Rose of RoseTech Ventures will be part of the New York: Media Information Exchange Group (NY:MIEG)'s panel about the current economic downturn and its impact on the media and entertainment sector scheduled to take place on Thursday, January 29, at...

NYConvergence ORIGINALThe NYC-based smartphone data backup service, founded by Amos Winbush, will be using Sun Microsystem's technology to further develop their new Java-supported applications for mobile devices as a result of the partnership according to an e-mail Winbush sent us....

NY-based KickApps has announced the launch of a new application platform named "App Studio" this morning. The App Studio concept takes web applications and content, bundles everything together and creates a simple piece of code that any KickApps publisher can integrate into their site. Third-party publishers can also push their applications to the KickApps publishers through the App Studio. The company is announcing that Meebo and Yahoo Maps are the first two partners to join the platform.

Web developers need to submit their applications to KickApps to be included in the App Studio. It appears the applications must be in Flash to be accepted. The App Studio uses a WYSIWYG interface which should make it easy for KickApps publishers to integrate applications from the App Studio into their websites.

It would be interesting to find out if KickApps is working on opening the App Studio to work on any website regardless if KickApps powers the site. Opening up the studio would provide more usage and could provide a good way to get more visibility into KickApps.

In September KickApps launched a pretty innovative and customizable video monetization service.

Apparently the following flyers were distributed this morning around the Wall Street area. I am passing the information along in case any of the CN readers are interested. Please note that I don't know the tv show, the people behind the show or anything else related to the production. They say they want rich people so just show up to the audition in a nice town car from Dial7 or Carmel.

"Casting Notice: Seeking NYC's Rich, Powerful and Elite for a New Television Series. We're look for people who would be interested in participating in a new television series (for a major cable network.)

• Do you have businesses or ventures that you are looking to promote?
• Are you so busy you often don't have time to work through personal issues with a business partner, friend of family member?
• Do you constantly have unresolved issues on your mind?

If you answered YES to any (or all) of the above questions, this this is the show for you! Please email a recent photograph, contact information, a brief description of yourself what your "issue" is to: MillionaireCasting@gmail.com."

Bob Pisani was first to spot the flyers early this morning. Leave a note if you know anything else about this television series.

David Carr writes in today's NYT that "We need an iTunes for news" and I'm finding myself thinking very hard about what actually might help the struggling newspaper biz (bad news from Fitch ratings came out the other day, and it looks like the Seattle P-I is on the brink). 

Is it just "variable pricing" which Carr argues has allowed the music business to stick around, though perhaps not to thrive?  What the music business still hasn't really learned, is how to combat piracy by adding value in the distribution part of the business.  Apple figured the out- the device and the store are, for many many people, a top notch experience (I know there are people who prefer eMusic or other services) but the emphasis Apple placed on delivering value rather than delivering "content" is what gave Apple's iPod such dominance.

So can newspapers just turn around and create an iTunes-like store, charging for the convenience of reading the paper on an enormous iPod touch or the Kindle?  I think the issue is not exclusively supply-side.  That is, newspapers don't have to deal with precisely the same intransigence as the music business with respect to digital- they already (largely) give the product away for free online. When the NYTimes pulled the plug on TimesSelect, it looked like they were screwed.

I posted these thoughts to the nextNY list in December:

People need to get okay with not-free news.   The reporting of news organizations is indispensable, and high in value.  While the music business has the advantage of live performance and merchandise revenue- which do not suffer from the free copying problem- news has no such cash cow. 

We'll need news to recover from this serious free-rider problem.  A tip jar?  Maybe tying to distribution on a device, or just making the pricing more flexible, or making it just a whole lot cheaper and also easier to pay would be a step in the right direction.  I'm not convinced- just getting people back to paying for distribution seems weak.  They will somehow need to be non-free even if not subscription only, either.

One of Fred Wilson's recent posts mentions Time Oreilly's three rules:

I believe that in a similar way, newspapers  "create more value than [they] extract" but this has created a mis-pricing problem: users believe they were paying for distribution, distribution became "free" via the web,  but the value created only grew; we have not figured out how to recapture that. Wish I knew the answer to that one.

David Carr writes in today's NYT that "We need an iTunes for news" and I'm finding myself thinking very hard about what actually might help the struggling newspaper biz (bad news from Fitch ratings came out the other day, and it looks like the Seattle P-I is on the brink). 

Is it just "variable pricing" which Carr argues has allowed the music business to stick around, though perhaps not to thrive?  What the music business still hasn't really learned, is how to combat piracy by adding value in the distribution part of the business.  Apple figured the out- the device and the store are, for many many people, a top notch experience (I know there are people who prefer eMusic or other services) but the emphasis Apple placed on delivering value rather than delivering "content" is what gave Apple's iPod such dominance.

So can newspapers just turn around and create an iTunes-like store, charging for the convenience of reading the paper on an enormous iPod touch or the Kindle?  I think the issue is not exclusively supply-side.  That is, newspapers don't have to deal with precisely the same intransigence as the music business with respect to digital- they already (largely) give the product away for free online. When the NYTimes pulled the plug on TimesSelect, it looked like they were screwed.

I posted these thoughts to the nextNY list in December:

People need to get okay with not-free news.   The reporting of news organizations is indispensable, and high in value.  While the music business has the advantage of live performance and merchandise revenue- which do not suffer from the free copying problem- news has no such cash cow. 

We'll need news to recover from this serious free-rider problem.  A tip jar?  Maybe tying to distribution on a device, or just making the pricing more flexible, or making it just a whole lot cheaper and also easier to pay would be a step in the right direction.  I'm not convinced- just getting people back to paying for distribution seems weak.  They will somehow need to be non-free even if not subscription only, either.

One of Fred Wilson's recent posts mentions Time Oreilly's three rules:

I believe that in a similar way, newspapers  "create more value than [they] extract" but this has created a mis-pricing problem: users believe they were paying for distribution, distribution became "free" via the web,  but the value created only grew; we have not figured out how to recapture that. Wish I knew the answer to that one.

NY-based YipIt launched in September 2008 and provides what the company calls a, "deep local search". Basically the service provides vertical search for a local market. Currently the service is available only for Manhattan and only for the furniture and lighting categories.

Apparently the YipIt team went to every (yes, every) furniture and lighting store in Manhattan and created records for each one of them. From there they created the categories you see on the site allowing you to search for very specific products. The interesting thing is that they have very little content on each page. If they went to every store, why not take a photo(s), post a review of the store and staff, etc. There's a link to Yelp on each page but why not allow users to post reviews right on YipIt and pull in reviews from other sources as well? If they want to make these merchant pages the best possible page, they need a lot more content than just one paragraph and a static map. Even simple things like public transit options near the store would be a good start.

The team spent a lot of time gathering all of the location data and created a blog called Furnication which highlights the tips they learned about furniture during their content gathering process.

Some NY-based ideas for partnerships for YipIt:

• Outside.In - tie into their local search and provide content syndication
• StreetEasy - tie into results for people looking for apartments or homes - this way people can see what local merchants are in the area
• UpNext - great, interactive mapping service for Manhattan

Peter at Web2NewYork has an interview with the founder James Moran. James discusses the YipIt concept and what's coming next for the search engine.

I’ve been engaged lately in several projects for attorneys and law firms, with the objective of expanding their business clientele through an online presence. Consider it “LinkedIn and Beyond for Lawyers.” An online presence — in social networks, blogs, webinars — has become more acceptable, even expected, for attorneys in the last few years.

• LinkedIn, the largest networking site for professionals across industries, has over 750,000 lawyers and legal services providers with profiles.
• The American Bar Association site lists over 5,000 ‘blawgs by lawyers.
• Specialized communities are sprouting. LegalOnRamp is an online network exclusively for corporate general counsel to interact with each other and law firms; featuring more-than-cursory articles, a wiki to freely publish documents, survey results and industry data; and an active Ask the Expert section.

Where’s the benefit? The most common question for those starting to focus online is: “What do I get out of it? I created a LinkedIn profile but haven’t gotten any inquiries.” Of course, your results vary with effort. Consider a few common objectives:

• You want to maintain contact with affiliates and other lawyers that will refer business to you. In this case, a profile for each professional, inserting the bios from your web site, is a good start on LinkedIn. Once these are published, you can request connections to your colleagues already on LinkedIn. Xing is a comparable social network emphasizing Europe and Asia and Plaxo is another recommended service with 40m subscribers, in which you receive updates about colleagues’ change of contact information. You can also publish quick thoughts or new to all your colleagues on these sites, which will complement regular emails and holiday cards. This assumes you have a solid electronic contact database. For this, Microsoft Outlook is a good start, with Microsoft Business Contact Manager or Avidian’s Prophet to enable contact sharing in a midsize firm, or Salesforce for a larger, multi-office practice (see this LinkedIn Question & Answer Chat about the best contact manager for a small to mid-sized firm). Creating your LinkedIn presence can take less than an hour in this minimal approach, with cleaning up your contact database being the major task. However, the result is that people who know and appreciate you will find you more easily, not that new prospects will seek your counsel.
• You want prospective clients that are evaluating your practice to find a solid web presence. Here, you’ll want to polish your professionals’ LinkedIn profiles to include a bio written in an approachable first person. Change the standard “Ms. Doe is a patent lawyer representing firms of all sizes…” to include specialties (”I have worked extensively with both manufacturing and non-manufacturing technology entities, such as universities and the NIH“) and benefits (”I… help clients execute on strategies to leverage the value of their IP“). Then, add at least 20 links/connections to clients and colleagues; a photo and a vanity LinkedIn URL with your name, and have several clients publish short testimonials for your work (which you can propose in draft form and have them revise). This may take a few hours but puts you into the realm of credible online presence, beyond your web site.
• You want prospects you’ve met to keep you in mind. For this case, minimally consider a quarterly e-newsletter with updates on law in their industry, and your publicly-known cases. One effective approach is to orient your content by industry of your client, rather than by legal domain — which few lawyers seem to do. A pharmaceutical client, a telecommunications company and an e-commerce startup use different language to refer to their intellectual property needs — one speaks of protecting an new product pipeline, another defending its technology and the third seeing a competitor copy their online brand. For them, it’s insufficient to state on LinkedIn that “I serve all industries” and leave it at that, or to write about patent /trademark activity across multiple industries. Free or for-fee webinars, or local lunches work well, as does joint presentations with complimentary service providers, such as a local private equity fund or networking association.
• You want to solicit new business interest through your online presence. This is where substantial time is needed, because so many lawyers are attempting the same thing. Only a few per domain of expertise can break through the clutter, so you’ll want to strive for the frequency and depth of content that only one or two other firms can match when you search Google. You can accomplish this by writing white papers that help clients, or being the most frequent and insightful blog on a particular topic such as food and drug law, as well as a public speaker. Also, consider creative and even bold offers, such as Clock Tower Law’s offer of a free trademark registration for a startup. And combine online initiatives with local business development, such soliciting speaking engagements. One of my clients and I are working with a cost-effective outsourced service to find and monitor industry events for speaking opportunities, and having an executive assistant at the law firm propose the practice leader as a speaker.

Finally, be aware of how others are writing about you on the web. ZoomInfo compiles career biographies of anyone who has had a professional profile published on the web. Two lawyers I tracked shared first and last names (their middle name differed), but very different track records and some information had been confused between them by the automated system. You can fix this by claiming ownership about your data and correcting it. A site such as Vault.com lets prospective employees write about their experience with your firm. One firm I was tracking had a strong presence on Google, ranking 5th when I searched for “NY intellectual property law firm.”  Yet on Vault, the first comment to appear was from a paralegal job candidate who wrote “If you [even] speak English, they will hire you,”  and another candidate said “the place is in shambles.” Not an attractive situation!

In sum, it takes little effort to get online and stay in touch with those who appreciate your reputation. Actually building your reputation online takes more time, but there are intermediate steps that allow you and your firm to match your business development goals with time availability.

For more thoughts, see the powerpoint I’ve posted below about how law firms can grow their revenues with Web 2.0 technologies. This is an update of a presentation I made a little while ago to the New York County Lawyers Association.

I’ve been engaged lately in several projects for attorneys and law firms, with the objective of expanding their business clientele through an online presence. Consider it “LinkedIn and Beyond for Lawyers.” An online presence — in social networks, blogs, webinars — has become more acceptable, even expected, for attorneys in the last few years.

• LinkedIn, the largest networking site for professionals across industries, has over 750,000 lawyers and legal services providers with profiles.
• The American Bar Association site lists over 5,000 ‘blawgs by lawyers.
• Specialized communities are sprouting. LegalOnRamp is an online network exclusively for corporate general counsel to interact with each other and law firms; featuring more-than-cursory articles, a wiki to freely publish documents, survey results and industry data; and an active Ask the Expert section.

Where’s the benefit? The most common question for those starting to focus online is: “What do I get out of it? I created a LinkedIn profile but haven’t gotten any inquiries.” Of course, your results vary with effort. Consider a few common objectives:

• You want to maintain contact with affiliates and other lawyers that will refer business to you. In this case, a profile for each professional, inserting the bios from your web site, is a good start on LinkedIn. Once these are published, you can request connections to your colleagues already on LinkedIn. Xing is a comparable social network emphasizing Europe and Asia and Plaxo is another recommended service with 40m subscribers, in which you receive updates about colleagues’ change of contact information. You can also publish quick thoughts or new to all your colleagues on these sites, which will complement regular emails and holiday cards. This assumes you have a solid electronic contact database. For this, Microsoft Outlook is a good start, with Microsoft Business Contact Manager or Avidian’s Prophet to enable contact sharing in a midsize firm, or Salesforce for a larger, multi-office practice (see this LinkedIn Question & Answer Chat about the best contact manager for a small to mid-sized firm). Creating your LinkedIn presence can take less than an hour in this minimal approach, with cleaning up your contact database being the major task. However, the result is that people who know and appreciate you will find you more easily, not that new prospects will seek your counsel.
• You want prospective clients that are evaluating your practice to find a solid web presence. Here, you’ll want to polish your professionals’ LinkedIn profiles to include a bio written in an approachable first person. Change the standard “Ms. Doe is a patent lawyer representing firms of all sizes…” to include specialties (”I have worked extensively with both manufacturing and non-manufacturing technology entities, such as universities and the NIH“) and benefits (”I… help clients execute on strategies to leverage the value of their IP“). Then, add at least 20 links/connections to clients and colleagues; a photo and a vanity LinkedIn URL with your name, and have several clients publish short testimonials for your work (which you can propose in draft form and have them revise). This may take a few hours but puts you into the realm of credible online presence, beyond your web site.
• You want prospects you’ve met to keep you in mind. For this case, minimally consider a quarterly e-newsletter with updates on law in their industry, and your publicly-known cases. One effective approach is to orient your content by industry of your client, rather than by legal domain — which few lawyers seem to do. A pharmaceutical client, a telecommunications company and an e-commerce startup use different language to refer to their intellectual property needs — one speaks of protecting an new product pipeline, another defending its technology and the third seeing a competitor copy their online brand. For them, it’s insufficient to state on LinkedIn that “I serve all industries” and leave it at that, or to write about patent /trademark activity across multiple industries. Free or for-fee webinars, or local lunches work well, as does joint presentations with complimentary service providers, such as a local private equity fund or networking association.
• You want to solicit new business interest through your online presence. This is where substantial time is needed, because so many lawyers are attempting the same thing. Only a few per domain of expertise can break through the clutter, so you’ll want to strive for the frequency and depth of content that only one or two other firms can match when you search Google. You can accomplish this by writing white papers that help clients, or being the most frequent and insightful blog on a particular topic such as food and drug law, as well as a public speaker. Also, consider creative and even bold offers, such as Clock Tower Law’s offer of a free trademark registration for a startup. And combine online initiatives with local business development, such soliciting speaking engagements. One of my clients and I are working with a cost-effective outsourced service to find and monitor industry events for speaking opportunities, and having an executive assistant at the law firm propose the practice leader as a speaker.

Finally, be aware of how others are writing about you on the web. ZoomInfo compiles career biographies of anyone who has had a professional profile published on the web. Two lawyers I tracked shared first and last names (their middle name differed), but very different track records and some information had been confused between them by the automated system. You can fix this by claiming ownership about your data and correcting it. A site such as Vault.com lets prospective employees write about their experience with your firm. One firm I was tracking had a strong presence on Google, ranking 5th when I searched for “NY intellectual property law firm.”  Yet on Vault, the first comment to appear was from a paralegal job candidate who wrote “If you [even] speak English, they will hire you,”  and another candidate said “the place is in shambles.” Not an attractive situation!

In sum, it takes little effort to get online and stay in touch with those who appreciate your reputation. Actually building your reputation online takes more time, but there are intermediate steps that allow you and your firm to match your business development goals with time availability.

For more thoughts, see the powerpoint I’ve posted below about how law firms can grow their revenues with Web 2.0 technologies. This is an update of a presentation I made a little while ago to the New York County Lawyers Association.

I’ve been engaged lately in several projects for attorneys and law firms, with the objective of expanding their business clientele through an online presence. Consider it “LinkedIn and Beyond for Lawyers.” An online presence — in social networks, blogs, webinars — has become more acceptable, even expected, for attorneys in the last few years.

• LinkedIn, the largest networking site for professionals across industries, has over 750,000 lawyers and legal services providers with profiles.
• The American Bar Association site lists over 5,000 ‘blawgs by lawyers.
• Specialized communities are sprouting. LegalOnRamp is an online network exclusively for corporate general counsel to interact with each other and law firms; featuring more-than-cursory articles, a wiki to freely publish documents, survey results and industry data; and an active Ask the Expert section.

Where’s the benefit? The most common question for those starting to focus online is: “What do I get out of it? I created a LinkedIn profile but haven’t gotten any inquiries.” Of course, your results vary with effort. Consider a few common objectives:

• You want to maintain contact with affiliates and other lawyers that will refer business to you. In this case, a profile for each professional, inserting the bios from your web site, is a good start on LinkedIn. Once these are published, you can request connections to your colleagues already on LinkedIn. Xing is a comparable social network emphasizing Europe and Asia and Plaxo is another recommended service with 40m subscribers, in which you receive updates about colleagues’ change of contact information. You can also publish quick thoughts or new to all your colleagues on these sites, which will complement regular emails and holiday cards. This assumes you have a solid electronic contact database. For this, Microsoft Outlook is a good start, with Microsoft Business Contact Manager or Avidian’s Prophet to enable contact sharing in a midsize firm, or Salesforce for a larger, multi-office practice (see this LinkedIn Question & Answer Chat about the best contact manager for a small to mid-sized firm). Creating your LinkedIn presence can take less than an hour in this minimal approach, with cleaning up your contact database being the major task. However, the result is that people who know and appreciate you will find you more easily, not that new prospects will seek your counsel.
• You want prospective clients that are evaluating your practice to find a solid web presence. Here, you’ll want to polish your professionals’ LinkedIn profiles to include a bio written in an approachable first person. Change the standard “Ms. Doe is a patent lawyer representing firms of all sizes…” to include specialties (”I have worked extensively with both manufacturing and non-manufacturing technology entities, such as universities and the NIH“) and benefits (”I… help clients execute on strategies to leverage the value of their IP“). Then, add at least 20 links/connections to clients and colleagues; a photo and a vanity LinkedIn URL with your name, and have several clients publish short testimonials for your work (which you can propose in draft form and have them revise). This may take a few hours but puts you into the realm of credible online presence, beyond your web site.
• You want prospects you’ve met to keep you in mind. For this case, minimally consider a quarterly e-newsletter with updates on law in their industry, and your publicly-known cases. One effective approach is to orient your content by industry of your client, rather than by legal domain — which few lawyers seem to do. A pharmaceutical client, a telecommunications company and an e-commerce startup use different language to refer to their intellectual property needs — one speaks of protecting an new product pipeline, another defending its technology and the third seeing a competitor copy their online brand. For them, it’s insufficient to state on LinkedIn that “I serve all industries” and leave it at that, or to write about patent /trademark activity across multiple industries. Free or for-fee webinars, or local lunches work well, as does joint presentations with complimentary service providers, such as a local private equity fund or networking association.
• You want to solicit new business interest through your online presence. This is where substantial time is needed, because so many lawyers are attempting the same thing. Only a few per domain of expertise can break through the clutter, so you’ll want to strive for the frequency and depth of content that only one or two other firms can match when you search Google. You can accomplish this by writing white papers that help clients, or being the most frequent and insightful blog on a particular topic such as food and drug law, as well as a public speaker. Also, consider creative and even bold offers, such as Clock Tower Law’s offer of a free trademark registration for a startup. And combine online initiatives with local business development, such soliciting speaking engagements. One of my clients and I are working with a cost-effective outsourced service to find and monitor industry events for speaking opportunities, and having an executive assistant at the law firm propose the practice leader as a speaker.

Finally, be aware of how others are writing about you on the web. ZoomInfo compiles career biographies of anyone who has had a professional profile published on the web. Two lawyers I tracked shared first and last names (their middle name differed), but very different track records and some information had been confused between them by the automated system. You can fix this by claiming ownership about your data and correcting it. A site such as Vault.com lets prospective employees write about their experience with your firm. One firm I was tracking had a strong presence on Google, ranking 5th when I searched for “NY intellectual property law firm.”  Yet on Vault, the first comment to appear was from a paralegal job candidate who wrote “If you [even] speak English, they will hire you,”  and another candidate said “the place is in shambles.” Not an attractive situation!

In sum, it takes little effort to get online and stay in touch with those who appreciate your reputation. Actually building your reputation online takes more time, but there are intermediate steps that allow you and your firm to match your business development goals with time availability.

For more thoughts, see the powerpoint I’ve posted below about how law firms can grow their revenues with Web 2.0 technologies. This is an update of a presentation I made a little while ago to the New York County Lawyers Association.