December 22nd, 2008

Google and the "stupid name startup" rollercoaster

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 1:32 am

Categories: Careers, Cloud computing, Google, Microsoft, Microsoft Student Technology Day 2008, Money, Research, University, Web 2.0, Workplaces

Tags: Google Inc., Web, Name, Googol, Channel Management, Web Site Development, Entrepreneurship, Internet, Web Technology, Marketing

Google has no doubt revolutionised how we use the Internet. We don’t bother typing anything into the address bar anymore, and many of us don’t use their favourites/bookmarks as much as they should do. Nowadays, we load up our browser and search for everything we need. Because Google UK is my homepage, I find myself just typing “news“, hitting the Tab key twice and it gets me straight to where I want to be - the BBC News website.

For a start, Google should be seen as “the mother of all start-ups”, considering it started as a research project. It’s now worth roughly $25 billion, which isn’t bad for two pre-middle aged men. But think simply, why is it called Google? There is a reason to it, and it’s not a particularly stupid name if you think about it.

A googol is a number 1 followed by one-hundred zero’s, 10¹⁰⁰, or ten duotrigintillion. It looks a little bit like this, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it was a rough estimate to how much Eric and Sergey earn in a year:

It’s called “Google” as a spin-off from the “googol”; presumably but never confirmed, because they hoped to index the entire Internet, which could well reach this number one day. It’s become so popular, the word “google” has become a verb in the Oxford English Dictionary.

In hindsight, “Google” is a clever, well thought of name. “Twitter”, “Bebo” and even “Yahoo!”, however, are stupid, stupid names. The only difference between these stupid names and the stupid names of other companies, is that these have actually gone somewhere.

After attending the Student Technology Day, the talk on web startup’s really got me thinking; any student could use their entrepreneurial skills and start something. Use the web to your advantage and start something amazing. But then again, most web startup’s fail within 18 months of starting up. It’s not fair and it’s not nice, but it’s most certainly true.

This article really kicked me into writing this post because of the sheer audacity that these companies have, as if it’s some strange arrogance they have, that they can call themselves a stupid name and think they can get somewhere with it. I’m not the only one either. There are about a dozen noticeable names out there on the blogosphere who feel the same, as well as our sister website, TechRepublic, and can feel the detriment they’re having on other startup’s; dare I say it, the entire web.

With names such as Thoof, Yoono and Zlio; it’s utter madness. I don’t even know how to pronounce the last one, and I know how to pronounce my friend’s name Djijiliji. A good example is Thoof. It started with the best of intentions, but funny how it collapsed into a massive electronic heap only a few months afterwards. I blame the name.

I’ll give you another example. The picture to the right of this, I simply don’t know what it says. Is that an “n” or a complicated “i”? Is it two of the letter “i”, in which case it’s not even slightly grammatically correct? It’s far too confusing, and confusing means people will lose interest very quickly, and probably not even look at the damn thing.

The fact of the matter is, if a startup has a name which can’t be pronounced, understood, spelt or has to be explained every time you say it, it won’t catch on. Names which are sound onomatopoeic like “boing” and “doink” may work, but more often than not, it won’t be understood. Words which have been made up out of thin air, often won’t stick in someone’s mind. Also, try not to pick a name which might mean something like “monkey penis” in another language. Windows Vista had that problem (if someone can find a link, ping me).

There are always exceptions to the rule; Twitter, Bebo, Google and Digg, but these have been round for a long while and won’t be going anywhere soon… well, Twitter might be, if it can finally work out how to make money out of their pointless website.

November 21st, 2008

Student Technology Day: session videos now online

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 8:25 am

Categories: Careers, Microsoft, Microsoft Student Technology Day 2008, Multimedia, Skills development, University, e-Learning

Tags: Multi-touch, Steve Ballmer, Video, Microsoft Corp., Corporate Communications, Marketing, Zack Whittaker

Last month I attended the Microsoft Student Technology Day 2008 (full coverage here) in London, with Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, Andy McLoughlin, CEO of Huddle.net and many others. It was really quite an eye-opening day to some of the work at Microsoft, and from the many emails I got after the event from session-goers, they thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a lot.

Mark Johnston, who was there on the day, emailed me to let me know the videos of the sessions are now online. For those who couldn’t attend, all of the sessions including Live Search, Microsoft Surface, developing on multi-touch devices, and Steve Ballmer’s keynote speech, head over to the site now.

October 6th, 2008

Student Technology Day: Steve Ballmer Q&A

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 2:12 pm

Categories: Cloud computing, Events, Industry connections, Microsoft, Microsoft Student Technology Day 2008, Mobile computing, Open source, Security, Skills development, Social networking, Software development, University, Web development, Windows 7, Windows Live, Workplaces, e-Learning

Tags: India, Pyramid, Laughter, Network, Microsoft Office, Steve Ballmer, Product, Microsoft Corp., Programmer, Question

There was quite a lot to transcribe out, and many questions asked. Some questions put to Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, include:

• Will we always need programmers?
• What’s Microsoft’s input in Facebook and social networking?
• Does Microsoft have any changes in mind for their lack of “coolness” image in comparison to Google and Apple?
• What keeps you awake at night?
• What’s Microsoft’s view on open-source?
• Can you see Microsoft introducing multi-touch and Surface to a wider audience?

Because there was quite a lot of text to this, use the arrows at the bottom of this post to go through them, otherwise my editor wouldn’t be happy and would kick my arse across the continent.

For the answer to the question that I asked on behalf of Mary-Jo, in regards to the future of Office Live, ahead of the PDC 2008 conference next week, head over to my previous post. Not only that, he discloses some brief information about “Windows in the cloud”, which may or may not have any connection to Windows Live, Live Mesh and the future of Office Live. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Programmers, developing countries and social networking –>

October 4th, 2008

Student Technology Day: Microsoft CEO's keynote speech

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 2:41 pm

Categories: Discussion, Events, Industry connections, Microsoft, Microsoft Student Technology Day 2008, Skills development, University, Workplaces

Tags: Steve Ballmer, Microsoft Corp., Zack Whittaker

As promised, I’ve uploaded the keynote speech that Steve Ballmer gave on Wednesday to a bunch of students at the Microsoft Student Technology Day. Although the recording isn’t studio quality, it’s still audible enough to hear it - even though there was coughing, the occasional sneeze, and some jackass in the audience with Tourette’s (ahem…)

Nevertheless, from being there, it was a very energetic, passionate speech by Ballmer; the love of what he does really shows, and his flamboyant style of presenting will be something which will keep me smiling for quite some time to come.

October 3rd, 2008

Student Technology Day: event photo's

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 7:20 am

Categories: Careers, Events, Hardware, Industry connections, Microsoft, Microsoft Student Technology Day 2008, Multimedia, Research, Skills development, Software development, Virtualisation, Windows 7, Windows Live, e-Learning

Tags: Photograph, Zack Whittaker

I spent most of the day taking snaps; concealed from within my lap a camera without the flash function. I say that, because we weren’t technically allowed to take photos and was told off by someone half way through. Nevertheless, there are some interesting photos here; some of which show how easy it will be to develop on the Surface platform.

More posts soon - it’s all being bit hectic today.

October 1st, 2008

Student Technology Day: Microsoft Surface demos

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 5:41 pm

Categories: Events, Hardware, Microsoft, Microsoft Student Technology Day 2008, Multimedia, Research, University fun, Windows 7

Tags: Microsoft Surface, Microsoft Corp., Corporate Communications, Marketing, Zack Whittaker

I’ll write more about Microsoft Surface tomorrow, including a client-side computer/operating system part to the Surface table; where you have an ordinary computer to control and develop on it. Not only that, I’ll bring you information on the SDK, the Surface desktop simulator, as well as some pictures of how simple coding the Surface table in C# is.

For the time being, here are a few videos of what Surface does, can do and “feels like” to use. Be warned, the image quality is crap and the sound is even worse. I was using a digital camera and the guy presenting has a very strong accent, so it’s difficult to understand. If you want to mute, feel free - I could barely understand what the poor guy was saying and I was sat near the front.

YouTube may not be available for a time, as it’s going through routine maintenance from 1st October 2008, 6pm PDT. If the videos below don’t work, just wait a few hours and see how it goes.

Microsoft Surface and your images
As with any computer, Surface gives you the means and the ability to show off your pictures, holiday snaps and night’s out on its table. With the multi-touch features, you can manipulate them and expand, shrink, rotate and send to other devices in the vacinity.

Microsoft Surface, your music and your playlists
demonstrates how it Again, as with pictures, you can play music through your Surface and create playlists of certain genres of music. This video demonstrates how it does it and how easy it can be, by dragging and dropping music with your fingers.

Microsoft Surface and the DJ application
Because Surface is a flat-top hardware device, the application seen in this demo shows the ability to remix, alter and DJ music from a variety of different sources, as well as customising songs in many different ways.

Microsoft Surface and what it sees
The technology behind Surface can bemuse some, but in this short video, you get to see what Surface sees and how it reacts to when something is placed on it’s sensors.

October 1st, 2008

Student Technology Day: "Windows Cloud" revealed

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 11:47 am

Categories: Breaking news, Microsoft, Microsoft Student Technology Day 2008, Mobile computing, Virtualisation, Web 2.0, Windows 7, Windows Live, e-Learning

Tags: Microsoft Office Live, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows, Collaboration, Office Suites, Software, Operating Systems, Zack Whittaker

Steve Ballmer was next door in the Queen Elizabeth Hall talking to the TechNet/TechEd people about Office Live, and mentioning that there would be a major announcement at the PDC on the 27th October. Once he finished there, he popped next door and told us a similar thing.

From talking to a few TechNet people afterwards during tea and biscuits (awfully British), they’re letting loose into the wild “Windows Cloud”, a temporary name for a service which will most likely have a more interesting name by the time it’s launched. Ballmer said:

“Just like Windows Server looked a lot like Windows, but with new properties, new characteristics and new features, so will Windows Cloud; it’ll look a lot like Windows Server.”

Whilst he made it clear when he spoke to us later on that Google was their main rival, they don’t always see other companies as major rivals. They know that Facebook has a much bigger user base than Windows Live Spaces, and work together with them by swapping and buying stocks and shares. Not every company is seen as a threat, he made clear.

With this, Office Live will probably be evolved into a more beautiful, streamlined surface. I asked him in the Q&A session about the future of Office Live and what’ll come next.

“Office Live has a few things left it needs to do. Number one, and probably most important, is to make sure that people using Office have greater ability to collaborate with one another. We have some of that today with [Office Live] Workspaces, as well as that we’ve got SharePoint; we can do more and some of those things will be better than the other alternatives.

Number two, is when we do Office Live, it has to be true to Office; you’ll need to be able to have full Office documents and programs and share them.

Number three, we have to make it so that - most people use Office most of the time from a single machine. But if you’re away from your desk, at a cafe, a kiosk or your school library, and you don’t have Office, you’ll want to be able to do something quickly; we have to make sure you can get it easily, stream it down, put it in a browser, something like that there… details coming in a few weeks.

So we have a number of things we’re doing. Exactly what we’ll announce I’m going to wait and let you guys sit it out until October 27th.”

So, a streamed, web-browser’d version of Office; sounds like a plan. I must say, Ballmer may be all rich, powerful, famous and all mighty, but it doesn’t show. He is genuinely a gentle, kind and caring bloke; who cares passionately not just about developers, but “students students students!”

October 1st, 2008

Student Technology Day: how to start a start-up

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 5:45 am

Categories: Careers, Events, Industry connections, Microsoft, Microsoft Student Technology Day 2008, Open source, Software development, Web 2.0, Web development, Workplaces

Tags: Inspiration, Family, Huddle.net, Collaboration, Groupware, Open Source, Enterprise Software, Software, Zack Whittaker

Andy McLoughlin spoke a little while ago about how he started up his own web start-up, Huddle.net, from a simple idea in a pub to a fully working business and enterprise collaboration suite. It’s a large network of hosted workspaces; yet another project management and team collaboration service based on Enterprise 2.0. Sure, it’s good for him, but for me it’s just another day at the office with the same old crap.

Nevertheless, some of the things he spoke about were invaluable to students, especially those who want to go about with their own start-ups and ideas. He explained how Microsoft helped him and his new company out, not only with marketing but also with advice about starting up business.

Huddle.net started and continues to run on a mixture of different services; some open-source and some Microsoft services and products. By mixing the two, they get the better side of the fence because open-source is free and the Microsoft products were discounted.

There are two obvious sides to starting up shop with a new online service, especially in this day and age.

“You have the seriously bad stuff; long hours, crap wages, a really poor diet of pretty much nothing more than pizza and beer for a year and a half. You’ll soon succumb to cabin fever and hating everyone you’re working with. But the worst thing is the fact you’ve got a constant lingering of uncertainty and doubt hanging over you.

On the flip side though, you’ve got the constant excitement of what you’re doing and what you can accomplish. You end up working with people you love, care for and respect, and at the end of the day you get an incredible feeling of self satisfaction. You have a constant support network you can fall back onto, you can wear whatever you want to work, and quite simply - it’s just cool, okay? All the chicks dig this sort of thing; you can’t go wrong.”

One of the most valuable things he spoke about was 20 must-knows in starting up your own business, stemming from an original idea. I’ve highlighted some of the main, and better points:

• Take advantage of every connection possible. Regardless of how tenuous they may be, you’ll know a lot of people and they’ll all be able to help on one level or another.
• Be ruthless when doing deals; even at the very beginning. If you let people walk all over you, you’ll set a precedent from that point on and people will start taking advantage from a very early start.
• Design, build, then test and carry on with that cycle. Once a feature works, carry on with the development cycle and don’t stop or deviate until you’re ready to present the world with a product at very least beta stage.
• Be completely and utterly uncompromising in your vision. People may end up hating you because you won’t deviate from your goal but it’ll all be worth it in the end.
• Go big or go home. If you can’t convince even yourself that your product isn’t good enough, then you won’t be able to convince others.
• The way to a rich man’s wallet is through his PA. If you can, get out a copy from the library, of “The Beermat Entrepreneur“.
• Software is expensive, but it doesn’t have to be. With DreamSpark and the MSDN Academic Alliance programs which are often supported by your university or college, this makes getting hold of expensive software easier - and for free. Don’t forget, a lot is open-source as well - and by definition, open-source is free.
• Focus all your energy on getting the product great. Marketing, press and public relations can wait as they come later on. Once you’ve got a brilliant product, that’s when you can start showing it off to the world.
• Get out there! Meet up’s and events, conferences and parties are a great way to meet influential people, often those with huge amounts of cash. By meeting these people will help you get more innovative ideas and also make connections.
• Successful companies don’t have to work in Silicon Valley, although it does help. Huddle.net are based in London and are more than happy with that; nevertheless, going out there to Silicon Valley and meeting more people is an important part of keeping relationships going with different people and other companies.
• Funding gives you a little bit of breathing space. Once you get funding through from investors, that’s the time to get the staff just right. Sure, it’ll mean firing people but it also means getting to hire the best of the best.
• You can’t do all of this by yourself! Seriously, if you did then you’ll end up going potty. What do you think CEO’s, CTO’s and CIO’s are for? Spread the load, spread the work.
• Being acquired by someone isn’t a business model. If you tell your investors your main goal is to be acquired, they’ll lose faith. Just avoid doing it.
• You’ll always have more ideas than the capacity to make them happen. Sure, having inspiration and understanding is important, but you’ll have a ton of things you’ll want to include and integrate, but you can’t always make them happen straight away. Give yourself time and a plan for future releases.
• Make the company feel like a family. Why do you think Google and Facebook are doing so well? Having a “family” as a workplace makes happier employees, therefore better employees. Invite friends, family, siblings and spouses along to events - get them part of the family too.
• Keep an eye on the web, because that’s where a lot of your inspiration will come from. Mashable, Technorati, Twitter and Techmeme are great sources for information and more importantly, inspiration.
• Never lose sight of what you’re doing. If you do, you won’t survive.

He concluded on saying, that if it was that easy, then everybody would be doing it. It’s not easy, but you’ll learn from your mistakes and hopefully those mistakes won’t drive you into the ground. If you’re determined enough, and your “family” of employees see the same way, then you’ll go far in the business world.

October 1st, 2008

Student Technology Day: what it's all about

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 4:54 am

Categories: Careers, Events, Industry connections, Microsoft, Microsoft Student Technology Day 2008, University, Web development, e-Learning

Tags: Student, Microsoft Live Search, Microsoft Corp., Public Relations, Productivity, Entrepreneurship, Virtualization, Game Players, Marketing, Corporate Communications

It’s not often I can say this but already, I’m surrounded in  a room of 300 odd fashion unconscious, sweaty, unattractive idiots. Nevertheless, it’s quite fun listening to some of the banter going around and about the place; some people work as interns at Microsoft, some at IBM and a couple from Google are here. But regardless of who we are and what we do, we’re all UK students from north to south, coast to coast.

Although, what I didn’t expect was the number of female attendees, as many know that computer science is predominantly a male oriented world. It just shows that irrespective of gender, computer scientists and others in technology can come in all shapes and sizes (and some of them are surprisingly hot).

The entrance hall is bustling with people, and the security is surprisingly tight for the Ballmer presence later on in the day. I get some satisfaction out of the thoughts that he’s bumbling around London, trying to work out which way the Tube goes and learning what a “Cockney” sounds like.

There are booths all over the place from Intel to Microsoft Virtualisation, as well as the other usual suspects like Vista booths and people talking about student-related stuff like the Xbox, of course.

10:43
In the auditorium of the event/conference, and only just realised there’s a TechNet event next door as well. The chances of Ballmer being over just to talk to us lay-students is slim to none, so we’ve been overshadowed completely. Bastard.

One important thing that they mentioned during the preamble stuff, is that our generation of students are currently waiting to apply for jobs which haven’t been created yet, using technologies which haven’t even been thought of. Hopefully during the course of the day, I’ll get a better understanding of where Microsoft is heading with their technologies and how they can branch out in the future.

10:51
DreamSpark mentioned, although didn’t mention the lack of thrill around it from the students perspective. At the moment, it’s a guy on stage promising to give students opportunities and possibilities; a bunch of PR guys and girls are here trying to recruit developers to Microsoft, using the Imagine Cup as a perfect example.

Long and team “SOAK” were mentioned too - big up!

Innovation seems to be one of the big words for the day, along with words such as “entrepreneurship” and “start-ups”. From what I’ve heard, it’s about getting the ideas into action and making these things happen. These will no doubt be explained throughout the day, and there’s a really good talk with the guy who set up Huddle.net. If we’re lucky, we might even be able to get a hands-on play with Microsoft Surface at some point too.

11:21
The guy speaking about Live Search was so mind-numbingly boring, I walked out. There was nothing relating to students in that; if anything it was a shameless marketing plug on Microsoft’s behalf to show what Live Search can do, even though Google does it so much better.

September 30th, 2008

Student Technology Day: your questions to the presenters

Posted by Zack Whittaker @ 6:25 am

Categories: Discussion, Events, Industry connections, Microsoft, Microsoft Student Technology Day 2008, University, e-Learning

Tags: Speaker, Microsoft Corp., Question, Keyboards, Internet, Games, Hardware, Peripherals, Personal Technology, Zack Whittaker

I received an email this morning about the opportunity to participate in sending questions to the speakers at the Microsoft Student Technology Day tomorrow (that’s Wednesday, for those who have yet to understand the Gregorian calendar). Whilst I’m not allowed to publish the number to text in your questions for the speakers, feel free to leave your questions in the Talkback’s so I can ask them myself on your behalf.

With a wide range of speakers tomorrow, ranging from business startups, program managers, researchers and the Microsoft CEO himself, Steve Ballmer, now could be your best opportunity to ask the questions you’ve been yearning the answers for.

Joe Wilson
Senior Director of Academic Initiatives, Microsoft Corp.
Illustrating how students can and do change the world; discussing the role corporates can play in empowering them; and highlight why this is the best and most exciting time to be in the technology industry.

Andy McLoughlin
Co-founder - Huddle
Discussing the highs and lows of the first two years in business and the lessons he’s learnt taking Huddle.net from an initial idea.

Jay Girotto
Principal Group Program Manager, Windows Live Search - Microsoft Corporation
Speaking about the research and engineering that goes into indexing and searching the vast amount of information that is available on the Internet.

Thore Graepel, Joaquin Quiñonero Candela and Ralf Herbrich
Researchers - Microsoft Research Limited, Cambridge
Combining cutting-edge research in computational intelligence and machine learning with their passion for computer games and the Internet; and explaining the magic behind the Artificial Intelligence of Forza Motorsport and the machine learning algorithm Trueskill that matches players in Halo 3 and other Xbox LIVE games.

Steve Ballmer
Chief Executive Officer - Microsoft Corporation
Addressing the UK’s leading computing students to discuss the challenges of the software industry and how an organisation like Microsoft focuses on innovation to embrace disruption.

Paolo Barone
Academic Technologist - Microsoft Limited
Discussing moving away from mouse and keyboard interactions to touch based interactions and the impact this will have on Computer Science, and how developers will build new innovative applications.

Again, if you have a question you’d want me to ask on your behalf to any of those mentioned above, leave a question in the Talkback’s and I’ll try and get the answers to as many as I can. No guarantee’s though; Microsoft aren’t the best at keeping promises from past experience.