Archive for February, 2010
NYConvergence ORIGINAL
by: Amy Berryhill
Social good was the focus of the February NY Tech Meetup, where over six hundred people assembled to hear what New York needs from the technology community. The event raised $14,000 for Partners in Health, but goal for the evening was larger. The goal was to change the world.
To that end, most of the evening's presenters spoke on behalf of companies focused on social products and services. Instead of the typical demo or pitch, these presenters shared what they do and then explained their needs to the uncharacteristically interested crowd.
As a strange aside, Clay Shirky was on hand to talk about his idea that the future value of social networks is likely not in the "friends of friends" model, but rather in the larger "friends of friends of friends" network. Based on new research that defines how health is influenced by social connections separated up to three degrees, Shirky spoke about how people that do not know each other are able to influence one another. Shirky encouraged the developers to, "shift from thinking of social networks as nodes into looking at them as flows."
Even Shirky wasn't sure what problem this would fix, but much more straightforward problems like greening the ghettos and urban transportation were up for the taking. See the full roster of speakers and the causes they represented below:
- Tony Bacigalupo, New Work City
- Ben Berkowitz, SeeClickFix
- Majora Carter, Majora Carter Group
- David Nassar & Jason Leibman, Alliance of Youth Movements
- Jacqueline Novogratz, Acumen Fund
- Jay Parkinson, The Future Well
- Clay Shirky
- Paul Steely White, Transportation Alternatives
- Rachel Sterne, GroundReport
- Jose Antonio Vargas, Huffington Post
- Conor White-Sullivan, Localocracy
Previous:> NY Tech Meetup Hosts First 2010 Gathering
NYConvergence ORIGINAL
by: Amy Berryhill
As part of the Social Media Week events taking place in New York City, a leader of Mayor Bloomberg's re-election marketing team spoke about the online advertising and social media used by the 2009 campaign.
Jonah Seiger is the Managing Partner of Connections Media LLC, the vendor that provided the interactive media program for the 2009 re-election campaign. Using a lot of assumptions, but pretty straightforward math, he figures that his company's social media efforts brought somewhere between 37,000 and 90,000 people to actually vote for the Mayor. If accurate, this is significant because the final disparity between Mayor Bloomberg and his opponent, Bill Thompson, was close to 50,000, votes according to Seiger.
"Every tactic that we deployed mattered in the outcome. I don't think social media mattered more than everything else, but it definitely mattered," said Seiger.
Overall, the 2009 Bloomberg campaign secured 1.1 billion online impressions with a cost per impression of .02 cents. The analytics show that 42% of the traffic to the website came from social media and SEO during the campaign, but it is hard to tell for sure what those people did on election day. What is for sure is that as of this writing, Mayor Bloomberg has 15,839 followers on Twitter and 25,775 fans on Facebook. Previous:> [Social Media Week]: Can Twitter, Journalism Co-Exist?
NYConvergence ORIGINAL
By: Esther Surden
Some 22 NY-area software startups were given a chance to tweak their new products based on the Microsoft Azure cloud computing platform last Thursday and Friday at BizSparkCamp, a Microsoft event held at the company’s offices in Manhattan. Five of the startups pitched to a panel of venture capitalists, angels, analysts and Microsoft employees, competing for a $5000 prize awarded to the most marketable product.
Tarrytown, NY-based startup SummitCloud won the prize awarded Friday with its product that integrates Google Analytics and enterprise database applications using the Azure cloud computing software framework. At first the company had a narrow focus: to extend these analytical services to users of its Point of Sales analytics CloudMetrix product, SummitCloud CEO David Leibowitz said. However, by working with Microsoft at the event, the company realized it would be able to reach beyond retail with its new product called Giza.
“We were able to be shoulder to shoulder with Microsoft engineers to drive quick decision making,” Leibowitz said. “We walked in with a few framework questions and it was great to get instant answers as well as insight as to our product’s marketability.”
NYC-based startup SkyLine eCommerce Systems, developed FraudFree.net, a product that prevents credit card fraud at the point of sale. “To us attending BizSparkCamp was an important piece of business. We are building an integrated credit card fraud application as a cloud service,” Douglas Luke, president and COO said. By using the cloud framework, the company was able to ease into its development, without having to expend large capital resources getting started. Luke said his company picked up both technical and marketing advice that helped it understand its future direction.
The NY-area companies heard a 30-minute presentation by David Rose of Angelsoft focused on how to raise money for their projects. An attorney presented Intellectual Property information and a marketing specialist offered branding advice.
The event’s goal was to nurture developers who wanted to work with Microsoft’s Azure framework and show them that the platform offers them a less expensive, easier way to bring large scale projects to market, Jacob Mullins, U.S. program manager, BizSpark, said. “The startups that rose to the top had business models that were not only dependent on the number of eyeballs on a page, but focused on generating revenues,” he said. Previous:> DJ Tiesto Spins at Microsoft Open House
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