Faith Merino of Vator.tv alleges.

Google has just purchased Groupon for $2.5 billion, according to an unnamed insider who spoke with VatorNews. Neither Google nor Groupon could be reached for comment to confirm the report, but Vator’s source is reliable and the report falls in line with the recent string of Groupon acquisition rumors

I checked the 2 big sites that claim to do fact-based reporting – Mashable.com and TechCrunch.com.

Mashable.com originally posted the rumor as if it were true, then quickly updated the post saying

Update: Google has gotten back to us, saying, “Unfortunately, we don’t comment on rumor or speculation.”

Techcrunch.com has nothing on this as of 11:35 AM Pacific time.

Deal A Day on Local Businesses And Services - At Groupon.com

We’ll see how this all shakes out. If indeed the story is true and the deal goes through, then depending on whose revenue estimates you go with – 30 million a month according to techcrunch or 50 million a month according to All Things D – I think it will take Google atleast between 3 to 5 years to break even on the deal assuming a linear growth and also assuming that something else doesn’t come in and disrupt this seemingly simple deal-a-day idea.

Here is a Techcrunch.com interview of Groupon CEO Andrew Mason – On Google, Clones, And Other Things That Don’t Worry Him.

Deal A Day on Local Businesses And Services - At Groupon.com

So as far as the consumers are concerned, groupon is a smashing hit. But is that the case for the other side too? Are the small business owners who are offering their deals on groupon.com at very steep discounts (50% to 90% off as groupon.com proudly advertises) really getting what they desire? Are they making money or losing money on the deal? Are they able to capture new customers or are they losing the existing customer base because of the rush on the deal day?

Recently, Rice University associate professor Utpal Dholakia published a report titled “How Effective Are Groupon Promotions for Businesses?” in which he documented his findings of a study based on interviews with 150 businesses in 19 American cities and 13 product categories that ran Groupon promotions between June 2009 and August 2010. The results are somewhat alarming and quoted in a related NYTimes blog post (below).

As a small business owner or a service provider, can you really make groupon work to your advantage too? NYTimes reporter Jay Goltz thinks you can, and breaks it down with some real numbers in a practical example in his article titled “Doing the Math on a Groupon Deal“. He shows you how you can either lose money and get nothing, or make some money and gain a few new customers, depending on how you structure your groupon deal.

Check it out and do the math yourself for the small business or service you have, before embarking on a deal. The numbers you come up with may either surprise you, or shock you!


Best marketing ever? Worst marketing ever? It all depends on a few little numbers. Here is the big difference between traditional advertising and Groupon: Traditional advertising requires spending some money and knowing that it can be lost if the ad doesn’t work. With Groupon, you spend no money up front but you mess with your formula for making money. You can win big and you can lose big.

From boss.blogs.nytimes.com (share this quote)

Late last week, California based Mind Technologies announced on it’s website that it is gearing up to offer thought controlled applications to work with mobile applications on popular platforms such as Google’s DROID and many others.  The company states that in addition to their in-house team of software developers, applications will be produced by outside developers as well. These thought controlled applications will then be submitted through the company’s app store for review and sold to the public on a revenue share basis, much like what Apple does for their iPhone.

A Student Wears Electrodes To Control His Avatar In Second Life (Photo: Reuters / smh.com.au)

Mind Technologies – formerly called Jedi Mind Inc until Lucas Films sued -  makes thought (or mind) controlled devices for various uses. The company already makes a gaming application called Master Mind, which rates the electrical impulses produced by the brain (and transmitted to the program via the wireless Emotiv headset) to let the player control the actions of his characters in the game on the screen with his mind using his thoughts. This is faster than the traditional way of controlling the game usings a keyboard or mouse or game consoles because in that scenario, the time it takes for the brain to transmit the reaction to the hands is much slower than directly transmitting the actions from the brain to the game using the mind control application. In addition to the Master Mind application, they also make Mind Mouse – a thought-controlled software application that allows the user to navigate the computer, click and double click to open programs, compose email and send with the power of their mind.

This announcement of entry into the mobile device market is yet another sign that the world is fast moving to the post-PC era.  Not much more information is available right now regarding the thought controlled android apps, but this announcement is very interesting to say the least, so stay tuned to mycodetrip.com and we will keep you updated.

Meanwhile, I wonder if the days of a Manchurian Candidate style chip implanted inside our heads are not far off in the future! What do you think?

According to KSLA News 12, Sandy Barrios and his wife had gone out of town, and posted photos and status updates on Facebook about this whereabouts. Meanwhile, back home in Port St. Lucie, tech-savvy burglars had seen the photos and status updates, and decided it was time to raid their house!

Posting Status Updates on Facebook Could Lead To Home Invasions, Burglary.

The perps allegedly made away with about $30,000 worth of Jewellery and Electronic goods (think Plasma TVs, Computers, Laptops, iPads, iPhones etc…). The case is still under investigation and if you have any information on this, please contact the Port St Lucie Police Department.

Meanwhile do try and avoid all the worst Facebook posting gaffes listed on xtremehumors.blogspot.com, especially the one on vacations.

…Don’t broadcast your vacation schedule. Don’t tell everyone on the social network you’re going to be away on vacation for two weeks! You’re only saving thieves time and gas looking for empty, unguarded homes to rob.

And don’t forget to check out this story on REUTERS about how  Burglars are using Facebook, Twitter to find targets-report.

The game does not have a virtual home alarm system, but even if it did, I doubt if that would’ve been enough to deter the determined hacker. It looks like the victim’s hero cat fended off the crook because he didn’t touch the cat!

"How Do You Like Meow Now?"

Spanish site radiobiobio.cl reports that Italy’s real police are investigating the virtual crime as an “aggravated entry” into Letizia’s e-mail and facebook account. So here is yet another case of actions in the virtual world having real life consequences. Players and crooks beware!

The perp, if arrested and convicted, faces upto 5 years in a REAL prison !

Says Rodriguez on the challenges of supporting various mobile OS versions,

..today if you are working on any semi-interesting service you are also likely to want to support iPhone OS 3.x/4 out of the gate, Android 2.X, and likely also the iPad (which though it now carries the iOS 4.2 moniker actually tends to require a ground up rewrite). So what was a 1 man effort in 2005 is now a 2-3 man job at minimum!

The App Wall at WWDC (photo credit: flickr.com/shazamers)

And on the subject of salaries in such a scenario,

..you’ve got a situation where you now have to cover 3 salaries where before there was 1 to say nothing of the additional challenges around UX and QA. The math of what you can do with $200-500K starts to look weird when you factor this in.

Read the rest of his thoughts on this subject here.

Click here to view the application to trademark the word FACE (USPTO.GOV application serial number 78980756)

"FACE" Trademark Application by FACEBOOK INC

The notice of allowance date reads November 23rd, 2010 (today).  According to the USPTO, NOA, or Notice of Allowance, is a written notification from the USPTO that a specific mark has survived the opposition period following publication in the Official Gazette, and has consequently been allowed for registration. It does not mean that the mark has registered yet. Receiving a notice of allowance is another step on the way to registration.

"Hey Apple FACEtime, my suits will be coming after you!"

The application to Trademark FACE was filed nearly 5 years ago, in december of 2005 under the “Goods And/Or Services” Class. The class description reads

Telecommunication services, namely, providing online chat rooms and electronic bulletin boards for transmission of messages among computer users in the field of general interest and concerning social and entertainment subject matter, none primarily featuring or relating to motoring or to cars

I have so many questions on this trademark application, I don’t know where to start.

• Since FaceTime can be considered “social and entertainment”, will Zuckerberg sue Apple for using FACEtime as an application name?
• Does letter casing matter in Trademarks of words?
• Will Facebook Inc go after any website that has the word FACE in it’s URL? For example..
  • http://FaceCook.com
  • http://FaceChat.com
  • http://FaceMash.com
  • http://FaceSuck.com
  • http://FaceCrap.com
  • http://FaceFuck.com (caution NSFW)
  • http://Face<insert_rest_of_url_here>.

  the list goes on and on…

• On Facebook.com, will Zuckerberg censor and ban any mobile app on website that uses the word FACE anywhere in it’s app or website, citing the trademark class? Will he disable and kill the Facebook fan pages and users of such apps and websites?
• Does Facebook have another tradeMark application for the word “BOOK” lurking somewhere on the USPTO.GOV site, that we don’t know about yet? (Can someone more versed with Trademarks and Patents research this for us please!)

What do you think will happen if Facebook Inc does indeed acquire this trademark on the word “FACE” ?

Meet the Titans – How to work with the big boys @ BizTechDay San Francisco 2010

The idea was to talk to these 3 guys – representing the large corporations that is google, yahoo and Intuit – and find out how startups and up-n-coming entrepreneurs can approach them with a business idea or to get funded or even attempt to get bought out.

Here are the key takeaways w.r.t pitching your startup to the Big Boys, as told by Bosch, Upham, Meese and Chung (moderator).

Pitching Advice for Startups  – Highlights from BizTechDay 2010

The Do’s of Pitching your Startup

• Upham (yahoo): Your roadmap should jive with the company’s roadmap.
• No matter how compelling your product is, it is not going to get integrated into a company like yahoo right away. So be patient.
• Upham (yahoo): Be able to clearly explain how the idea will fit into the company’s strategy.
• Meese (google). Break down your end goal into steps. If you want to get bought by google, you must break it into many steps. Despite it’s size, Google is still a very approachable company.
• Meese (google): If roadmaps line up, google moves surprisingly fast. If roadmaps don’t match, things move slowly.
• Upham (yahoo): Know who you are pitching to. If you have a product for yatch navigation, pitch it to a yatch club or meeting, not at some other place where you consumers or target audience won’t be present.

The Don’ts of Pitching your Startup

• Don’t indulge in name dropping. Some startups come in and do name drops. For example “Oh, our founder is good friends with Jane Doe, and she really likes our idea!”
• Don’t try to put pressure. For example, startups that come in and say “We’ve already talked to Google, we really want you to look at its before we sell.”
• Meese (google): Don’t do cold calls. For example, it is a bad idea to go through your contact list and emailing everyone with an @google.com account to get in touch with someone at google.

Gautam Godhwani speaking at BizTechDay San Francisco 2010

Top 10 Tips To Inspire, Attract and Hire the Best People -  As told by Gautam Godhwani

1. Make time and be around. Hiring is just like parenting. You have to spend a lot of time finding and hiring the right people.
2. Create a better workplace. Clearly define your Mission, Roles, Compensation, Benefits, Perks and other important aspects of the workplace.
3. Write a better job description when trying to hire.  Does your job description stand out from the average job description?
4. Build a better career site. Check out the other great sites (ex. Zendesk). Does the career site reflect your company’s personality?
5. F.I.S.H for candidates. Track and cultivate people you will hire in a heartbeat. Ask friends and co-workers this one key question. “Who are the 3 people you will hire in a heartbeat?”. From that, track and cultivate your F.I.S.H list.
6. There is no silver bullet to hiring.
7. Assess, test, measure and optimize. Everything in silicon valley is data driven. Figure out how effective your recruiting process is.
8. Screen for what’s important. Three main screens. Versatility - when you bring people in, they should do a lot of different things and grow with company. Hunger - get people who can step up take ownership and execute projects. Cultural Fit - Make sure the people really really fit in with organization. Most people leave because they just don’t “fit in”.
9. Try before you buy. Bring in contractors and see how they do. Even if you can’t hire contractors, try sites like odesk. It’s sometime is a pretty good option.
10. Never Compromise. Hiring A players gets lip service in the valley. Steve job said he has to make sure that the top 100 people are A+ players. The rest takes care of itself. If your top hires are right, it just cascades down throughout the whole organization.

UPDATE: Since the orders arrived on October 20th, Ubercab has remained in service under threat of penalties including up to $5,000 fee per instance of Ubercab’s operation, and potentially 90 days in jail per each day the company remains in operation past the orders.

Way back in June of this year, I saw ubercab’s demo of their app at the 1st ever AppPitch at pariSoma innovation loft in San Francisco. Since then, they’ve made a lot of progress, including landing an Angel Funding Round for $.125 million ten days ago.

The Medallion Holders Association of San Francisco has a lengthy fear-mongering write-up on what a taxi cab medallion is, and why a “cab” operating in San Francisco without a medallion is illegal.

SF Taxi Medallions (Photo Credit: taxi-library.org )

My take on this? Everytime something new and innovative comes into an already established marketplace, the existing stakeholders – cab drivers and the Medallion Holders Association in this case – feel threatened. And rightfully so.

It is what happened to Hollywood player turned urine evangelist James Krug, when he introduced waterless urinals that made the Plumbers Association all around the country confront him aggressively because their jobs in large commercial buildings would become largely obsolete.

Eventually Krug prevailed and I hope the same will happen to ubercab.

CNET.com reports that “they actually signed the deal before the conference audience, although they did not say anything about valuation during a conference focused almost exclusively on start-ups, venture funding, and exit strategies.”

I'm Ca$hing in B*tches!

Although Armstrong is said to have promised Arrington that he would have complete editorial freedom over content posted on TechCrunch, only time will tell if this is indeed the case. Blog acquisitions are somewhat tricky in that the main force behind a blog, that attracts millions of visitors and followers, is the “voice” of the blog.

So depending on how much control Arrington actually has on his former blog, the site’s popularity may continue to increase, stall or even decrease and die a slow painful death.

It is also important to note the acquirer – AOL.In the past, we have seen quite a few of AOL acquisitions die slowly. If that happens to techcrunch.com (I hope not!) then it would be a seen as a blessing by other up and coming technology news sites and blogs.

Because until now, TechCrunch dominated this niche.

How Does MotherApp Make Money?

Kedar: MotherApp makes money through custom mobile development, consulting and also revenue share partnerships for developing and selling an application in the marketplace to end users and customers.

How much does the MotherApp service cost?

Kedar: The MotherApp service is free for developers to use and learn. To sell an application using MotherApp, the company charges a license fee for the engine. Typically that ranges around $500 of upfront fee and it also does custom mobile development consulting services, where they would charge for development projects and they do revenue shares with partners for developing an application and then jointly selling it and marketing it together.

When you say revenue sharing, that means you’ll share the revenue with the developers?

Kedar: With the content provider, with the company which is building the application with us or outsourcing it to us. We’ll create an agreement to build it and a win/win revenue share scenario where we both can benefit from the growth of an application.

At the July 21st SFNewTech event, we interviewed Kedar Shah of MotherApp.After he told us about the people who created MotherApp and his role in the company, Kedar gave us a detailed run down of what exactly the MotherApp engine was, the problem it is trying to solve, the benefits for individual web developers who want in on the mobile platforms as well as companies and corporations that are looking to quickly and easily deploy their product or service over a wide variety of mobile devices. We also learned how MotherApp’s Business Model i.e. how they make money for the Company.

What is MotherApp?

Kedar: MotherApp is a company which does cross platform development for iPhone, Android and Blackberry. They have an engine for developing these apps from a single source code. This engine has been released to the public as a free service that all developers can use.

Is the MotherApp engine something you install on a machine or is all web based?

Kedar: It’s completely cloud-based. The developer writes an application on their server that is in the syntax of MotherApp HTML. They can integrate with any type of content system on their server — a database, content management system, a web application and port it to a native app through the MotherApp HTML language.

How do app developers test their code against various mobile devices?

Kedar: App developers can use the MA debugger, which is a web based tool for running the app on your browser and testing it and verifying the functionality. Once it checks out there, you can create a binary through the MotherApp engine and then load it on your phone and test it on the phone. The debugger is a good proxy for figuring out how the app works and getting it to a good state before you start running it on the phone itself.

How much does the MotherApp service cost?

Kedar: The MotherApp service is free for developers to use and learn. To sell an application using MotherApp, the company charges a license fee for the engine. Typically that ranges around $500 of upfront fee and it also does custom mobile development consulting services, where they would charge for development projects and they do revenue shares with partners for developing an application and then jointly selling it and marketing it together.

If I’m a company that doesn’t want to deal with any of the programming, debugging, I can just outsource the whole project design?

Kedar: Absolutely, especially if you’re a company that has different users on iPhone and different ones on Android and Blackberry and you want to create applications that will run on all of those and manage them and continually update them — then MotherApp is an excellent partner for any enterprise, large or small. See our Client Services section on our website for a full list of services.

MotherApp has worked with some of the largest telecom companies in Hong Kong — finance companies as well, media content, radio stations, event companies. They’re working on different applications and different industries. It’s a very broad application of this technology.

What about source control? Do you have any facility for developers to maintain versions or is that out of the scope and they have to manage it on their own?

Kedar: Currently they manage it on their own, but there could be a strategy to develop an open source community for developers to share code that’s based on this platform. That would increase the adoption and the popularity of the platform and create a community around it.

You mentioned something today about converting blog engines or magazines. Can you tell us a little bit more about it?

Kedar: MotherApp also has a blog engine for creating native applications for Android and Blackberry. Anyone can use this service. It costs $99 per mobile platform — per Android or Blackberry. If you have an RSS feed, a WordPress blog or Twitter feed, Facebook, YouTube, you can choose up to four of these realtime feeds and then publish them in a native app all from a web based UI. You don’t need to know any programming. You can just go in and create an application.

If I have a blog and I create the app, then when I use the app the blog content will be sort of formatted for the mobile device?

Kedar: Exactly. It will formatted. It will be a native application that the user can run on their Android and Blackberry. It would have realtime updates of your blog or your Twitter feed.

Do you have developer support forums for MotherApp?

Kedar: We have a developer support forum which answers queries from developers. You can find it at http://forums.motherapp.com/

Is someone from your company actively monitoring and responding or is it completely community driven?

Kedar: It’s actually monitored by our Co-founder and President and the engineering team monitors it actively and answers questions from developers.

Thank you very much and good luck.

The interview with Kedar covered a lot of areas and answered a lot of questions that I thought web developers and app developers would have, so I have broken it up into 3 parts. In this 1st part, Kedar talks about the people that created MotherApp and his role in the company.

Kedar Shah - MotherApp Evangelist (Photo Credit: Matt Sylvey)

Tell us a little bit about the company MotherApp? Who started it? And when ? How well is the Company doing so far?

Kedar: The original founders of MotherApp - Ken Law and Leo Chan – got together in 2006. They were originally classmates in Hong Kong. One of them had been a Masters student at Stanford and worked in Google – then left before the IPO and he actually quit his PhD program to do this mobile startup with his friend.

These two friends got together. They created a small team and they built some applications in mobile in 2006, 2007, learned about the market adoption and then created this new product in 2008, which is the MotherApp engine, from which they do these mobile development projects.

The company is profitable based on this consulting business for mobile development and outsourcing. They recently entered the US market in the beginning of 2010 and created a stable, cash flow positive business in the US with custom development and partnerships.

They also have an office in Japan as well, in addition to Hong Kong and the US.

What’s your role is in MotherApp? How long have you been doing it ? How do you like it?

Kedar: My role is the evangelist and I do sales and consulting to MotherApp - bringing projects and brokering partnerships between MotherApp and clients in all different industries, like media and PR, retail — even medicine and medical applications.

I also actively evangelize at events like SF New Tech and spread the word about MotherApp.

What is your business model? How does your Startup, Mobile App or Service MAKE MONEY ?

So during my interview series of appbackr,  I didn’t let Jagat go without asking him the same question.

Jagat presenting appbackr at the SFAppPitch at pariSoma

What is AppBackr’s business model? How does appbackr make money?

Jagat: We make money — currently it’s a transaction model. First of all, we take a cut from the buyer’s side when they are purchasing the bulk amount. Let’s assume a 99 cent application. What the developer is getting is 25 cents of that. We take initially 10 cents out of every cent. When the actual application sells on the iTunes market, the buyer gets 53 cents back, we give the developer an additional 11 cents – that’s 39 cents out of the 69 cents or so that he will receive after Apple takes it away. We take — depending on conceptual or finished app, we take 2 to 5 cents.

Then of course, the one thing I did want to add — because we have a criteria to actually put the application on the marketplace — we want to make sure it’s a serious, serious application. We actually do charge a parking fee for that application on the platform. The first month is free, but if you want to keep it on there additionally, right now it’s $25 a month. We’re working with partners — we’re willing to work with developers to figure out how better that money can be spent if they want to actually work with us.