Mar
14
Got any friends that constantly pester you about checking out their performance? Yeah, me either, but do you support the underdog?! Heck yeah! Unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock, the music industry is undergoing some huge changes. One of which is DRM-free music offerings. The industry is actively looking for new ways to monetize music.
Fanfound intends to capitalize on tides of change currently sweeping the music community. A company coming out of the Purdue Technology Center in Merrillville, IN and led by Chris Bauman, is a Website dedicated to helping fans connect with their favorite artists. In turn this site allow artists to connect with their fans more directly. This also offers rich information for venues. If fanfound becomes large enough, venues could make decisions about what artists to bring based on an artist’s fanfound fan base.
When I visit the Fanfound pages, I’m reminded of Facebook mixed in with some Myspace. This then begs the question, why isn’t this Website a Facebook application? There should definitely be a Myspace widget. Is there any famous music artists associated with Fanfound? If so, I think it would do Fanfound some good to flaunt that person (e.g., have a video of them saying how much Fanfound rocks on the homepage).
In short, I wish the folks at Fanfound the best. The concept definitely makes sense. The right people need to find out about it. If anybody has any suggestions do leave comments. Now Fanfound…get those widgets built!!
Mar
5
It’s always nice when “webpreneurs” decide that they will actually try develop an application that’s useful. 8aweek, is Y Combinator backed startup that wants to make all of us more productive. They’ve created a Firefox plugin that can track your Web surfing habits (this feature can be enabled, enabled locally, or disabled). If you have the logging enabled you’ll be able to see where you’re spending most of your time on the Web, and adjust accordingly. For example, you can set timers on sites that you know you spend too much time on.
I so wanted something like this; it is nice to know that somebody else wanted this too 
). Thanks 8aweek. I’m wondering where I spend most of my time online? I just installed the plugin, so I guess I’ll find out pretty soon. Maybe you should check it out and see where you’re spending most of your online time! Still curious about it? Check out their blog here. Better yet, check out their demo here.
Feb
25
ChaCha.com Vs. Google.com
Filed Under Internet Search, Misc | 1 Comment
So ChaCha.com is a Indy based company headed by the herald Scott Jones. If you’ve never used ChaCha.com, it’s a Internet search service that’s human powered. This means that you can search with a human search guide. There are people who are trained in searching the Web that work for ChaCha.com and help you if you hit the “Search with Guide” button. The natural question is how will ChaCha.com scale this operation? There are only so many search guides, and only so many of them can help so many people at once. But let’s ignore scaling issues. Let’s pretend that ChaCha.com worked the way it was envisioned to work. Could ChaCha.com really disrupt Google?
Based on the “Innovator’s Solution,” I would purport, “a definitive NO.” ChaCha.com would be sustaining innovation (again, if it worked the way envisioned). Internet search is Google’s breadwinner. You think Google is just going to lay down and let some new entrant snatch its main course right out its mouth? Think again!
So I think ChaCha.com’s move into the mobile search space is very smart one. This is still a relatively untapped space, and ChaCha.com has a real chance to own it. But ChaCha.com would do well to move expediently, as Google is clearly trying to move into this space. Thankfully though, it hasn’t reach critical mass yet. Move quickly ChaCha!!!
Feb
23
Innovate Indiana…
Filed Under i^2 | Leave a Comment
Guess what boys & girls…We’re baaaaaaaack; and fortified like never before. Be on the look out for upcoming posts!