by accident i ended up on the website of mobile-facts, a startup currently in stealth phase. “stealth is technology lingo for ‘we don’t want to talk about it’.” interested in what they are doing? ask them and they will answer as followed:
“If Daniel does not want to talk to somebody about what he is doing he says that he “works on LISP”. It appears that this is a sure-fire way to change topics.”
what happened to joost, the 2006 tv-startup by niklas zennström and janus friis (founders of Skype and Kazaa)? analysts were sure they would revolutionize internet tv. i was so happy and proud when i got my “personal invitation” and was able to login as a beta user. and now?
it got very silent around joost. they currently announced they will offer the content no more in the joost application than only web based what basically means that the project failed. they state on the website “What’s Joost? It’s a way to watch videos – music, TV, movies and more – over the Internet. We could just call it a website … with videos … but that’s not the whole story.” quite a change from what the initial idea was – to become the leading tv-channel platform.
why did joost fail? money was never an issue, the reputation was very well and the application functioned well. from my point of view joost did not see the switch from desktop to web application coming. when zennström and friis introduced kazaa and skype web technology was pretty basic; desktop applications were state of the art. due to ajax, flash and java this changed during the last couple of years. google apps are the best example of how web focused we are nowadays.
kerry vance, spokesman of joost, describes on the joost blog “The industry was much different when we set out to deliver professional video online in 2006. Bandwidth was very expensive. Content partners were relatively new to distributing their copyrighted material online.” what backs my speculation. “It was always our intention to discontinue the Joost software application.” can be seen as damage limitation than a strategy.
joost is a good example for how even most promising, well organized and money stuffed projects can end up mainstream by not seeing and understanding the upcoming trend. this is no offend against zennström and friis, they saw and understood the trend two times and are the most impressive entrepreneurs out there. still it is salving to see that even the brightest entrepreneurs can be wrong once in a while.
by the way: techcrunch published some statistics about the joost website, showing an extreme boost since the announcement. my guess is that the ex-application users switched to the online version. still, as techcrunch says: joost has a heartbeat!
Gründerszene was founded by Lukasz Gadowski (founder spreatshirt, partner Team Europe Ventures), Kolja Hebenstreit (partner Team Europe Ventures) and others. the vision of Gründerszene is to help startups to gain more attention and respect, as well as to connection startups, investors and customers with each other. the word ‘Gründerszene’ is german and means ‘founders`scene’ or ’startup scene’.
i am currently working on a blog-entry about “software as a service (SaaS) replacing the operation system (OS)” and found zumodrive while researching. zumodrive is just an online storage place, but it contains open interfaces to embed it to different applications.
so, what is so special. less the fact that you have always access to all your files (very nice, yes) but more the fact that zumodrive might replace a lot of hardware.
theoretically you do not need any storage space on your computer anymore. not for files (zumodrive) or operation system (virtual OS) or applications (SaaS). imagine super fast computing on any device, even with very little storage space, no operation system, marginal RAM…
wait for the blog-entry, coming up soon.
this video from Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson is already 5 years old, but some of you might not have watched it yet. even those who have watched it can now see how the internet developed in the last couple of years. facebook, for example, wasn’t mentioned in the movie… ipod for broadcasting is kyte or bambuser… google grid is somehow available in google docs… googlezone is facebook… epic will for sure soon be available; blyg, skype, facebook and google have just to align with each other…
in the near future household devices will be connected to the internet. users will be able to remotely handle them on the run or let them operate freely depending on predetermined commands. so far nothing new, the vision is pretty old.
fully customize graphical user interface (GUI)
what is new is fugoo, a platform that provides (personalized) on-demand media content to household devices. means: when you develop any household device such as a clock, microwave or coffee machine you can use the fugoo application to run the device, connect to widgets offered by fugoo or connect to the internet. Steve Guggenheimer, corporate vice president of the Original Equipment Manufacturer Division at Microsoft, gives an example “imagine having your alarm clock not only wake you up but also remind you what your first appointment of the day is and calculate how long it will take you to drive to work based on current traffic conditions.”
fugoo box in black
fugoo offers a small media box running a microsoft OS. this box offers all kind of media content through open interfaces.
household manufacturers can use the fugoo developers kit (offered for free) in order to build applications that connect to the media box and choose freely what elements to add. it will work like widgets that can be added and removed on demand.
offering a whole developing kit (incl. out of the box gui) is a great thing. until today companies, especially small ones, struggle to develop applications and guis for their products because they don’t have the money or the resources to build. with fugoo they can basically drag and drop the needed elements and enrich their products with free content.
fugoo vision - maybe a bit over the top
fugoo is currently developed by John Hui, Chris Chung and Wayne Inouye, all are former co-founders and developers at eMachines. they announced recently a cooperation with microsoft. microsoft will provide the operation system and give additional support to fugoo.
vision by John Hui, founder of fugoo: “How about a refrigerator that can generate a weekly shopping list based on staples that have been used up, and then place a delivery order at a local supermarket’s web site? Or a lawn sprinkler that checks the weather forecast for the possibility of rain before turning itself on? Or a dishwasher that can link to its manufacturer when it is malfunctioning, so the manufacturer can run remote diagnostics?
And maybe – just maybe – once all these devices are connected, they will also start talking to one another, like your “net” clock telling the coffee maker that you’re awake so it knows to start brewing.”
i am currently working on a blog-entry about “software as a service (SaaS) replacing the operation system (OS)” and found 
in the near future household devices will be connected to the internet. users will be able to remotely handle them on the run or let them operate freely depending on predetermined commands. so far nothing new, the vision is pretty old.
