Jon Darke

It’s been a whirlwind couple of days here in New York, as our expert judges watched earnest startups pitch their hearts out onstage at the third annual TechCrunch Disrupt NY. Thirty startups presented in the first two days, to be whittled down to six after much judge deliberation and founder bated breath: gTar, OpenGarden, UberConference, Ark, Babelverse and Sunglass.

Those six had to come back today to present again, this time in front of super-hardcore finals judges Fred Wilson, Roelof Botha, Marissa Mayer, Mike Arrington, Chris Dixon, Eric Eldon and Chi-Hua Chien, who dug deep into everything from customer acquisition strategy and revenue models to actual acquisition strategy in the cases of both UberConference and Ark.

Then the judges retired for an hour and a half of deliberation, and as always, had a hard time deciding on a winner because each of the final six had a compelling draw. We finally got down to two, gTar and UberConference, and, after more deliberation, decided that this year’s winner of TechCrunch Disrupt NYC is UberConference, a service that hopes to change the way you and I make conference calls by setting up the call around a visual interface.

gTar, a guitar app that attached to an actual hardware guitar to help you learn how to play, put on an impressive showing and is the official runner-up. But UberConference, founded by Google Voice creator Craig Walker, eliminates unwieldly PINs and the confusion surrounding not knowing who is who on a call by providing a slickly designed dashboard for conference calling. If you don’t think this is a problem, just ask our new COO Ned Desmond how he felt when we confused him for someone else on a conference call.

Thank you to partners Sequoia Captial, AT&T, Credit Suisse, Getaround, Google, Hatch, Outbid, Quotidian Ventures, About.me, AllStateBanners.com, CityGrid, Domain.com, .ME, IBM, Launchpad Ignition, Mobli, popchips, Smith & Keats Music, OpenTok from TokBox, twake, Udemy, Whit.li, Caraquri, Freshdesk, Connect by Getty Images, Mashery, ooVoo, Sedan Magic, Skookum Digital Works, SponsorHub, Thefuture.fm, Tremendous Theming by Themendous, TouchTunes, Worry Free Labs and Rent The Runway, Gilt and Warby Parker for providing wardrobe.

And if you want to learn how to pitch, check out UberConference’s winning presentation:

This was just sent to us and we had to share it. Yahoo has talked about Axis in the past year, but it looks like the big reveal will be tonight.

Subject: Yahoo! Axis launches on May 23- Redefining what it means to search and browse

Hi team,
 
I am so excited to announce that tonight  at 9pm we will launch Yahoo! Axis! Since you are one of my most valued clients I am giving you first notification. Since this is not launching publically until tonight, we ask that you please keep this information confidential until tomorrow.

T he jury is still out in the patent phase of the Oracle vs. Google trial over the use of Java in Android and it does not look like it is coming to a verdict any time soon. So, it is time to turn our attention to corollary aspects of the Oracle vs. Google gauntlet. For instance, Oracle is a company that had spent years on fostering relationships with developers with its products like MySQL and its NoSQL Database. Oracle’s good will may have started to evaporate when it became the steward of the most fundamental of open source languages in Java and immediately sued Google. How badly has Oracle damaged its reputation since acquiring Sun Microsystems? That is the topic of this week’s ReadWriteMobile poll.

Sun Microsystems was a well-loved company by many developers. It created Java and unleashed it on the world, asking little in return. It took on the big, bad Microsoft in court, and won. Java is one of the most important software innovations of the Web era. Sun was a darling and, while it had its ups and downs, was a well-respected software company.

Until it sold itself to Oracle. 

It took Oracle all of seven months (end of Jan. 2010 to Aug. 2010) after the Sun acquisition was finalized to bring charges against Google and take the search giant to court over the use of Java in Android. It wanted $6 billion from Google and claimed that it not only violated a variety of patents, but outright copying of the Java language and its application programming interfaces (APIs). Since the legal process began, Oracle has seen its ups and downs but as the court case of shown in the last month, Oracle does not have much of a right to Google’s profits from its use of Java in Android. 

And this is where Oracle has not only damaged its bottom line, but also its credibility. Java has been and will likely always be open source and free. Sun created it as such and developed it more under the guise of being a steward for its evolution than an outright owner. By attempting to copyright the APIs and the widespread effect that would have on the entire software ecosystem, Oracle has put the legal nature of what computer languages and programming are in question. Many developers cannot forgive Oracle for that. 

So, that is the question. How badly has Oracle’s legal machinations, its desire for profit over community, has hurt its brand? How has it hurt its relationship with developers and the open source community? Take the poll below and let us know in the comments. 

As the world gears up for the London Olympics in July, media chatter about the unprecedented expense and trouble of hosting the Games--which are no longer a surefire investment for cities--is increasing.

Perhaps no city better illustrates the fraught host city selection process than Madrid. The city has made three unsuccessful bids to host the summer games, two within the last decade. They lost out just barely to London and Rio respectively, after a long bidding process that included the construction of several large-scale sporting venues; big, expensive “proofs of concept” for Madrid’s Olympic preparedness. In 2008, the 2016 Olympic Committee eliminated the city in the final round of bidding, citing “geographic issues.”

Barring any discussion of the value of hosting the Olympics, Madrid did end up building a fairly remarkable building in the process: the “Magic Box,” a beautiful, austere Olympic Tennis Center designed by French architect Dominique Perrault.

The Center sits on the site of a recently razed housing slum (an unfortunate hallmark of “Olympic urbanism”). It houses three tennis venues within its walls: a 12,500-seat main court and two smaller 3,500- and 2,500-seat courts. The three volumes rest on a steel frame podium, their edges cantilevering over flying buttresses of poured concrete. The frame is clad in a delicate metal mesh, custom-fabricated according to Perrault’s specifications. The one splash of color in the building’s otherwise muted palette of concrete and steel is from the translucent oxblood red seats, which finish the Center with a retro-nostalgic vibe that references the stadiums built by Pier Luigi Nervi in the '50s or the Italian futurists in the '20s.

But what’s really magical about the building is its roof: Each court has a separate ceiling of a different shape, attached to a hydraulic jack. When lowered, the three slabs form a single continuous covering. When raised, they can be adjusted to create an infinite number of unique topographies. Retractable roofs were invented by engineers decades ago, but turning the transformation into an elegant spectacle is a stroke of genius. The exaggerated depth of each slab--they look to be about 20 feet deep--is purely aesthetic: They’re made of lightweight plastic panels. Lit from within, the roofs radiate with an unearthly glow at night--hence the building’s nickname, Magic Box.

The Olympic Tennis Center is one of the few projects that slipped just under the wire of the 2008 economic crisis. Since then, Spain’s construction industry has suffered from a slow-motion economic tailspin and allegations of political corruption, especially surrounding “starchitect” buildings such as this one. Dozens of other big-name projects lay canceled or unfinished across the country--reminders of a time when building giant cultural complexes was considered an investment, rather than a risk.

[Images courtesy of Dominique Perrault Architects and George Fessy]

“The Best 365 Websites Around the World” is a gorgeous, hard cover, full color book that showcases the best sites from around the world as judged by top-notch design professionals like Fabio Sasso.

Today we’ve got ten copies to give away to our awesome readers. Read on to learn more and see how you can win!

The Giveaway

Awwwards has teamed up with us to giveaway 10 digital copies of their latest book “The Best 365 Websites Around the World”, the ultimate guide for trends & styles in website design, so you can find inspiration for layout, color, style and more.

About Awwwards

Awwwards recognize and promote the talent and effort of the best developers, designers and web agencies in the world. An international jury made up of some of the most important designers, bloggers and Internet agencies evaluate each site by means of a strict system of evaluation, scoring it on a scale of 1 to 10 for its Design, Creativity, Usability and Content.

Check out all the latest Website Awwwards.

The goal at Awwwards is to create a meeting point where web developers, designers and agencies across the world can share experiences, inspiration and knowledge: A community that bids for a more accessible, usable and beautiful Internet.

How to Win

All you have to do to have chance to win is comment on this post in the most original way you can think of. The 10 best will receive their very own copy of “The Best 365 Websites Around the World”. We’ll choose the winners a week from today and update this post. Good luck!

Google updated its search app for iPhone today with a complete redesign that makes it more like the iPad version. This was already Google's best iOS experience by far, and now it's faster, more attractive, and consistent across devices. This month, it looks like search is back in the driver's seat at Google.

The start screen is now the same as on the iPad app. It is the classic Google search box reimagined for the touchscreen. It's just a plain, off-white background, the iconic Google name (and even a mobile-friendly version of the day's Google Doodle), and three other buttons: "Apps," "Voice" and "Goggles." Voice search lets you speak your query aloud, and it's impressively accurate. Goggles lets you search visually using the camera. It recognizes text and objects, and it's learning more over time.

The "Apps" section is a launcher for all the various Google Web apps, which is probably why this app is so good. Google's other native iOS apps, like Gmail, Translate and especially Voice are weird, hobbled versions of what Google's Web apps can do in the browser. Google+ was, too, until its recent redesign, which is pretty but still slow and lacking features. The main Google app for iOS has always been fast, pretty and rock-solid. You get the impression that Google wants users to do all their Googling inside it.

For most people, "Googling" means searching, and Google for iOS is almost a better search experience than the desktop. The iPhone now has the benefit of the full-bleed, high-resolution image search and the tappable, swipe-able panels for additional, rich information, which we've had in the iPad version since its update in November.

Google clearly wants this app to be nothing less than the primary way iPhone users look for anything. It's much faster to get a result from this app than from opening Safari and tapping the search box. As long as you're loading Google pages, it just feels impossibly fast. That's because Google is constantly preloading things in the background.

But the best is yet to come to this app. Last week, Google launched the Knowledge Graph, a new layer of information on top of search that pulls together information about the thing you're searching for right on the page, instead of just listing Web results for it. It already works on the mobile Web version, so if you search in mobile Safari, you'll see facts and background information there for certain searches.

Google's Johanna Wright told ReadWriteWeb that those features are coming to the native search apps as well. The Google iOS app is becoming the fastest, best-organized gateway to everything Google does on mobile. Everything except Google+, that is. Despite a shiny redesign this month, Google's "social layer" still doesn't get as much attention as search, which is Google's crown jewel.

If your elected officials suddenly seem less clueless, you might thank Beckmann and Hallaran, creators of Congressional analytics dashboard, Correlate.

After the inauguration of President Barack Obama, Dan Beckmann, a former Obama digital team strategist, stayed in D.C. to meet with Congressional staffers on both sides of the aisle. Beckmann, 32, had previously worked on developing and implementing new media strategy for ABC News and Current TV. Now, with all that he had learned about using technology on a political campaign, he was eager to try and use similar digital tools to increase the effectiveness in the governing process. As he met with staffers, Beckmann listened to what was and wasn’t working on Capitol Hill. Before long, a solution came into focus. “I didn’t go to D.C. to pitch a company. I thought they needed better social networks,” Beckmann says. Staffers told him that their most pressing need was a system that would help analyze and organize their correspondence. “For the next month I went through the Senate and House, both sides of the aisle, and they all agreed, some embarrassingly, that they had a huge problem,” Beckmann says.

So after those conversations, he and Tom Hallaran developed a program called Correlate, which allows the constant stream of correspondence from constituents to their elected representatives to be more efficiently managed. The program processes a single member of Congress’s constituent email, faxes, physical mail (via scan), and social media to produce real-time analytics on the issues that constituents are most concerned about. Correlate searches the correspondence for keywords and connects those keywords to specific pieces of legislation that are active in Congress. Over time, a machine-learning process comes to understand how people write messages, and identifies and then searches for key patterns in the correspondence. Then, the tool uses public government database information about active bills in Congress to associate bills with correspondence. The Correlate team has found this process to have approximately 85% accuracy. The program also filters correspondence coming from inside and outside the members' districts.

Fast Company profiles the personalities behind the ideas that shake up business as usual. Discover more about these pioneers here.

“It takes a long time for the offices to get any understanding of what’s in their correspondence,” Beckmann says, noting that in the best-case scenario correspondence is organized and delivered to the relevant staffers two weeks after it has initially been received, and it's not very analytical. As a result, one of the most important aspects of our democracy--the ability for any citizen to write their Congressperson with their concerns--has become a slow, cumbersome, and often disregarded process.

Correlate allows the feedback to be viewed through a real-time dashboard. At any moment, a member of Congress or someone on his or her staff can pull up the tool to see how a particular piece of legislation is moving by the hour, day, week, month, or year. The dashboard also allows each office to focus in on patterns in specific cities and areas in their district.

Beckmann is CEO and cofounder of IB5k, the company which built Correlate; Hallaran serves as cofounder and managing partner. In addition to building Correlate, IB5k has developed several other products, including a Facebook app called “Citizen Cosponsor” which allows average citizens to “like” a piece of legislations and interact with it throughout the process. They are also in the process of creating an updated system to manage all electronic communications within the House of Representatives.

Correlate’s government service costs under $500 a month per office. Beckman and Hallaran’s vision foresees a relatively low-priced product for government, supported by commercial applications of the same technology for private-sector companies. Correlate is already being used by some major consumer brands and their PR teams to follow consumer reactions to issues and campaigns.

Correlate doesn’t just process reactions to hot-button legislation, either. It also tracks everyday “casework” (i.e. immigration issues, military academy nominations, flag requests). Casework accounts for a significant portion of Congressional correspondence, and it is frequently time-sensitive, yet it is also a victim of backlogging.

Almost four years after those initial conversations, Correlate is active in 10 offices in the House including the leadership. Beckmann, Hallaran, and their team are pleased with this traction, and they anticipate greater adoption in the House and initial adoption in the Senate in the near future. Matt Lira, Director of New Media for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, was one of the first staffers on the Hill to embrace Correlate. “There is a sense that technology when applied to the problems of our democracy can have a beneficial impact. In the legislative process, this correspondence problem is one of the main drivers of the feeling of disconnect between the public and the legislative institutions,” says Lira, who also worked with the IB5k team on the Citizen Cosponsor Facebook app. “We don’t want to just process this information, we want to make it actionable and useful to the legislative process.” On the productivity side, IB5k estimates that Correlate can eliminate at least half of a full-time position in a Congressional office. Lira says Correlate has allowed his office to reassign several staffers to more substantive work.

With the challenges in communication, Beckmann feels that constituent voices are being drowned out by lobbyists who have much more direct access to members of Congress and their staffs, “We have a huge problem with the power of special interests in the political system. This is a way that we can make the communication between a candidate or an office holder and their constituents stronger. It cuts out the need for special interests. It puts the rest of us on a level playing field. Now an average citizen can have just as loud a voice as a lobbyist.”

Hallaran and Beckmann believe that this model can be extended to all the branches of federal, state, and local governments. The team has already had conversations with the White House and international governments about implementing Correlate or a system like it. For Beckmann, Correlate is a continuation of excitement that captured so many people during the 2008 campaign. “People might remember what the energy in the political system was like back in 2008. In our office it’s still like that. People wanted better government and they knew it was possible then. Part of why we’re doing this to deliver on the promise that politics was going to change,” he says.

Kony Solutions, the unfortunately named makers of a write once, run everywhere mobile app development platform today announced that it has closed a $15 million series C round of financing. The funding was led by New York City-based venture capital firm, Insight Venture Partners, a 17-year-old firm that has invested in companies like Tumblr, Buddy Media, Wix, Chegg, and Twitter — to name a few.

Insight also led Kony’s $19.1 million series A financing, which it closed in January of last year. With its latest infusion of capital, which brings total funding to nearly $39 million, the startup is looking fund the deployment of new sales and marketing programs, regional expansion, and to ramp up hiring.

For those unfamiliar, Kony is on a mission to develop technologies and apps that both facilitate and accelerate customer engagement on any mobile operating system, device or channel. Through its flagship product, KonyOne, the startup offers a development environment and mobile middleware that allows big businesses to build and launch both enterprise and consumer apps.

As a result, Kony now offers support for nearly every technology and deployment option out there, from native apps on all native OSes, HTML5-capable browsers, single page apps, wrappers, hybrids, and more — even support for BYOD deployments. The agility and scalability of its platform have attracted more than 70 Fortune 500 companies, banks, airlines, as well as automotive and insurance companies.

Kony CEO Raj Koneru says that the startup will use its newest round of funding to continue managing and expanding on its recent growth, which (as of the end of its FY2012) had seen more than 200 percent growth in bookings and has added more than 30 new global customers, including Aetna, CIBC, Independence Blue Cross, Scottrade and Sun Life Financial.

What’s more, the company recently launched a suite of off-the-shelf, vertical-specific apps for banking, healthcare, retail, and travel, while earning the business of more than 30 new customers, including Aetna, CIRC, BlueCrossBlueShield, Scottrade, and Sun Life Financial.

With patents-pending for its flagship product, KonyOne, support of more than a billion user sessions annually, and its being named a “Visionary” startup by Gartner, Kony is really starting to find the kind of traction it will need to compete in a crowded space.

For more, check out Kony at home here.

President Obama’s technology advisors are looking for some “kick ass” fellows to work on the White House’s new digital road map for open government.

Announced on stage at Disrupt 2012, CTO Todd Park and CIO Steven VanRoekel detailed five new projects, each which will need a team of open government geeks to help move forward. You can view the first part of the application process here.

So, what are they looking for? Park told the audience that he’s looking for the first 5 people one would want to begin a startup with: a mix of people with technical expertise, an accomplished history, and a passion for disruption. Technical skills for some team members are definitely important (UI/UX experience, coding, etc). But, a history of causing some type of disruption is definitely key. If you’ve managed to make your industry more transparent, participatory, or collaborative, definitely indicate that on the second round application (which will be later emailed to applicants). Last, a passion for using technology for social change, especially open data, should probably make its way into the application.

Park and VanRoekel are also interested in working with entrepreneurs outside of the fellows program. For instance, in June, Park will help with a health care “datapalooza“, which will feature companies that leverage the new government data. Entrepreneurs can also follow Park and VanRoekel on Twitter for upcoming news, and @reply them with great ideas. Good luck to all of the applicants and entrepreneurs, and keep TechCrunch updated if you develop any great products related to open data.

Google founder Larry Page’s shot across Facebook's bow in an interview with Charlie Rose on Monday night generated plenty of headlines Tuesday, but Page got off without really answering Rose’s original question: Is Google “worried or not worried about Facebook’s competition in search?”

We spent Tuesday tracking down experts who could speculate on if and when Facebook may try to compete against Google in search, and envision what Facebook’s version of search may look like.

As the social network’s share price continued to tank in its first full week of trading, and with former AdWeek editor Michael Wolff saying it was nothing more than another ad-supported website, Facebook will face pressure to find new revenue streams. For many observers, search seems like a likely tactic.

“I have a strong feeling that Facebook will almost likely have to do something like this if they want to keep their investors happy,” said Maciej Fita, the SEO director at Brandignity LLC. “It is really going to be about profits now, and even if they could steal 5% to 10% of Google's search market, that could lead to some much better numbers on their balance sheet.”

Flexing Its Social Graph Muscle

None of the experts we spoke with envision Facebook creating a search engine, but instead they expect the company to use all of the data and endorsements for websites that are collected through likes and comments to better personalize search results for an individual user.

Aliza Earnshaw, director of sales and marketing at AboutUs Inc., said Facebook wouldn’t be limited to just pushing recommendations from your friends, but instead would be able to use the data it has from all of its members to figure out what sites people similar to you found useful.

“Of course, not everyone fills out the entire profile - nor even fills it out accurately - but with [905 million] members and counting, it's possible that Facebook will be able to deliver search results that are even more highly relevant than Google results, especially for things that are lifestyle-related,” Earnshaw said.

Is Facebook a Threat to Google?

Of course, to get into search - even if it is to only steal a small percentage of Google users, as Fita suggested - means Facebook is prepping itself for a fight with the other dominant Web firm (plus a secondary battle with Microsoft’s Bing).

“They can't just churn out a new Google the way Google churned out a new Facebook,” Dave Davis, managing director of RedFly Limited, said in an email. “They have one thing Google doesn't have (much of at least): The open graph and individual behavioral data. [There are] 2.7 billion likes and comments per day (according to venturebeat) on websites, data that Facebook can link to individual users and their connections.”

Davis said he expects Facebook to launch search within two years, mainly due to shareholder pressure. He sees it being a truly “peer search” and was even willing to bet that Facebook would call it Peer Search.

“They will do it right. I think they will also phase this in on a vertical-by-vertical stage too,” he said.

Alhan Keser, CMO of digital media agency Blue Fountain Media, said Facebook will have to figure out how to break users’ habits of relying on Google for search.

“They have a long road ahead. Google's algorithm was created overnight,” Keser said. “It took years to develop a system that gave relevant results. They succeeded by better satisfying users.”

There's a belief (which, for some, has metastasized into a desperate hope) that how you say something online, not so much what you say, directly translates to whether you'll read it. Today, a corporation that's notorious for never changing the way it says anything, announced it's acquiring a company whose business is message adjustment for brands in the social media space.

Prior to Facebook's IPO last week, there was considerable talk about whether its main value proposition - that companies can realize value by approaching their customers as people - would, coupled with six bucks, buy you a cup of coffee. For the last six years, a company called Vitrue has built a business around social relationship management for consumer-facing companies. Not really CRM in the strict sense, its service has evolved around utilizing social media to craft marketing messages that better reach customers through social media. Which seems sensible enough: testing the river before sticking your boat in it.

This morning, for an undisclosed sum of cash, Oracle announced it is purchasing Vitrue and integrating it into its broadening portfolio of cloud-based services, which last February absorbed workforce talent management powerhouse Taleo. With Vitrue comes some unique and sometimes controversial tools, including one that estimates the ROI of your Facebook branding campaign in dollars.

Vitrue made its first public splash in 2007 with a promotion that urged consumers everywhere to produce their own Pringles potato chip commercials, as mashups mixing their own homemade tapes with a stockpile of snack food-related content. At that time, the company was marketing itself as "YouTube for brands." (Vitrue's founder and CEO, Reggie Bradford, has a background in television.) Since that time, the rise of Facebook prompted Vitrue to become an early supporter and advocate of its platform.

In its now widely known September 2010 white paper, "Anatomy of a Facebook Post" (PDF available here), Vitrue makes a compelling case that Facebook users expect a different attitude from what they read there, not just from people but from companies as well.

"As a general rule of thumb, marketers adapt their messages and content to different marketing communication channels," the white paper reads. "The content and format used in direct mail will not necessarily be effective for a direct e-mail. Also, within each marketing tactic, a marketer must determine the best format for that specific channel, i.e. e-mail with HTML or text or variations of subject lines, which results in an extensive 'test and learn' iterative approach to marketing effectiveness for a particular marketing tactic."

That paragraph seemed to imply that as people's attitudes vary with the use of different channels, certain attitudes with social channels will be more colored by individual personalities than by a collective, herd mentality. It's that implication which seemed in stark contrast to the production of its ROI calculator tool, which Google Analytics product marketing manager Adam Singer called out in April 2010, on his blog TheFutureBuzz.com, for cattle-prodding not only individuals but also entire vertical market segments into the same corral, and assuming each unit in that corral is worth the same dollar value.

"The power of Web analytics and data isn’t about coming up with normalized numbers to apply blandly across hordes of consumers, but about segmentation, detailed analysis and accountability," Singer wrote at the time. "It’s about understanding and activating your true fans, and not even treating them all the same. They are not all created equal, after all. These unscientific data points are why companies are blindly chasing bigger numbers for numbers sake – when in reality they are increasing KPI [key performance indicator] metrics and not necessarily objectives."

Vitrue's Bradford appeared to address Singer's argument in an interview with blogger Rob Birgfeld the following month. Said the CEO, "Nothing is an exact science, especially with social media. We developed the Evaluator to help provide a marketer directional and quantifiable information. But increasingly marketers can and should derive their strategies based on solid data, which is what we do here at Vitrue."

One immediately wonders how all that valuable data will be put to use at Oracle, a company notorious for rarely, if ever, modifying the tone or even color (red) of its customer-facing message over the last quarter-century. In early 2010, Oracle explained the motivation behind its acquisition of Sun Microsystems as centering around the creation of a "seamless experience for developers." Later that year, in its acquisition of e-commerce and cell-center platform maker Art Technology Group, Oracle XVP Thomas Kurian stated it was in response to customers needing "a unified commerce and CRM platform to provide a seamless experience across all commerce channels." And earlier this year, after acquiring customer service platform maker RightNow, Oracle assessed the RightNow platform as "help[ing] companies power great customer experiences in a seamless, personalized way across all channels and customer touchpoints: including on the web, in a store, over the phone or via mobile devices."

So it becomes uniquely interesting not just how Singer announced this morning's news on Vitrue's corporate blog, but how he said it. "As you know, marketers have largely led their businesses into social and they are now looking to develop strategies that can help them deliver more meaningful customer engagement. Increasingly, other groups within the enterprise are also utilizing social media to build relationships with today’s socially connected consumer. Enterprises need a more comprehensive social relationship management platform that connects marketing, sales, commerce and customer service together, for a seamless brand experience. Together, Oracle and Vitrue’s comprehensive social relationship management platform will improve companies’ return on investment for social by integrating sales and marketing across paid, owned and earned media; and enhancing customer service through seamless, real-time responsiveness and high touch engagement."

I suppose corporate statements have one way of reaching an audience, and Facebook pages another. Who knows, really? It's not an exact science.

Oracle sign by mrjoro; stock image by Shutterstock

Companies Spring 2012

Here at TFD we are on a mission to provide the best news in startup, tech, business, and more. Unfortunately, due to my other ventures i havent been able to post on the blog as much as i would want! Therefore, we are looking for motivated entrepreneurs to assist us in posting articles on a weekly basis.

Your job would be to either source great articles, write them yourself, or a mix of both! Ideally, we would like each contributor to add at least 3 articles weekly but more is always welcome.

If you are interested in this position email

thefoundersdesk@gmail.com

Ever wonder what unfinished plans you’ll leave behind when you’re gone? (Besides student debt and overdue library books, of course.) Charlotte Perriand saw many of her designs mass-produced on a global scale over the course of her long, accomplished life. (Some took longer, as we wrote here.) Still, when she died in 1999, she left notebooks full of unrealized work to her daughter, Pernette Martin-Barsac. One particularly curious design detailed a prefab alpine dwelling called the Refuge Tonneau, which Perriand--a skier and outdoor enthusiast--had imagined during the early years of World War II.

Perriand was working at a ski resort in the French Alps just before the outbreak of the war. When France entered the conflict, she left the resort and returned to Paris, where Jean Prouvé was testing new modes of aluminum fabrication, experimenting with lightweight housing pods that would lead to his celebrated prefab Tropical House. Perriand took up a collaboration with Prouvé and her longtime collaborator, Pierre Jeanneret.

Together, the trio spent three years developing lightweight portable housing units. But the Refuge Tonneau is probably the most remarkable. The dodecahedral capsule can be assembled in just four days. It sits on 12 aluminum legs, which can be raised and lowered on uneven ground. A simple structural frame of steel supports the fir interior panels and aluminum exterior, whose roofline is raised slightly to allow snow to slide off on its own. It sleeps six, though its interior is tiny (24 square feet, somehow). Pull-down beds, a map table, a diminutive kitchen nook, ski storage, and a second lofted sleeping area round out the functioning pieces of the capsule. Though it was designed as a portable home for skiers, there’s something more ominous present as well: Most of Perriand’s cadre was involved in the French Resistance, and their interest in temporary housing must have been motivated, in part, by the looming Nazi threat.

Ultimately, Refuge Tonneau was never actually built. Perriand sailed for Japan in 1940, and through her collaboration with Prouvé continued into the '50s, the housing concept fell by the wayside. Until last year, when Perriand’s daughter and the Italian furniture manufacturer, Cassina, decided to create the first-ever full-scale mockup of the design. They debuted the finished aluminum capsule (built by a group of French architecture students) at last month’s Milan Furniture Fair. Sitting amongst contemporary design booths as attendees scurried around its tubular legs taking pictures, the Refuge looked like some kind of resplendent transmission from the retro-future. Perriand, a fiercely modern figure up until her death, probably would have been proud.

[Images courtesy of Cassina, h/t Dwell]

Sheryl Sandberg

Facebook is staying quiet on Tuesday’s settlement of a lawsuit brought by five members who objected to their likenesses being used in Sponsored Stories, and perhaps with good reason.

After all, court documents filed on behalf of the plaintiffs quote Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg as saying Sponsored Stories are two to three times more valuable than a standard Facebook ad. How Facebook proceeds in carrying out the settlement will not only dictate the future of a significant portion of its advertising revenue, but will also speak volumes on how Facebook will respond to regulation efforts.

The lawsuit accused Facebook of a “misleading advertising scheme” that implied that users who “liked” a certain product or brand had endorsed it when ads for that brand were displayed to their friends. “Even if members had read [Facebook's] terms of use, they could not know that their likenesses and names would be later used in Sponsored Stories ads sent to their Facebook friends,” the plaintiffs said in the complaint.

The lawsuit, as dictated by Facebook’s service terms, was filed in California but was later moved to federal court in San Jose. California is Facebook’s home state, but it is also a state known for having a consumer-friendly court system. Facebook hasn’t publicly commented on the settlement, and terms were not disclosed, but it presumably will require Facebook to either curtail the practice or make it an opt-in feature of membership.

Precedents Hint at Possible Paths

Facebook may, however, have a choice. It could choose to implement a new policy stemming from the settlement across the social network, much like it did when it reached a settlement with Irish authorities over the data it keeps. Or Facebook may only implement the policy in California, essentially creating a separate set of rules and mirroring the tactic Facebook took when it voluntarily agreed to comply with German privacy laws.

In Ireland, Facebook reached a settlement after users in that country and Austria raised complaints that Facebook was keeping user data that was thought to have been deleted. While the enforcement action Facebook agreed to in December only applied to its users in Ireland, where Facebook has its European headquarters, the agreement and policy changes extend to all Facebook users.

In Germany, however, Facebook said it would abide by a voluntary code of conduct after officials said the company’s practice of building profiles of users and the websites they visited, using tracking cookies, had run afoul of German privacy law. Like the California settlement, details of the code of conduct have not been made public, although Wired reported that details of the California law will eventually be released.

With Each New User, Regulation Grows More Complicated

Lawsuits, regulatory actions and settlements like the one announced Friday accent an ever-growing problem: With more than 80% of its nearly one billion members located outside of the U.S., Facebook is increasingly becoming difficult to regulate. 

An academic paper by Anupam Chander of the University of California-Davis School of Law, published last week, outlined how Facebook resisted some regulation attempts and complied (or at least bent) on others. Chander noted that if each state and country with jurisdiction over Facebook exerted its control over the site, there would be a confusing and often contradictory array of laws for users to understand.

At the same time, putting in a global, one-size-fits-all system also presents problems. Germany’s privacy laws, for example, may run counter to the United States' free speech standards, which may in turn violate France’s hate speech rules.

“With Facebook, we see both the company and governments stumbling over borders, uncertain which way to step or who should lead,” Chander wrote. “The jurisdictional dance here is hardly graceful, but is rather characterized by what we might call jurisdiction confusion.”

Often, in smaller jurisdictions, the penalties are too small to reform Facebook, and it's questionable if those jurisdictions have oversight of Facebook. In France, for example, Facebook didn’t send representation to a hearing, presumably because the 2,000 euro fine was less than it would have cost to hire an attorney for the day.

For its part, Facebook has generally resisted regulatory pushes by smaller and foreign jurisdictions, and its service terms say users must file complaints in California. “Even if California law offers a robust set of consumer protections,” Chander notes, “many users around the world may lack the resources to bring claims in California.”

In today's changing work environment, it's important for leaders to provide clarity of direction. If they don’t, fear, frustration, and inefficiency start to creep in.

In the same way that a bicycle is wobbly when it's standing still and becomes more stable the faster you pedal, the same is true with personnel issues at work. It's when the organization is standing still that people start to squabble.

Three leadership strategies can help. The first is having a clear sense of where you're going. The second is having a plan for your people so they each know their role going forward. The third is having the tenacity and stick-to-itiveness to make that plan sustainable.

Fail in any of these three areas, and the result will be lackluster financial performance and the creation of an atmosphere where negative human dynamics will begin to grow. Humans cooperate best when they are all moving toward a common goal. When an organization is standing still, the pushing and shoving starts. Parents know this. When do the kids start fighting in the car? When they are sitting still with no place to go.

Clear direction is especially important when dealing with people who've been with the organization for an extended period of time. Leaders and organizations generally do a good job of clarifying goals as they are getting new people up to speed. With long-time employees, however, leaders often assume that the employee instinctively knows what's important. As a result, leaders generally don't spend the same amount of time and energy communicating clear objectives to seasoned employees that they do with new hires. When this happens, it's not unusual for veteran employees to lose the focus and discipline necessary to achieve their individual goals.

Three strategies for leaders

Good performance begins with clear goals. That's job one. If you don't know where you're going--as the Cheshire Cat said to Alice in Wonderland--any road will get you there. Leadership is about going somewhere, and clear agreements are the first step. It's a process of creating clarity about why we’re here, what we’re doing, and how we're going to work together.

We did a study a number of years ago with a large petroleum company in North America that shows how rarely this clarity occurs. We asked more than 2,000 employees and their managers to share their goal expectations with us. To begin, we asked the employees to rank the top five things they felt they were responsible for. Then we asked the managers to list and prioritize the five things they were actually holding each of their direct reports accountable for. We saw only a 19% agreement across the population of 2,000 people! 

After clear goals are set, leaders must use strong communication skills to make sure everyone's eyes are on the ball. This includes regular one-on-one conversations with direct reports that include feedback and evaluation of how each person is doing against established targets. This helps employees understand how their role impacts the larger picture. It also allows people to have a say in the actions, decisions, priorities, and goals that are subsequently set. Leadership is done best when it is something you do with people instead of something you do to them.

The third step is for managers to help people notice and experience the incremental successes they are having. In the past, this was accomplished through extrinsic reward and recognition. Today we use a more intrinsic approach that focuses on discovering the incentives that are meaningful to individual employees to fuel their passion for the task or project they are working on. It’s about creating an environment that leads to sustainable performance.

A little structure goes a long way

On the surface, producing effective results can sound like it's about driving performance and cracking the whip--but, when it's done right, it's more about moving people in the right direction. You can begin by answering these questions: What are we trying to accomplish mutually? What is the organization trying to accomplish? What is our department’s role in accomplishing that? And what are individual contributors being held accountable for?

Your role as a leader is to use your management skills to place a certain rigor and clarity around goals. When performance is not what it should be, first ask yourself whether goals have been made clear. Goal clarity helps reduce issues regarding relationships and personnel that plague so many organizations. Set a clear vision and show people how they can contribute to it. When folks are moving in a common direction with clear goals, most workplace struggles will take care of themselves.

Scott Blanchard is the cofounder of Blanchard Certified, a new cloud-based leadership development resource and experience. Ken Blanchard is the best-selling co-author of The One Minute Manager® and 50 other books on leadership. You can follow Ken Blanchard on Twitter @KenBlanchard or @LeaderChat and also via the HowWeLead and LeaderChat blogs.

[Image: Flickr user Paul Joran]

Within HP’s quarterly results today, a bit of a development for Autonomy, the company’s $10.2 billion enterprise software purchase from last year that was profitable when HP bought it but in the last quarter saw “significant” declines in its core licensing revenue: its founder and head Mike Lynch is stepping down, and he is getting replaced by a HP man: chief strategy officer and EVP of enterprise software Bill Veghte.

HP says in its Q2 earnings release that this is being done to help improve Autonomy’s performance. In an internal memo to employees, which TechCrunch has obtained, CEO Meg Whitman says that the move is being made to as a mark of how HP is “investing to speed development across Security, Information and Management Infrastructure for both on-premise IT and in the cloud – with a key focus on software-as-a-service offerings.” The same strategy will be applied to the company’s Vertica business, Whitman noted in the memo.

HP’s Q2 earnings saw revenues down by three percent to $30.7 billion. Within that, the company saw a mixed (but overall declining performance) in its different divisions:

• The Personal Systems group saw flat revenues with a 5.5 percent operating margin. Commercial revenues were up three percent but the bigger portion, consumer revenue, declined by four percent. Total unit sales were down by one percent.
• Services were down by one percent with 11.3 percent operating marging.
• Imaging and printing (which is merging with PSG) is down 10 percent.
• Enterprise servers, storage and networking also down by six percent.
• HP financial services up by nine percent with a 9.9 percent operating margin.
• Sofware revenue up most of all: 22 percent with a 17.7 percent operating margin (no wonder this is the part that previous CEO, Leo Apotheker, wanted to keep and ditch all hardware). However, within this Autonomy saw a “significant” decline in license revenue.

Autonomy’s performance probably represents something of a disappointment — and perhaps surprise to HP, since the unit seemed to be doing much better when the acquisition was announced in October. At the time of the deal, Apotheker noted:

“Autonomy presents an opportunity to accelerate our strategic vision to decisively and profitably lead a large and growing space…Together with Autonomy, we plan to reinvent how both unstructured and structured data is processed, analyzed, optimized, automated and protected. Autonomy has an attractive business model, including a strong cloud based solution set, which is aligned with HP’s efforts to improve our portfolio mix. We believe this bold action will squarely position HP in software and information to create the next-generation Information Platform, and thereby, create significant value for our shareholders…Autonomy is a highly profitable and globally respected software company, with a well-regarded management team and talented, dedicated employees. We look forward to partnering with a company who shares our commitment to solving customer problems by creating smart, cutting-edge products and solutions.”

Mike Lynch, the founder and current head, will be stepping down after a transition period, HP says, and it doesn’t look like it’s giving up on Autonomy any time soon: “the market and competitive positioning for Autonomy remain strong, particularly in cloud offerings,” the company writes in its statement.

Autonomy, currently based in the UK, offers a software infrastructure solution that lets enterprises  wide portfolio of enterprise software services that have largely remained independent of HP’s other businesses. It has

Autonomy offers a software infrastructure solution in which enterprises can get different applications to “communicate” with each other.

It has 20,000 customers worldwide, and there are over 400 OEM companies that offer licenses to more than 500 products. Applications include those that handle information access technology, pan-enterprise search, information governance, end-to-end eDiscovery and archiving, records management, business process management, web content management, customer interaction solutions, and video and audio analysis.

Here are some other founder departures from other companies HP has acquired — as you can see it looks like all of the others may have been working through their earn-outs (typically two years; although Chris Lynch stayed for just over a year after Vertica was bought, to join Atlas Ventures). Between Autonomy getting bought in October and today, it’s been about eight months.

HP acquired Opsware for $1.6 billion in 2007.  President & CEO Ben Horowitz stayed a year before leaving in 2009 to launch Andreesen Horowitz.

HP acquired Vertica for $350 million in February 2011. CEO Chris Lynch left in March 2012 to join Atlas Ventures, a VC firm.

HP acquired Stratavia in August 2010.  Terms not disclosed.  CEO Thor Culverhouse left in February 2012 to found new company.

HP acquired ArcSight for $1.5 billion in September 2010.  CEO Tom Reilly left HP in May 2012.

HP acquired Fortify in August 2010. Terms not disclosed. CEO John M. Jack left in January 2012.

Confirming rumors from last week, HP just publicly announced a layoff plan that will result in a reduction of 8% of its workforce. Shortly after releasing the memo to Wall Street, HP CEO Meg Whitman sent a company-wide video message explaining the future of Bill Hewlett and David Packard’s company.

She acknowledges throughout that HP is in trouble, stating in the beginning, “HP’s performance is still not where it needs to be” and “We have a lot of work ahead of us to get HP back on track.” She also explains, a bit comically and perhaps erroneously, that “[HP] is currently rebuilding credibility one quarter at time, and to do that, we need to consistently deliver on what we say.”

Whitman also reaffirmed HP’s commitment to infrastructure, PCs and printing, servers, storage and networking. “This is a differentiating strength for HP and one we can be proud of,” she said in the video.

However, the axe is about to fall throughout HP. Before Whitman attempts to justify the cuts, she explains that HP’s employee count has grown at a pace unsustainable by its low revenue as of late.

“We’re struggling under our own weight,” said Whitman in today’s internal video memo. “And we’ve got to restore a healthy balance in order to return HP to its position as a growing… thriving… innovating… industry leader. That’s what this is all about. And the workforce reduction is only one piece of a comprehensive effort. We see a lot of opportunity to remove complexity, streamline and reduce costs in a number of areas across HP.”

Like previous rumors speculated, HP plans on reinvesting the savings into the company. “We’ll be investing to drive leadership in the three strategic pillars – cloud, security and information optimization. And in each of our businesses, we’ll make investments to stay ahead of customer expectations and market trends.” This is a fresh move for HP who under previous leadership simply used the savings of a smaller company to help the ledger.

In the consumer-focused PC and Printing Group, “we’ll be focused on design, engineering, quality, and generating demand and desire with our customers,” she said. In Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking (ESSN) “we’ll invest to drive R&D and innovation in our core businesses of servers, storage and networking. In Software, we’ll be investing to speed development across Security, Information and Management Infrastructure for both on-premise IT and in the cloud – with a key focus on software-as-a-service offerings. This will include the extension of Vertica and Autonomy across our entire portfolio. And in Services, we’ll improve processes and build-out capabilities in cloud, security and information. We’ll also be strengthening our industry practices, as well as our service quality and innovation.”

Whitman also detailed that HP is looking to better train their employees while providing a “career development and better tools and support.”

Like most leaders, Whitman ends the video with a reminder to her underlings that “In times of change, it’s easy to lose focus, waiting to see what happens next. We can’t let that happen. This a great organization, full of incredible people who are resilient, committed and who care about our customers and our company. I’m asking all of you to please keep driving forward. Close every deal. Leave nothing on the table. We need that now more than ever.”

Below is a transcript of the video. We are currently working on obtaining the video itself. Update: We have the video. Uploading now.

Internet music service Pandora just announced its financial results for the first quarter of its fiscal 2013. The company had a total revenue of $80.8 million, a 58% increase year-over-year. Out of these $80.8 million, $70.6 million came from advertising revenue and $10.2 million from subscription revenue. Advertising revenue increased 62% year-over-year and subscription revenue increased 38%. Despite its increased revenue, Pandora still reported a net loss per share of $0.12 and Non-GAAP net loss of $0.09 per share.

Pandora currently has $80.6 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments. That’s down $10 million from the last quarter. The company’s cash used for its operating activities increased significantly from $2.8 million in the year-ago quarter to $10.6 million.

Looking ahead, Pandora is raising its expectations for the full fiscal year. The company now expects to make between $420-427 million in revenue for its fiscal 2013, resulting in a net loss per-share of between $0.07 and $0.11.

More Listeners, More Advertisers

Overall, the company’s active users reached a record 51.9 million this quarter, up 53% year-over-year. Pandora now has a 71.7% share of the top U.S. Internet radio services and commands almost 6% of the total U.S. radio listening market. According to Pandora, this means that advertisers are also getting even more interested in its services, as “They are moving quickly to speak with their target customers across the Pandora platform, with the majority of the top 50 digital advertisers in the U.S. already having bought multiplatform advertising on Pandora. “