Pearltrees releases version 1.0, premium accounts included

We caught up with Pearltrees' chief evangelist, Oliver Starr, after the company announced its 1.0 release and a new subscription-based business model.

Visualizing the scope of what we share from around the Web is a challenge, but given the popularity of tactile devices like iPhones and iPads it seems a valuable one to undertake. Interacting with website content is becoming more and more expected, and developers are taking note. Pearltrees, a startup we wrote about to announce its $6.7 million in funding early this year, just may be at the forefront of haptically curating information, and the company says it has the metrics to prove it.

We caught up with Pearltrees yesterday when the company celebrated the app’s 1.0 milestone. Pearltrees explains that 1.0 signifies the cohesiveness of its product across its three supported platforms: Web, iPhone, and iPad. It also marks, in some respects, the true launch of the site, despite having officially having launched in 2008. Oliver Starr, chief evangelist for Pearltrees, explains to me that Pearltrees started out as a Web app, but was developed for devices like iPhone in mind. The Web app was just an intermediary platform, since at the time Apple’s mobile wouldn’t be able to support the tech required to develop Pearltrees for the iPhone. In fact, the iPhone app wasn’t launched until July of this year.

Pearltrees was founded on the principles that Tim Burners-Lee, the godfather and founder of the Web, had in mind when developing what we know as the Internet. First, anyone should be able to view any piece of information published on the Web — the leading thought of Web 1.0. The second is that anybody should be able to publish any piece of information, which happened with the rise of blogging, wikis, and Twitter. Finally, and most importantly, the third criterion was that anyone could organize collections of this information.

Pearltrees visually aggregates bookmarks of websites, photos, and anything found online into visual “pearls.” Collectively the pearls make up a tree of information, clearly where the app gets its name. Users can save their latest interests from around the Web individually, but multiple users sharing the same interest can collaboratively curate a single pearl as well. It sort of feels like a visual, graphic Wikipedia without the user-contributed text. For instance, one of Starr’s favorite pearls has over 150 members and curates TED Talks. As he took me through it, the pearl was admittedly expertly curated and there didn’t appear to be any irrelevant information to be found.

The moderation of community pearls is left up to the devices of its members. Despite this, Starr tells me he’s only had to administratively ban approximately fifty accounts, including spam bots. It’s an astoundingly small number considering the 700,000 active users, two million unique visitors per month, and about 30 million pearls. And Starr knows a thing or about community moderation. “Being a veteran of moderating tech comments, I can tell you that’s not the norm.” Starr was Michael Arrington’s first employee at TechCrunch and responsible not only for creating “MobileCrunch,” but also worked as the tech blog’s first community moderator.

Pearltrees has access to unprecendented information about its users through its interest graph, called TreeRank. It can group pearls into similar interests and display them to you. Should you search for “Wolves,” the app would then display all pearls relevant to your search query. But since the algorithm scrapes your interests, it knows exactly what Pearltrees’ users interests are and similar things you’d want to see. It’s a powerful feature that, and one you’d think a marketer’s dream.

Despite this goldmine of user information, the company refuses to sell out. “We’ve kept true to the spirit of the company and the product, which is that we wouldn’t leverage what our users do through marketing,” says Starrs.

Instead, Pearltrees is taking the more difficult and less traveled route to making money by selling services. Luckily, the for-pay feature was one requested by the users. Now users can pay $4.99 per month or $49.99 for one year to make pearls private. But this model serves a dual purpose: It implicitly improves Pearltrees’ platform as a repository of valuable curated content. Putting a price on something will increase its value, and while that can be difficult to prove, it’s been done before — sites like Quora, Wikipedia, and even Evernote have showed us this.

By default all pearls are public, so anyone can see your pearls. With Pearltrees’ mantra to be host to a library of valuable content, Starrs explains that the pearls that users want to hide are typically content that Pearltrees wants you to pay to hide anyway. If it’s a pearl containing embarrassing content or even something not worth sharing, then it’s likely not content that would be helpful to other users should they find that pearl. So users should help pay for the hosting costs if it’s not going to contribute to the benefit of Pearltrees as a whole.

It’s a big bet, but one that the site is confident it can take. Pearltrees 1.0 is available now via the Web and for iOS devices. 

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Apple management shake-up – iOS software chief Forstall and retail boss Browett both given the boot

Apple announced some big changes at the top of the company on Monday, with long-time Apple employee and iOS software chief Scott Forstall and retail boss John Browett both removed from their positions.

Apple has kicked the week off with a major management shake-up, with iOS software chief Scott Forstall and retail boss John Browett both given the boot.

News of the departures was announced in a statement on Apple’s website on Monday. While Browett appears to have had his contract terminated with immediate effect, Forstall will stay on in an advisory role until 2013.

The precise reason for Forstall’s departure isn’t clear, though many will point to the disastrous rollout of Apple’s iOS 6 Maps app last month as a possible factor. But with Forstall an integral, long-established member of the Apple team – he joined the tech giant back in 1997 – it’s hard to believe he’d get dumped over one misstep.

The decision to end Browett’s tenure with the company, though somewhat surprising considering the Brit had only been in the job a matter of months, may be more clear cut.

Browett was recruited from British electronics retail chain Dixons in January and was Tim Cook’s first major hire after becoming CEO in 2011 following the death of Steve Jobs. “Our retail stores are all about customer service, and John shares that commitment like no one else we’ve met,” Cook said at the time.

John Browett

Having streamlined Dixons’ retail business and improved its financial position, he seemed to set about doing the same with Apple’s retail business, although by all accounts it was doing OK as things were. Reports of recent hires at Apple stores being axed and existing staff having their working hours reduced hit the headlines over the summer, creating confusion and resentment among the workforce.

A short time later, the tech firm admitted that the layoffs had been the wrong thing to do and started hiring new workers again. “Making these changes was a mistake and the changes are being reversed,” Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said in a statement, adding, “Our employees are our most important asset and the ones who provide the world-class service our customers deserve.”

However, it hasn’t been all bad for its retail workers under Browett’s tenure, with employees at the stores reportedly receiving pay rises of as much as 25 percent as well as being offered generous discounts on Apple products.

Cook will be assuming Browett’s responsibilities until a replacement is found, Apple said in Monday’s statement.

In other changes, Apple’s design guru Jony Ive is set to take on more responsibilities, as is senior vice president Bob Mansfield, senior vice president of Internet software Eddy Cue,  and vice president of Mac software engineering Craig Federighi.

UPDATE: A Wall Street Journal report late Monday suggests Forstall refused to sign the apology letter which Tim Cook issued in response to complaints about iOS Maps, which, if true, would certainly have strained the relationship between Cook and Forstall.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

East African Enterprise ICT Sector Up in The Clouds As Industry Gains Insight

The Cloud East Africa Summit will host over 100 IT professionals, CIOs, Chief Information Security Officers and cloud computing experts from the top companies in East Africa, to share knowledge, experience and strategy in enterprise cloud computing. The summit aims to educate and inform attendees looking to position Kenya and East Africa as a giant in an ever developing mobile world. Attendees will discover the correct solution set and innovative strategies to effectively launch cloud within the economy.

Kevin Kinyanjui, Information Systems Director and CIO of Kenya Airways presented the first keynote of the day with a focus on strategising, designing and building a cloud environment for your enterprise with insight into the practicalities of creating the cloud.

The anticipated panel discussion focused on the most pressing issues facing the industry when deploying virtualisation and cloud computing, with a closer look at key issues to be considered including security, privacy, service levels, back-ups, technical issues and best practices for deployment. The panel will feature leading industry experts including Benson Kinoti, Chief ICT Officer of the Kenya Institute of Education.

Paul Kukubo, the CEO of the Kenya ICT Board is set to present a topical, industry focused and comprehensive keynote session at the summit this year, one that promises to be insightful, inspiring and intuitive.

Mardia van der Walt-Korsten, the SVP and Regional Head in Africa and the Middle East, and Chairman of the Board for T-Systems has prepared an interesting session focusing on T-Systems’ contribution to enabling change in Africa, introducing T-Systems as a global ICT Company that delivers world class services and solutions with local soul.

Industry focused workshop sessions will address effective solutions in successfully delivering IT projects and services with themes selected by attendees to demonstrate the value of cloud computing to the enterprise. Telkom SA will present a topical workshop focusing on establishing a converged solution across Africa to enable our individual economies to grow. Summit gold solution provider T-Systems is set to address the enterprise journey to the cloud environment.

Summit moderator and Director of ClearSpace Consulting SA, Derrick Plank will deliver a current keynote session focused on allowing attendees to discover the factors that are critical to the success of the private cloud initiatives based on the challenges encountered and the key competencies developed by top performing organisations. 

George Makori, Senior Manager of Cloud and Managed Services for Safaricom Business discusses cloud initiatives for the enterprise in a must-attend keynote session focused on Africa’s enterprise industry.

Francis Gituru, the IT Director of Kenya Commercial Bank presents a cloud computing focused keynote sessions placing the spotlight on security in the cloud.

David Irungu Waggema, the IT Manager at the Nairobi Securities Exchange takes delegates on an insightful journey into transitioning to the cloud for the enterprise and looking at the steps involved in moving from basic Server Virtualisation, through optimisation to private cloud.

The Cloud East Africa Summit has proved to be a valuable contribution to the IT industry in Africa with attendees providing positive feedback to the producers.

The success of the summit is attributed to its professionalism, organisation and expert presentation. Event organisers; Kinetic Events would like to thank all sponsors, partners, participants and attendees for an outstanding event.

For more information, comment or photographs, visit www.cloud-eastafrica.com or contact Shaunei Meintjes on +27 21 555 0866 orshaunei@kineticevents.net. Follow @ITLeadersAfrica and @KineticEventsSA on Twitter for daily updates and news feeds. 

Contact information

Shaunei Meintjes

Marketing Specialist, Kinetic Events

+27 (0) 21 555 0866

shaunei@kineticevents.net

www.kineticevents.net

Tags: Africa Enterprise, African Enterprise, East Africa Enterprise

Source : techtalkafrica[dot]com

What I want to see from Apple on September 12: Absolutely nothing

Apple doesn't need to debut the iPhone 5 on September 12 -- it needs to debut nothing at all.

Less than a week from today, Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook will take the stage at the obnoxiously named Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco to drop yet another bomb on the U.S. mobile phone industry: The so-called iPhone 5. 

If the rumors are to be believed — and this year, they are — the only major difference between the iPhone 5 and the two previous models is a slightly bigger 4-inch screen. That’s it — a change of just 0.5 inches. Yes, there will be some hardware upgrades, battery-life improvements, and other nuts-and-bolts tweaks. But as far as a “wow” factor goes, it looks like we’re going to have to settle for a screen size that Android devices have had for years. And you know what? People are going to buy the crap out of it. 

As bored as I am by the new iPhone’s purported growth spurt, I’m not particularly interested in any of the other realistic features Apple might add to some “dream phone” either. NFC? Yawn. Quad-core processor? Psh. Wireless charging? Whatevs. All these features would be great, I suppose — but they have been done before, and will be done again and again and again by the time the iPhone 6 makes its way into the world around this time next year.

No — what I really want to see from Apple is something so mind-blowing, so thunderously outrageous, that it would send shockwaves around the globe and immediately earn a place in the history books.

I want to see Apple announce absolutely nothing. 

You heard me — nothing. I want to watch Tim Cook stand before the entire world and say, “Good morning, folks. You’re probably all expecting us to announce an extraordinary new iPhone packed full of life-changing innovations that will add excitement and energy to lives of millions of people around the globe. But we’re not going to do that — because we don’t have to. Our iPhone business alone is — get this — bigger than all of Microsoft. We have $117 billion in cash just sitting around. That’s enough to put an end to world hunger four times. We could find a cure for cancer with that kind of loot. But that’s just not our style. Instead, we’re going to sit back for a year and laugh at the peons as they try their very best to out-design and out-sell us. So that’s it: The iNothing, or whatever you idiots want to call it. Thanks for coming. Exits are to your rear. There’s punch and pie in the lobby.” 

That’s what I want to see from Apple on September 12 — the will to simply not give a damn. 

I say this not because I dislike Apple and wish for it to commit suicide — an entirely possible outcome of such a move. To the contrary — I am an Apple fan, through and through. I am writing this on a brand new MacBook Air, which is connected to a massive Thunderbolt Display, which sits next to my iPhone 4S. If Apple made pants, I’d probably wear them. 

Rather, I say this out of tough love. As I see it, Apple sits on the brink of losing its greatness. Not because Steve Jobs is gone and Tim Cook is screwing things up (though he very well may be), but because people are simply worn thin by this Apple-dominated world we live in. We’re tired of Apple winning year after year, whether it deserves to or not. We’re tired of its lawsuits and its “most-valuable” status. We’re tired of minor refinements sold as innovation. And we’re tired of Siri not knowing how to properly look up directions to the nearest liquor store.

What I’m saying is, Apple needs some time off because we need some time off from Apple. 

Giving up a year of its product life would give us time to miss Apple, to wonder what it’s up to, like a summer vacation fling. And it would make whatever devices the company releases after its hiatus that much more anticipated and appealing. 

Alas, Apple will keep releasing iPhones, and people will keep buying them. It will keep suing companies to maintain its competitive edge. And its stock price will just keep going up and up and up. It shouldn’t — but it will.

One of these days, however — maybe as soon as next week — Apple is going to release a flop just as a rival comes out with something that genuinely deserves our adoration and hard-earned dollars. Crowds at the famous Apple Stores will begin to thin out. Geniuses will stand around twiddling their thumbs. The torrent of rumors will slow to a trickle. The stock price will fall. And there will be poor Tim Cook, slouched on his white Peruvian alpaca leather couch, sipping a glass of neat brandy, slowly caressing the head of his precious Ashera cat. And he’s going to think, “Shucks, if only I’d listened to that bald bastard Andrew Couts, then maybe we’d still be on top.”

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Post-Microsoft acquisition, Yammer CEO questions the state of the startup ecosystem

After the Microsoft acquisition, Yammer's chief has some less than glowing projections about the tech startup scene.

Back in June, Microsoft announced it had acquired enterprise social networking system Yammer for $1.2 billion. The deal spurred discussion about the new wave of business-focused social applications and their significance and proposed worth.

“When we started Yammer four years ago, we set out to do something big,” Yammer CEO David Sacks said at the time of the acquisition. “We had a vision for how social networking could change the way we work. Joining Microsoft will accelerate that vision and give us access to the technologies, expertise and resources we’ll need to scale and innovate.”

Apparently Sacks has more critical ideas about the startup life cycle than that, though. TechCrunch first spotted a post to his personal Facebook page (which you can see in its entirely after the break), Sacks spoke about the unending circle of acquisitions that small tech businesses are stuck in. “I think silicon valley as we know it may be coming to an end. In order to create a successful new company, you have to find an idea that (1) has escaped the attention of the major Internet companies, which are better run than ever before; (2) is capable of being launched and proven out for  ~$5M, the typical seed plus series A investment; and (3) is protectable from the onslaught of those big companies once they figure out what you’re onto. How many ideas like that are left?”

The post has inspired a who’s-who debate among some of the Valley’s tech scene elite, including investor Marc Andreesen, Founders Den co-founder Jonathon Abrams, and former TechCrunch editor Erick Schonfeld, among others – and it goes on and on and on. Clearly, a chord has been struck here and questions about the current state of the startup ecosystem resonate loudly for those closest to it.

The art of the acquisition has become a promise and a threat for young startups; it can sign those long-awaited paychecks while also effectively shutting down that planned product roadmap. There’s plenty of discussion about big companies that have turned into startup killers, Twitter, Facebook, and Google usually ended up on the other end of this finger pointing. The argument that Sacks’ opponents take in his post is that this is how the market works – it will always work in favor of the establishing veterans, and disruption will always be challenging.

Sacks could be feeling the effects of his small but powerful startup’s acquisition by the venerable Microsoft (a company not exactly known for its out-of-the-gate innovation), but his analysis isn’t without merit. Also worth nothing is that this is just one of several recent gripe-sessions from tech startup founders who are frustrated with their narrowing options in this market. So are we stuck in an unbreakable system of startup scoops by big tech companies? Maybe, maybe not – regardless, the bleak scene it’s painting for potential founders could be enough to hinder new development and growth. 

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com