Ajax Girl

Yahoo launched their new profile product last week as part of their big plan to social networkize the entire Yahoo world. Every Yahoo profile was reset, and users were asked to go through a process of recreating it.

The comments from users were unambiguous - they were pissed off.

Common complaints include the fact that the new profile must include your full name, which your connections (friends) can see, as well as the removal of a few features that I’ve never heard of (like Cool Links) that apparently some percentage of users really, really liked. But by far the biggest complaint was the fact that all of the information in the old profiles was wiped clean, and users were presented with a blank slate like the one above (which is mine). Some users also noted that there was no message on that blank profile letting users know what just happened to their data. You had to go to the blog posts to understand what happened.

Meanwhile, Yahoo scurried to respond. In one of the blog posts, Melissa Daniels, Yahoo’s Community Manager, said “We know this has been a rough transition for some of you and, and are committed to helping you use, understand, and (hopefully) enjoy your new profile.”

That just seemed to enrage users more. An example comment: “I agree Making a second rate copy of facebook while breaking everything else people come to yahoo for is a good way to go out of business.”

As critical as I’ve been of Yahoo recently, I’m mostly supporting them in the profile transition.

Communication with users was definitely poorly executed, and users should have had a message on their profile page telling them what was going on. But the team is clearly trying to fix that. VP Communities Jim Stoneham, who just joined Yahoo six weeks ago to lead the project (Welcome to Yahoo, Jim!), has a single message on his profile: “listening.” And Yahoo has at least kept a copy of the old profile information for users who want it back:

We also know lots of you worked hard on your old profiles and want your data. If you feel like you’re missing data, we’ve saved a copy of your old profile (and alias) and our Customer Care team can retrieve this information. You won’t, however, be able to revert back to your old profile format, but you will be able to get any data that you think is missing. To do this, please go here http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/profiles/general.html to contact Customer Care.

A lot of profile data is still there, anyway. I went through the new profile setup and it retained my name, age and interests, and displayed it after I was done.

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Source: TechCrunch
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Emphasis on participation and trust have been my favorite part about working 37signals this first month. It reminded me of my favorite director’s filmmaking process.

Traditional filmmaking, essentially: write a script, cast actors, go on set and film. British indie director Mike Leigh takes a different approach.

I start with no script. I do a brief of the film for myself, which is usually pretty fluid. Then I work with the actors for an extensive period creating the characters, through conversation, research and improvisation. Then we go out and invent the film on location, and structure it and shoot it as we go. To me, that’s what it’s all about. It’s about using film as a medium in its own right, not as a way of including the decisions of various committees (via MovieMaker).

It pays off. Leigh’s characters shine with curious originality. The sometimes strange dialogue and situations tend to provoke some response no matter how foreign to the viewer. I attribute this to level playing field; encouraging the cast to improvise and create.

An exemplary clip from ‘Naked’, developed almost exclusively by the two actors in a run of improvised sessions who then cull the cruft in together with the director.

This is a great example of how going in unprepared yields fruit, and how encouraging people to participate brings out the best in them.

Source: Signal vs. Noise
Original Article: http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1323-filmmaking-and-participation

VMWare has had a string of bad luck during the Summer and Fall. Their CEO was fired, the share price for VMWare stock has gone down by 75% this year, they have lost significant market share, Microsoft has launched an competitor priced intentionally low in order to gain market share, and three different investment banks have downgraded them. All this while the market for their product has gotten more interesting, as it helps companies save on IT costs.

Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/KqxSQb1mZ8Y/

The MoneyTree Report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and the National Venture Capital Association came out this morning. It shows that total VC financings in the third quarter were down 7 percent compared to the same period last year, to $7.1 billion. That is also down about the same amount from the second quarter. In the chart above, I’ve plotted the dollar value of VC investments for each third quarter going back to 2001, coming off the last boom, when $8.3 billion was invested in VC-backed startups. While $7.1 billion is still a healthy amount, you can see that this may be the first quarter of a significant decline in funding activity.

If you zero in on Internet deals, VC funding declined 16 percent to $1 billion. Below is a chart plotting the sequential dollar amount going into Internet deals going back to the first quarter of 2002, when $1.3 billion was invested. (Sorry for the apples to oranges comparisons between this and the first chart, which just shows numbers from the third quarter of each year. The entire spreadsheet with all of this data and more going back to 1995 is embedded below).

There were a total of 907 VC-backed deals in the third quarter, compared to 1,033 a year ago (see first chart below, which is for the same time period as the first chart above). And the number of Internet deals was 194 in the third quarter, compared to 221 a year ago, and 251 last quarter (see second chart below, which is or the same time period as the second chart above):

And just for some perspective, here are two charts showing Internet deals going back to the first quarter of 2000, when $12.4 billion (first chart) was invested in 900 deals (second chart).

VC Financings Spreadsheet - Get more Business Plans

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ZVmLFwGZSxc/

Users who hadn’t already left Bloglines for Google Reader and other functional RSS readers are doing so now, largely because Bloglines has stopped working and the company has done absolutely nothing to communicate to users what is going on or when it might be fixed.

Even Bloglines founder Mark Fletcher, who sold the company to Ask.com in 2005, is ready to jump ship. In a Twitter message yesterday he said “Bloglines, please stop sucking. It’s been a couple weeks now. I don’t want to have to move to Google Reader. Sigh.”

The problem is that Bloglines isn’t updating feeds from thousands of blogs, including this one (about a third of the feeds I follow have errors). This has been an ongoing problem. Meanwhile, those feeds are quite readable in other feed readers like Newsgator and Google Reader. The most recent TechCrunch post our 25,000+ Bloglines readers see is from May 14.

So what do you do if you are a Bloglines reader and ready to throw in the towel? Easy. Click the “Export Subscriptions” link on the bottom left of the page on Bloglines when you are signed in, and then import it into any feed reader you choose. Problem solved.

A few more Twitter users who are fed up with Bloglines:

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/yLWyHwE5ezk/

One thing investors don’t really like to see is founders abandoning the startups they funded. But that is exactly what Ted Dziuba is doing with his startup PressFlip.

In a blog post Dziuba wrote that he was leaving the company “mostly because I’m going to be a father in March and need some stability, but also because I’m tired of the fight.”

Earlier this month Dziuba restarted his blog, Uncov, which generally mocks startups and entrepreneurs. The blog was shut down just a few days before Pressflip (then called Persai) originally launched.

In July I reviewed Pressflip and gave it a big thumbs down. I also noted that it was much harder to build a startup than it was to simply criticize them, and wondered if Dziuba and his cofounders would have what it takes to keep fighting:

Pressflip/Uncov is a perfect illustration of The Man In The Arena quote from a 1910 Theodore Roosevelt speech given in Paris. It’s awfully easy to criticize the work of others but incredibly difficult to build something unique yourself. The Uncov guys are now in the arena, and failing. We’ll see if they have what it takes to take their hits and keep fighting.

I guess we now know the answer. At least for Dziuba, the answer to whether he has any fight left in him for Pressflip is a resounding no.

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Source: TechCrunch
Original Article: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/7mdRSUbgGvY/