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Interlude.fm, Fiddme take Techonomy by storm

Published May 5, 2010 internet 2 Comments
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Techonomy 2010

Techonomy 2010

Although Techonomy is only in its 2nd year, it’s shaping up to be THE technology/entrepreneur event in Israel, giving 6 (7 this year) start-ups a prominent stage to present their product/service, before a panel of distinguished judges and a loving crowd. Techonomy is organized and produced by Orli Yakuel and Eddie Resnick.

7 companies presented yesterday at Techonomy 2010: AppsFire (video), Bulloonz (video), Fiddme (video), Interlude (video), Omek Interactive (video), SircleIt (video), and ZBang (video). Each presenter is allocated 10min, followed by a Q&A section from judges (and crowd). Voting is done by audience, text messaging their winner (SMS). Videos courtesy of Geek Media.

Interlude.fm

Interlude.fm

Interlude.fm took 1st place, after a brilliant demo by founder, Israeli musician Yoni Bloch. Interlude developed an interactive platform for video, that allows users to interact with the video, choosing various paths, thus altering the original timeline of the clip. Each selection impacts both audio and video, but Yoni explained that you can put restrictions, such as pre-defined opening and closing scenes, director’s cut, and more. According to Robert Scoble, interlude could save MySpace and is a really cool tech for musicians. In a recent project featuring a 3min video, interlude technology tripled the average time on site, to 9min (!) with 1m unique visitors. Yoni’s demo (video below) at Techonomy was shot at his house in Tel Aviv and offers 256 options, complied of 38 different scenes shot on-location.

Fiddme

Fiddme

In 2nd place, very close to interlude.fm, came Fiddme, a social network for foodies, from founders Yosi Taguri, Eran Kampf, Naor Suki, and Udi Milo. Fiddme allows foodies to share their food, by taking a picture and uploading it to fiddme community, using iPhone app or the web. I’ve known Yosi and Eran for some time now, and their passion for the product (started capturing food roughly 2 years ago), along with a beautiful user experience, and the location-based buzz (@foursquare integration coming very-very soon), will make Fiddme one of the best viral apps out there.

FIFA World Cup 2.0

Published May 3, 2010 internet 2 Comments
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The 2010 FIFA World Cup is upon us, kicking-off June 11 in Africa. Although not a big soccer fan, World Cup is once every 4 years, so I decided to make an exception. I’ve compiled a list of the little things [careful, pdf] that will help you follow your favorite country, all the way to the Finals. If you have something to add, comment away and I’ll include it in the original list.

2010 FIFA World Cup logo

Have to say that I’m somewhat disappointed at the minimal usage FIFA are doing with social media services in one of the most (maybe even #1) popular sports in the world – no official twitter account, facebook group, foursquare venues, youtube channel (not active), only non-official blog. I know it’s in a developing continent, but still, there will be plenty of soccer-loving-social-media-junkies out there, that can help those at home keep track of the action. The World Cup sponsors however (and South Africa’s government), are not counting on FIFA, and promoting their own campaigns, such as Sony-Ericcson’s Twitter Cup, which shows an interactive stadium that fills based on the number of tweets. Budweiser will host Bud House [twitter], a rendition of The Real World, focused on soccer of course. Coca-Cola will launch their advertising campaign May 15, in 90 markets and heavy YouTube partnership, under the ‘Quest‘ name.

That’s it, for now. In the meantime, the NBA Playoffs are at Conference Semi-Finals (East/West) – you can follow the action at nba.com or youtube.com.

A day of change – Apple/HP/ICQ

Published April 30, 2010 mobile Closed
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Wednesday was a busy M&A day, and twitter helped me keep track of the excitement. Apple buying Siri, AOL selling ICQ and last but not least – HP buying Palm. 3 deals that will shape our lives in the coming years, and it’s no surprise all 6 companies involved (Apple, Siri, DST, ICQ, HP, and Palm) are in the mobile business. That’s were the action is happening now, were the focus is, and obviously – $$$.

Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man, said in one of the few interviews he gave, that he entered the mobile market in the 1990s (with Telcel, 92% market share, subsidiary of Telmex), because there are more opportunities for growth – in a household there’s 1 fixed-line, but at least 3 or 4 mobile lines.

Siri on iPhone

Siri on iPhone

Apple’s acquisition of Siri (an iPhone app – personal assistant that understands what you say, accomplishes tasks for you and adapts to your preferences over time) is maybe the clearest ‘declaration of war’ against Google and its search engine. Voice search technology is the next thing in the mobile market, and Siri will be Apple’s answer to Nexus One’s voice search – a feature I loved when reviewing the device (Hebrew post), that although not perfect, will change the way each of us interacts with his/her phone.

HP’s move was a total surprise for me, that on the one hand seems somewhat natural – completes its Personal Systems Group, and on the other seems like another distraction from their main business (Services & Software). My first PDA was a Palm Pilot Vx, which I bought in 1998 for $100 or so. Since then Palm has evolved, mainly in software and technology, less in hardware, and I (as Mashable) believe it was this aspect of Palm’s business (over 1,500 mobile-related patents) that was most attractive to HP.

Palm Pre

Palm Pre

Now, with webOS, HP has one of the best mobile OS out there, which can be installed on a variety of devices, from smartphones to tablets and maybe even netbooks. My thoughts for this deal are:

  • How it will translate in markets that have a strong HP presence with weaker Palm presence, such as Israel?
  • What the near future holds for HP-Microsoft cooperation? HP have made substantial investments in Windows platform, for both smartphones (Windows Mobile) and netbooks (Windows 7), and now, with in-house (and free) webOS, there is no need for that.

What are your thoughts? Can the new HP/Palm become a contender in the mobile market, against taking share from iPhone/Android/Symbian? Will you buy a webOS slate over an iPad?

The mobile market was definitely shaken this Wednesday, looking forward to seeing the ripple effect of that shake.

Giveaways: Tickets to TheMarker Com.Vention

Published April 27, 2010 internet , marketing 18 Comments
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Update [April 27th, 5pm GMT+3]:

Thank you all for commenting and participating. The winners have been notified by email an hour ago. Hope to see you all Sunday.

—–

TheMarker Com.Vention is the prominent internet event in Israel, with known figures from the SU, VC, Marketing, Content and TV, Advertising and Internet industries (local and global) – and I have 10 complimentary tickets (worth ~$100 each) to share with you!

TheMarker Com.Vention

In the spirit of networking and sharing, I’ve decided to do a ‘Pay It Forward‘ kind of thing, and give each ‘winner’ 2 tickets: one for you and the other for someone from your network, whom you met via a social network (facebook/twitter/LinkedIn/Foursquare/etc), that haven’t attended Com.Vention before. So basically, you get to pick a ticket winner.

Here’s what you need to do in order to win a ticket to TheMarker Com.Vention:

  1. Explore your wall/stream and find someone that hasn’t attended Com.Vention yet.
  2. Post a comment to this post (name, email – not public, website), with your name, your friend-from-the-web name and the social match-maker name.
  3. That’s it!

Then, I will cross-reference the names with TheMarker (to verify your friend-from-the-web didn’t attend previously) and research the social network in question (to assess the relationship). First 5 ‘couples’ that will get it right – met via a social network and friend-from-the-web hasn’t attended before, will receive the tickets. Last date to submit entries is Thursday, April 29th at 18:00 Israel time (GMT+3). Winners will be announced here and contacted via email for the logistics, so please watch your typing.

This year there are very interesting panels and sessions: ‘Mobile Internet – Who’s going to benefit most from the boom?’, ‘Life on demand – how consumers are changing the life of E-commerce’, ‘Who will control the content’ and more. Full agenda is available here, speakers list here, twitter tag is #com2010, and facebook page.

See you Sunday!

TEDx Tel Aviv – Monday, April 26 2010

Published April 25, 2010 internet , mobile Closed
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TED requires no introduction. Technology, Entertainment, Design has been synonymous with THE EVENT, to which everyone wants to attend. At $2,000 per ticket it’s out of reach for most, and the waiting list is long. Very long.

TEDx Tel Aviv

TEDx Tel Aviv

TEDx Tel Aviv is an independently organized TED event, and tomorrow (Monday, April 26th) it’s coming to Tel Aviv, Israel, for the very first time. Over 1,200 people (including myself) submitted the registration form to the event, 300 (excluding myself) will attend TEDx Tel Aviv in person tomorrow.

For the thousands who want to watch the lectures there will be several Simulcast locations across the country, most of them in universities and businesses. Full list is available here. All lectures will be available at TEDx website following the event. You can also follow Lior Zoref and Yosi Taguri of Shidurey (Hebrew), who’ll be filming a clip at the event, as well as TEDxTelAviv themselves.

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Mobile & Media Consultant. I help startup companies launch products to the consumer market. Reach out: dvir.reznik [at] gmail.com
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This is my personal blog. The postings here do not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my past employers or of my clients. It is solely my opinion.