who thinks they may someday want to take the plunge into surfing the Big Lake... whether that be regular surfing or stand up paddleboarding (SUP), as shown in these two pics from last year's event -- when, unfortunately, surf conditions were totally flat. (All photos of last year's event courteous Bob Tema. The guy in this shot actually teaches surfing at the U of MN-Duluth!)

Whatever the conditions, though, you will be guaranteed to have fun at CWSF!  Bring a board and wet suit if you have one, or maybe you can borrow someone else's and paddle out! You'll meet great people, including many of the top surfers on Lake Superior, eat some good grilled grub and partake in some cold(!) libations, all the while enjoying the wonderful outdoors in our great State of Minnesota! 

The Park Point peninsula is really a natural treasure, if you haven't experienced it yet: wide, sandy beaches, stretching out from the Canal Park bridge, which is the heart of Duluth's tourist center.  Park Point is a thin strip of sand with beach houses and lake-front condos, reaching all the way out to a small airport at the end of the peninsula, adjacent to a great park that has a picnic pavilion, barbeque grills, even a beach concession building -- with birch and pine forest lining the wide stretches of pristine sand.

Well, it's pristine when people keep it that way!  But we're out to do our part in that regard at this year's Coldwater Surf Fest -- because our new MN-Superior Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation is sponsoring a Beach Clean-Up the morning of the main event (Saturday, June 6).  We'll take an hour or so to each don plastic gloves and grab a garbage bag to pick up trash and debris to ensure our favorite Duluth Beach is left better than when we got there!  It's all part of giving back to our environment.

For more info on this year's Coldwater Surf Fest, just ask in the comments section of this post.  Or visit the Superior Surf Club site -- where you can even order the limited-edition event T-shirt (long or short sleeve). Here are some more pix (again, courteous Bob Tema) from last year's event...

I had noticed in the days leading up to Glue that Foundry Group had announced a new investment (Gist, whose founder was at Glue), then I saw two more investments they announced on their blogs while the event was going on (Medialets and CloudEngines). So, I decided to see if I could interview both Brad and Seth during breaks on Day 2 of Glue to learn about these latest new portfolio companies of theirs.

Brad (left photo) and Seth typify what I've called before The New Face of Venture Investing -- a post I actually did in December 2007, which specifically called out Brad.   I've also written previously about Seth, in a post from June 2008 called The Best Advice I've Seen Lately on Using Startup Advisors. They are both really nice guys, wicked smart, and doing great work helping many entrepreneurs build successful startups in a place that...well, is not Silicon Valley.  Yes, they've proved in spades that it can be done.  And, unlike your typical VCs, they do believe in investing outside their own backyard -- as is the case with all three of their latest investments.  Sure, many of their portfolio companies are in Colorado, where a lot of innovation is going on (which they're involved in on a day-to-day basis -- including the TechStars program, which they helped launch).  But they're also smart enough to know great ideas and great teams can live anywhere. I love the way they get involved in these events of theirs -- they're right in the middle of it all, very much a part of the "community" that each of these events they've launched really has become. It doesn't take long to realize that both these guys are "people persons" through and through.

I spoke with Brad first, about the Gist investment, which had been announced the week before, and in particular about the investment they had just announced early that morning, on Day 2 of Glue: CloudEngines.

• Download the MP3 of my interview with Brad Feld.

Later the same morning, I spoke at greater length with Seth, primarily about Foundry Group leading a $4M Series A investment in Medialets, which had been announced on Day 1 of Glue.  We also spoke a bit about an earlier investment of Seth's in the advertising space, AdMeld.

• Download the MP3 of my interview with Seth Levine.

For more about the Glue Conference, see my Twitterstream for the past three days.  I must have tweeted darn-near a couple hundred times!  And I saw this morning after I was back in Minneapolis that conference organizer Eric Norlin said he'd just read through all the tweets on the event -- 62 pages total!  You can find the whole shebang by going to search.twitter.com and entering "gluecon" in the search box. It was a very successful event by all accounts.  I'm really happy I was part of it, and have already said I'll sign up for next year! 

Now in its fifth year, the competition is bigger and better in 2009, with more prizes and more opportunities to win.  The total amount of winnings this year was upped to more than $130,000.  And the competition was expanded to now include six divisions — Clean & Green, BioSciences, High Tech, Social Entrepreneur, General, and Student. The first-place winner stands to win as much as $40,000.  But I submit the money isn’t everything — the publicity and connections the winners get from this competition are worth far more.

The MN Cup, in more than doubling its prize money, stands in sharp contrast to a national study that recently reported angel investment dollars were down 26% in 2008.  Yes, Minnesota entrepreneurs should take heart — seed funding is actually on the rise in this case!  And many more founders can now participate in this competition with its newly added business categories.

Twin Cities Business magazine did a story on the 2008 MN Cup winners. 

MN Cup 2008 winners. (Photo: Twin Cities Business)

And here’s their story on the 2007 winners.

MN Cup 2007 winners. (Photo: Twin Cities Business)

So, What’s in Store for 2009?
How many entrants can we expect this year, and how might this year’s crop differ?  I asked Scott Litman, one of the MN Cup cofounders. “Submissions appear to be running at a similar pace to last year.  With the six divisions being a new thing, the most popular category at this point is Clean & Green — we’re seeing nearly 30% of all entries in that division.” 

Does he expect a rush of entries as the deadline approaches?  “In our past experience, nearly a third of all submissions occur in the final 48 hours,” said Litman.

To apply for the competition, just visit www.minnesotacup.org and click on “Enter MN Cup.” Get this: there’s no cost!  Zip, nada! So, all you bootstrappers out there — why wouldn’t you? The entry process, in it entirety, is via an online form, which you can save and come back to at a later time to complete the process.

“While we realize it’s natural to procrastinate, we strongly encourage entrants to set up their accounts and work on their entries sooner rather than later,” said Litman. “At the very least, it helps avoid any last-second technical issues — and, more importantly, entrants can edit or revise their submissions as much as they like, right up until the deadline.  So, entering earlier gives them more time to refine and improve their entry.”

I asked Litman how many entries there were last year, and if he expected even more this year. “We had 844 total participants last year, which was by far our biggest year. Our goal is to get a similar level of participation this year. We believe, based on the current pace of entries, that this is about where we’ll end up.”

So, when do the judges/reviewers actually start looking at the submitted applications? Litman: “The deadline is midnight on 5/22, and we begin reviewing entries on the 23rd.”

Note to Tech Entrepreneurs Especially: Get Busy!
One other comment of Litman’s really struck me:  “I’m not sure why, but the least well represented category so far for entries is high tech. At one level, it means we need more of these entries, but it also means that, for those that enter and write a really good plan, the odds of moving on to the second round are pretty good.” So, there you go, all my tech entrepreneur, inventor, and developer friends out there — have at it!

Here are a couple of the most common questions company founders ask about the MN Cup, with answers from the site’s FAQ page:

What Happens If My Application Gets Past the First Round?
There will be as many as 30 entries that move on to the semi-final round. At that point, you will have six weeks to put together a much more detailed and thorough plan. Notification will occur on June 20 with the second-round submission due by July 28. To assist you in your efforts, you will be provided with access to the James J. Hill premium membership program (HillSearch), the most powerful business information resource available to individuals.

How Will My Entry Be Judged?
Entries will be judged on the following criteria:

• Innovation: An idea can be for a product or service and can be an entirely new idea or the evolution of a previous idea. Ideas that show the greatest innovation will be viewed more favorably.

• Viability: Can this idea be commercialized within two years? Can this idea create or serve a market need? What is the entrant’s strategy for making the idea into a high-growth business? Judges will be evaluating ideas on their potential to generate revenue, profits and employment.

• Quality of Presentation: This is a secondary criteria, but please make sure that all content is well written and clear. As the competition progresses, quality of presentation will factor in more substantially.

Any resident of Minnesota can submit his or her breakthrough business idea simply by visiting www.minnesotacup.org.  I’ve had the good fortune to work with a winning startup in a prior year (actually, before the name was changed to the MN Cup), and am working with an entrepreneur this year to help him with his entry — and I can attest: you will not be sorry you participated in this experience.  Whether you win isn’t the most important thing. This is an extremely well run competition, in every way. The process itself will make you a better entrepreneur, guaranteed. But don’t just take my word — read this post from a previous winner, HealthSimple’s Doug Powell: Business Competitions — An Ongoing Discussion. And these testimonials from past entrants are also quite telling.

Good luck to all Minnesota Cup entrants!  I look forward to meeting at least all the semi-finalists at a special event for them this summer (to be announced).

The event offers attendees a chance to hear how a panel of local business leaders have transformed their organizations to thrive in the digital marketplace -- and I am privileged to be one of those panelists:

• Paul Douglas: CEO, Weather Nation (and former chief meteorologist, WCCO TV)

• Jan McDaniel: CEO, JTM Vision (and former CEO, American Red Cross Twin Cities)

• Phil Hotchkiss: Founder, BigCharts.com

• Joel Kramer: Founder, MinnPost.com (and former Publisher, Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

• Graeme Thickins: Founder, GT&A Strategic Marketing

• Andrew Eklund: CEO, Ciceron Digital Marketing

A special reduced rate of $195 per person is available till May 3 at this registration page, with a group rate of only $395 for up to five people from the same organization.

Ciceron is a web marketing and consulting agency based in Minneapolis. It offers full-service solutions from professional search engine optimization and email marketing programs to in-depth metrics and performance tracking.  Its clients have included such major brands as Home Depot, Nascar, USBank, Andersen Windows, Best Buy, Target, and Pepsi.  For more about Cicero, check out their about page, their full client list, and here are their management bios.

I hope to see you at "Radical ROI: Seizing the Potential of the Digital Marketplace" on May 11. Again, use this registration page before May 3 to get those preferential rates.

George Reese is cofounder of a new Minneapolis startup, enStratus, and is right smack in the middle of all the buzz.  Thanks to his new book, which he worked on for six months, he's in a great position to help clear the air surrounding a lot of the cloud computing hype that's flying around out there now.  He's especially interested in helping enterprises that are looking to take advantage of the economic benefits of this form of corporate IT. 

On April 10, George's new book will be released by O'Reilly Media:  "Cloud Application Architectures: Building Applications and Infrastructure in the Cloud."  And here's the Amazon link.  It's now available at both these links for pre-ordering. I've known George since 2006, in relation to his previous startup, Valtira (a SaaS marketing platform), from which enStratus is being spun out.  (I also know David Bagley, the CEO of Valtira, who's the other cofounder of enStratus.)  I thought it would be fun to get George's thoughts about this uber-hot topic of cloud computing, and hear the story behind his book.  This is an interview I conducted with him earlier this week, which first appeared on the cloud computing site Cloud Ave. and, later, on our own Minnesota tech news site, Minnov8.

Graeme:  How long have you been involved with cloud computing, and what made you decide to write this book?

George:  I suppose that depends on what you mean when you say "cloud computing." I've been developing SaaS systems for the past five years, but got into Amazon Web Services and Infrastructure as a Service in late 2007 when my company Valtira needed an alternate approach to a high-availability infrastructure. During this time, I've developed a body of experience in putting transactional database applications into the Amazon Cloud.  My editor at O'Reilly, with whom I've written several books in the past, heard I was doing cloud work and asked me to put together a book on the subject.

Graeme:  Why is cloud computing gaining adoption like it is?  What is its attraction?  We know Internet and IT startups love it, but do you think it will catch on in any significant way with larger enterprises?

George:  The primary attractions to cloud computing are cost and flexibility. Cloud computing enables you to build out a world-class IT infrastructure with no up-front capital investment and pay for the growth of your infrastructure as the business it is supporting grows.

I believe enterprise IT has a strong need for the benefits of cloud computing, but they have higher expectations with respect to reliability and scalability than startups. My company enStratus is all about dealing with these two concerns for enterprise IT, and I talk a lot about that in the book.

Graeme:  For what types of readers did you primarily write the book? What will they get from it that they can't get elsewhere?

George:  The book is for people tasked with making the move into the cloud and guiding them through that move. I start by establishing what the cloud means from my perspective and what its value is to an organization. The book covers how you evaluate what makes sense to move into the cloud and, once the decision is made, the security, availability, and disaster recovery planning necessary to operate at an enterprise level in the cloud.

Graeme:  Do you deal in the book with the issue of choosing a cloud computing provider? In not, why not?  Do you attempt to compare providers?

George:  No. Anything I might say in the way of a comparison would be out of date by the time the book hit the shelves. Jeff Barr from Amazon reviewed the book for technical accuracy, and E.J. Johnson from Rackspace and Randy Bias from GoGrid both provided appendices describing their offerings.

Graeme:  What are some of the other key issues you deal with in the book, such as security and reliability of the cloud?  And what does the book deliver that's not available elsewhere?

George:  Given my role at enStratus, cloud security and reliability are obviously key concerns of mine. I spend an entire chapter on security issues and cover how to architect your applications for maximum availability throughout the book. I have not seen much of this kind of talk available on the Internet; mostly warnings about how security and availability are things you should worry about.

Graeme:  Readers of the book will also learn about the management tools you have developed for use in your own company, Valtira, which offers a SaaS marketing platform. Please tell us how those tools led to the formation of a separate, spinoff company.

George:  Valtira was looking to build out a new service offering that required a high-availability infrastructure. We priced out a managed services infrastructure to support our needs, but that proved too costly for a new product offering. We then turned to the Amazon cloud to see if it would meet our needs. We ran into a number of obstacles along the way. Some of these obstacles have since been addressed by Amazon through new service offerings like Elastic Block Storage. For other obstacles, we built out tools to take care of things. It turns out that people who were not Valtira customers really wanted our tools, so we spun them out into enStratus.

Graeme:  You began working on the book many months ago. The release of the book seems now to be right at a time of intense focus on cloud computing, undoubtedly driven in part by current economic conditions.  What's your take on all the hype?

George:  Cloud computing is the most disruptive technology to hit business since the Web. It's not hype. Like any disruptive technology, however, there's a lot of misinformation flying around. To make matters worse, every person has a different internal definition of "the cloud" that frames their discussions on the subject. So, the hype is warranted, but everyone needs to pay particular attention to context and definitions in their discussions.

Graeme:  With the book's release, your speaking schedule is naturally heating up.  Please tell us where people can find you in coming weeks and months.

George:  Well, first, I'll be presenting at CloudCamp in New York City on April 1. Following that, O'Reilly has a webcast on "Getting Started with Amazon Web Services" scheduled for April 8.  In Minneapolis, I'll be speaking at the Minnesota High Tech Association's spring conference on April 15, and then at CloudCamp Minneapolis/St. Paul on April 18 at the U of MN.  Recently, my company enStratus was chosen as a presenting startup at the Under the Radar conference in Mountain View, CA, on April 24.  The following month, I'll be speaking on the topic of information privacy and security in the cloud at the Glue Conference in Denver on May 12. Then it's off to London, where I'll be speak on May 15 at WebTech Exchange 2009 on the topic of hardening an EC2 infrastructure.

Graeme:  That definitely qualifies as a whirlwind, George! Thanks for taking some time to tell us about your book, and I look forward to seeing you at some of these upcoming events.

By the way, follow George on Twitter @GeorgeReese and his company's tweets @enStratus.

(Disclosure: the author has a consulting relationship with enStratus.)

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