My latest thing

Howdy guys,

I'm sorry I haven't written anything for quite a while, I'm very busy these day working on my projects and barley find the time to write here.

A few weeks ago I've started a new side project called: TechVibe, which is an Israeli internet show, highly focused on the local Israeli high tech scene.

Currently its Hebrew only, so there's no English version for now.

In addition TechVibe is providing video coverage of the local scene, with analysis of new local startups and anything interesting that's coming form the holy land.

We're all very excited about it here, and encourage you to join us. (Only Hebrew for now)
Cheers.

Show Me The Benefit !

This is a guest post I've written for Nocamels.com

In the last couple of weeks there were many tech conferences events here in Israel, after attending most of them, I must say that more then ever I’m convinced that early stage startups should focus most of their attention in the products themselves and not so much in their business model and revenue generation, even as the economic atmosphere pressures.

Ev Williams Twitter CEO & co-founder was asked last week at web 2.0 expo, what advice would he give today to someone trying to build their own startup? His answer:

The core thing would be just do something awesome. Try not to get caught up in the echo chamber.
That is probably the toughest thing when you are trying to break out and do something original.

I think that Yossi Vardi’s famous saying that revenues are distraction is still very much relevant even at this economic climate, I believe young companies should always aim for the best user experience possible by building products that people will fall in love in, and want to use.
In my opinion that is 10 times harder to build than some sophisticated business model, additionally, I believe once you actually get the eye balls, the loyal users who use your product on a daily basis it is getting much simpler to start thinking business and how monetize-generate revenue off these users.

Now I’m not a VC, or anything, but I’d like to share with you the way I evaluate startup’s products (including those I work on) :

-Beneath all the fancy technology, core ideas, and even vision What’s the benefit for the end user?
(what do they get out of it?)

-Would I want to use the service?

-Would my parents (i.e older people) use it, could understand it?

Now obviously there’s much more to evaluating a company’s product, but for me these are the high order of bytes, the benefit to the end user and the “WOW” factor of the product are the things that are often the difference between a business’ failure and a runaway success stories.

Continue reading

iPhone App review: Tweetie

For the last couple of days I've been playing around and testing the high end Twitter client for the iPhone, Tweetie (2.99$) After a few days of using I must say, that it's a robust full blown Twitter client which pleasantly surprised me. You may wonder why would I pay 3 bucks for something I can get very similar (there are many, I used Twitterfon, best free one by far) and for some people Twitterfon works great, (Read my friend @HilzFuld review)

-So what's the big deal and why does it worth 2.99$?
It basically does anything you can ask a twitter app for, including both desktop and mobile, and does it fast in a superb UI, with other nifty features.

Pros:
-Fantastic UI
-Little touches that makes a huge difference ultimately (like saving photos friends
post, mailing them,etc ) much better flexibility with different services.
-Supports multiple twitter accounts
-When viewing links of pictures i.e (twitpic) instead of being taken to the site it
just opens the photo itself, very nice and convenient , you can even save the photo
-Save specific search terms

Cons:

-Auto loading of the stream needs to be much faster
-Landscape keyboard is kinda useless until they make it flip
automatically, currently you can't go back to portrait when turned on
-More themes a la twhirl would be nice

My overall impression is that they completely managed to replicate the desktop experience for Twitter, good job @atebits

If you are a Twitter power user, this application is a must have.
Tweetie is available on the iTunes store.

My Take: Windows 7

Yesterday I finally had some time in a while so installed the new Windows 7 beta on my main PC, I must say I'm really pleased with it so far, beginning with the installation process to the actual daily use, it's all very straightforward, simple and most important lesson from Visa: Speed man Speed ! The whole OS was installed under 20 min, and booting is a breeze.

My friends who heard I was putting Win 7 on my machine thought I lost it, for 2 main reasons:

A. I have a bad track record with the folks at Redmond, I'm a big Apple fan, and already worked with several versions of Linux, why would I put Windows again?

B. Plenty of people have many doubts about 7 after the huge Vista disaster, besides Win 7 is still in beta.


Despite both good reasons I decided to burn the boats and just go for it.( I used Ubuntu for a certain period of time, then abandoned it mostly because of computability issues and the fact that I spend a considerable amount of my time getting stuff to work)


After hearing such good things from many experts and quite ironically from known Apple fan boys, I decided I should give it a try, so I split my already partitioned drive (that's a whole other story) and put 7 on.


My first impressions are really good, unlike most of Microsoft's last products, Win 7 is fast, stable (and it's still a beta, ironically more stable then Vista SP1) and not less important is that the system is smart enough asking crucial things though not that annoying and intrusive (AKA Vista)



Other then that the most important update in 7 in my opinion is the new taskbar, and the way it manages the actual windows. Some even went as far as saying it works better then the OSX dock (That's a big over statement in my opinion)

It's gone through quite a few evolutions already, but this latest one works really well. Just click on an app, and contextual menus pop up, giving you options like opening recent documents. The Taskbar can pull information that's already part of the program, so new apps don't need special programming to work here. Another aspect of the new taskbar will is the preview feature, which will show you floating glimpses of hidden windows.

There are other UI enhancements though most aren't as appealing and impressive for me, after using Ubuntu with Compiz Fusion.

One thing I particularly like is that when multitasking, while another window wants your attention it simply lights the icon on the taskbar, unlike previews version of Windows when the entire windwos blinked on the taskbar and grabbed your attention when most needed.

If you're looking for a deeper review I find Engadget's in-depth review really insightful and helpful.


*BTW I wanna give some credit to my great twitter friends who advised me to go ahead and try Win 7. In particular @zoharalon and @elado thanks guys!

How to launch a product? just look at Loic Le Meur

Over the weekend Loic Le Meur, founder of Seesmic, has done an amazing job launching the new preview version of Twhirl, the Seesmic owned desktop twitter app with an extraordinary amount of buzz and hype, right now he's on the top of Techmeme, and I'm sure tons of new users will give it a try during the weekend and love it.

How has he done it?

First things first: Connect with your community keep things simple and personal. Loic is an adorable brilliant guy, he talks to everyone and answers folks on twitter, Facebook, Seesmic on a regular basis.

On Friday he began by asking for people who wish to participate trying out the new release before it's officially out, and began making waves around that there's a new version coming up with great features, I for one registered and immediately received a replay that I'm now a part of the team Seesmic, another bright idea to allow them to get user feedback and at the same time create a feeling of a closed group.

Let's not forget that Loic also got some of the amazing Scoble magic when Robert Scoble showed up and shot a video interview of Loic demonstrating the new version.

10 hours later and a Personal ( but autumatic I guess) replay from Loic was waiting in my email to try out the new version. Looks like he has planed a terrific product lunch and successfully created an enormous amount of hype (hitting the top of Techmem pretty much sums it up)

So how is the new version?

No doubt It's impressive they've added some awesome features like: being able to post to Ping.fm and send updates to multiple services (a killer feature), recording Seesmic videos and replies from the client itself, and also ensures that you won’t miss a single tweet mentioning your Twitter username.
So instead of just getting replies that have @username at the beginning of the tweet, you’ll now receive all replies with your @username regardless of whether it’s at the beginning, middle, or end. about time... (tweetdeck has it for a while). Though there are a few hiccups and bugs (it's not offically out..) I'd recommend twitter power usurers and newbies as well to go ahead register and check it out

Update: Loic has confirmed that over 2000 new users has joined during the weekend so far from 32 different countries

Have I missed something? Let me know and feel free to comment

Happy Holidays!

Happy holidays folks, I barely got a chance to write a holiday post this year, this is one of my busiest holidays as I'm working overtime on my stratup and various other upcoming stuff.


I've just read a very interesting post by my friend Ezra Butler, which raised a few points about Hanuka's Menoraha as a social object, he also discuses several intriguing topics about social media, ROI on social media and the meaning and connection to the holiday season.

Enjoy and have a great holiday, and a happy new year.

Breaking the barriers between the web and the physical world during breakfast

Photo by: by Rey Tavor


Today I had a great time attending one of Jeff Pulver's famous Breakfast gatherings, and it was really inspiring, further more I most mention that the concept is just brilliant. here's why

First it was the largest breakfast Jeff has ever hosted, (about 400 people showed up) And it was truly inspiring watching the networking and social engagement level which occurred there.

Here's a video I qiked during the breakfast, just so you ll' get a feel for how many folks were there.



One of the unique things about Jeff's breakfasts is that you receive a social kit, which contains stickers where you basically write your name and your personal tag line (similar to web 2.0).
The idea is that you hang around, meet fascinating people in your area of interest and tag them with your stickers, and engage in real life conversations.

Leave the interest and networking a side for a minute it is a brilliant ice breaker and it brings people together, it was actually pretty amazing how 400 can network on this level, breaking the barriers between the web and the physical real world.

Congrats to Jeff Pulver for pulling off these events, it was incredible to attend, I met some amazing folks which I will meet with plenty of them and hopefully develop my business.

Below is a video of Jeff explaining the concept.