Written on July 17, 2008 – 1:38 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
My co-editor Boris is not just a blogger, but a serial Internet entrepreneur. Starting a bunch of companies comes with success - like his first one, V3, and more recently, Twittercounter -, and failure. Today, we’ll discuss the latter.
One of Boris’ ideas didn’t really worked out. Preople (Pagerank for people) is a tool that checks your Internet fame - using a “complicated calculation”. In the early days of this product - March 2005 -, it received quite some press coverage and several web celebs - like Matt Mullenweg - calculated their score. Just like Twittercounter (Feedburner for Twitter), it concerns the human ego, which seems to be the key to success.
Well, turns out it isn’t: as Preople has become the home of spammers and bad php arguments. Preople needs some medical help from a geek, somebody who has the time and will to give the ego booster tool a second chance.
Boris isn’t gonna be that geek, as he’s busy with this blog. He decided to put his baby on eBay. Not for free though, as potential buyers can start bidding at $999,- (€630).
I’m not sure whether this auction will succeed. But hey, I’m here to inspire you. So here’s another way to get rid of a start-up that doesn’t tickle your fancy anymore.
I hope you like that post!
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Written on February 26, 2008 – 11:00 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Stage6, the high-quality platform for videos, will be shut down on February 28. Tom (aka Spinner), a Stage6 user and an employee of DivX, Inc., the company behind the service, wrote a message last night explaining why it’s going to the history. Upload functionality has already been turned off, and users will be able to view and download videos until Thursday.
Tom explains they’ve started Stage6 as an experiment, always knowing it might not succeed.
In many ways, the service did succeed, beyond even our own initial expectations. Stage6 became very popular very quickly. We helped gain exposure for some talented filmmakers who brought great videos to the attention of an engaged community. We helped prove that it’s possible to distribute true high definition video on the Internet. And we helped broaden the Internet video experience by offering content that is compatible with DVD players, mobile devices and other products beyond the PC.
So why are they shutting the service down?
Well, the short answer is that the continued operation of Stage6 is a very expensive enterprise that requires an enormous amount of attention and resources that we are not in a position to continue to provide. There are a lot of other details involved, but at the end of the day it’s really as simple as that.
In July of last year the service announced they would be searching for new strategic alternatives, since Stage6 took too much time and effort for DIVX. A spin-off company, simply selling the service or shutting it down basically were the only options. Now it turns out that it has become the latter.
Tom also writes why they had started Stage6:
There was a clear need for a service that would offer a true high-quality video experience online because other video destinations on the Internet simply weren’t providing that to users. A gap existed, and Stage6 arrived to fill it.
They were surprised by the enormous growth, with eventually has become their own downfall. With more and more video services adding HD quality videos support - such as Veoh and Hulu - the gap will probably be filled again. Only ten days ago, TechCrunch reported that ‘Dailymotion Offers Bandwidth-Hogging HD Videos’.
That doesn’t take away the grieve of the Stage6 users though. Tom had to post his announcement twice to cope with the amount of comments (now around 12,000). There’s even a petition, created by Stage6 user mister_pink:
We are getting loads of signatures every second. Its averaging one every 15 seconds. Now, if we get 10000 signatures in the next 24 hours (or 1000 in the next hour), I will print and mail the list to the corporate office of Stage6. Keep up the signing!
It’s sad but true, Stage6 won’t be feeding the hamster anymore…
[WebTipr: Steven Carrol, France]
Written on January 31, 2008 – 2:42 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Frank Abagnale Sr.: You know why the Yankees always win, Frank?
Frank Abagnale Jr.: ‘Cause they have Mickey Mantle?
Frank Abagnale Sr.: No, it’s ’cause the other teams can’t stop staring at those damn pinstripes.
Catch me if you Can
Last week we told you that our office pals Tim Heineke and Diederik Martens from Twones would show up at Midem to pitch their start-up. They came back with some great stories, one of which I have to share with you.
The people from music service Qtrax must have seen the movie Catch me if you Can. While watching, they’ve learned that it’s all about appearance. Impress people and they’ll love you, and your service. Frank Abagnale Jr was a doctor, pilot and lawyer, without any education. Only because he blinded people with his charming appearance.
So the guys from Qtrax impressed the people in Cannes with several parties. They even invited LL Cool J, Don Henley and James Blunt to spice up their show with some music. Digital Music News reports that several executives shared details with them of the extravagance. One of their sources estimated that the costs are between 1 tot 1.5 million dollars. The Henley show expenses topped 456,000 euros and James Blunt showed up for an amount of 135,000 euros. “You can’t walk anywhere without seeing Qtrax,” said one executive.
Aside from the star element, Qtrax also bragged about some deals with major labels and a launch. They would supply Qtrax with music, which they would offer to their users for free. But in the end, Qtrax failed to launch and the majors didn’t know anything about the deals. Qtrax president and chief executive Allan Klepfisz remains optimistic though. “The response to the service is clearly unprecedented,” he claimed. “We believe the exact nature of that support will be publicly clarified within a very short time.”
Meanwhile, rumors about a possible stock manipulation are becoming louder. It seems like Qtrax is making the same mistake as Frank Abagnale Jr made, they got a little bit too enthusiastic. In the end, the charms don’t work anymore and you actually have to offer people something. In this case free and legal music downloads.
Written on January 27, 2008 – 5:04 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Three weeks ago we brought you the news about Reddit users making fun of Network Solutions’ domain front running. They checked domains like Networksolutionsisstaffedbyterrorists.com, which the service immediately registered. Although this was funny news, the problem itself isn’t. Last year, CEO and founder of GoDaddy Bob Parsons explained on his blog how big the problem is:
The domain name tasting and kiting industry is alive, well and running rampant. The practice of domain tasting and kiting continues to rage out-of-control. In February 2007, 55.1 million domain names were registered. Of those, 51.5 million were canceled and refunded just before the 5 day grace period expired and only 3.6 million domain names were actually kept. With the exception of just a few names, 93.5% of those names were registered simply to see how much advertising revenue – paid by big search firms like our “do no evil” friends at Google – will generate when they are associated with a one page Web site and related links.
As you can read, Parsons wasn’t really fond of the way Google made the practice of domain name tasting profitable. That will change now, and Google will gain some ‘do no evil’ points. Because the number one in online advertising will make it harder for the front running companies to show up in the search results. Over the next few weeks, Google will look up names that are repeatedly claimed and dropped in a five-day period. They will be excluded from the Adsense program, so that they won’t generate advertising revenue.
“We believe that this policy will have a positive impact for users and domain purchasers across the Web,” Google spokesman Brandon McCormick told to the Associated Press.
Fighting side-by-side with Google are Yahoo, Dell and BMW, who have filed federal lawsuits against domain name tasting companies that conflicted with their trademarks. It’s not hard to imagine that all these major companies will be able to ban out the shameless act of domain front running.
And to make the story even better, you can still have fun with the ‘mindless monkeys‘ at Network Solutions.
[WebTipr: David Petherick, United Kingdom]
Written on January 9, 2008 – 9:00 am
Guest blogger, sharing views on The Next Web
Michael Volpi must either have a great plan for innovation this year, or he must be feeling like the walls are closing in.
Joost started the race for Internet TV way before everyone else with a product unlike any other, with the promise of unprecedented flexibility on targeted ads so the advertisers would get the best bang for their buck.
However it seems like way too many people have jumped on the Internet TV space, with many different and innovative approaches.
During the last weeks, I’ve started noticing how some big players are merging with Hulu.com’s embeddable content and how some of them are trying to get into your living room.
Last year I told David Clark, North American VP of Joost at the NY Video Meetup that many people have said that Joost should create a Set-Top Box device, or to partner up with a TV manufacturer and get Joost on the TV, but probably one of the things they’ve not thought about is to port Joost into an Xbox Live downloadable application and make a deal with Microsoft. Of course this was in front of hundreds of people and he just gave me a politically correct answer and went on.
If I could have a chance to talk to Michael Volpi, I’d suggest a couple of crazy ideas, which have been implemented during the past week by no other than Microsoft, Veoh.com, and the Big G. (more…)
Written on December 28, 2007 – 11:04 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten,
Once upon a time I decided to check out this thing called the World Wide Web. I bought a modem, signed up with a local Internet Service Provider and borrowed a disk from a friend with software to ‘browse’ the Web. That piece of software was called Netscape.
Since then a lot has happened. On February 1, 2008 AOL will stop supporting Netscape. It is the end of an era and I think everybody who got online before 1999 feels kind of sad (and old?) when they hear about it.
As a small tribute to an old friend I am proudly displaying this button, one last time:
Obviously this is big news so expect a lot of articles about it on- and offline in the following weeks. Here is a small selection:
Official Netscape Blog: End of Support for Netscape web browsers
http://blog.netscape.com/2007/12/28/end-of-support-for-netscape-web-browsers/
BBC News: Web icon set to be discontinued
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7163547.stm
Techcrunch: A Sad Milestone: AOL To Discontinue Netscape Browser Development
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/28/a-sad-milestone-aol-to-discontinue-netscape-browser-development/
Written on December 19, 2007 – 11:34 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten,
After the whole Blognation story last week I was sort of expecting another thing to happen. Another post by Sam (’Scam’) Sethi or a new captain taking over or a lawsuit or, well, something. Anything!
But it seems that Blognation is now officially, seriously, definitively and permanently over. Blognation’s hosting company, Howard Baines, has updated the landing page for Blognation. And they seem to have a sense of humor about the whole thing too. The title of the page is now ‘one nation, no voices‘ where it used to be ‘one nation, many voices‘ and the new frontpage displays the following message:
Blognation.com: Will the last one out please turn off the light.
It is clear that for many people this story is far from over and I’m sure we will all remember and talk about it for years to come but at least Blognation, the website, has now ceased to exist.
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