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Is Infochimps' Aggregated Data a Boon to Researchers or a Privacy Nightmare?

Jordan Golson — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:22:22 +0000

A pair of slices from a massive scrape of Twitter’s API could be of great use to programmers and researchers alike — as long as users don’t mind. The company behind the mining effort, Infochimps, is trying to demonstrate and promote its data aggregation service while offering up some useful information to interested parties.

At the end of last year, Infochimps posted a heftier version of its scrape of Twitter, which was taken down at the behest of the micro-messaging site over user privacy concerns. By releasing curated, anonymized chunks of data, the company may avoid most of the user privacy concerns that arose last time around. Then again, it may not.

One of the sets, a “token count,” adds up the number of particular tokens (individual hashtags, smileys and URLs) that have been tweeted since March 2006. The other links the ID strings between Twitter’s Search API and the standard Twitter API. The two APIs issue different ID numbers to users, which makes it annoying, if not impossible, for developers to link data across both services to one user.

Infochimps says it hopes “to send a signal that this data is valuable and useful to real-time search engines, Twitter apps, and social media researchers.” It also hopes to “start a conversation about where value really lies in this type of data, [and] the various ownership and privacy issues that arise.” Given the complaints from Twitter the first time data was posted, it’s a smart move on the part of Infochimps to add this disclosure and thoroughly anonymize the data. The company very much wants to avoid any sort of ill will or backlash from the Twitterati over the release of the data sets. Back in 2006, AOL Research released 20 million search keywords attached to user IDs for researchers to use. A number of individuals were identified as a result of the “anonymized” data, leading to a number of concerns over what sorts of data are kosher to be released.

Ownership and privacy aside, Infochimps is offering the “tokens” data set broken out by month for free, and $9,500 for a version broken out by hour. The “ID/API mapping” data set is being offered for $6,000.

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House Committee: ISPs Must Block Scam Sites

Jordan Golson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 21:16:29 +0000

[qi:066] Internet service providers may become legally responsible for scam web sites and spam that passes over their lines if a new piece of legislation, the Investor Protection Act, gets turned into law. The act, which passed through the House Financial Services Committee today, requires ISPs to filter fraudulent sites and emails that falsely claim to be from certain brokerage firms affiliated with the Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) if the ISP is “aware of facts or circumstances from which it is apparent that the material contains a misrepresentation.” If the communications are not blocked, ISPs could be liable for damages.

The SIPC helps investors when funds go missing from their accounts — a sort of brokerage version of the FDIC which insures standard checking and savings accounts — and has been in the news most recently regarding efforts to recover funds lost in the Bernie Madoff scandal. Investors who have opened accounts with members of the SIPC are eligible for protection.

One particular problem regarding brokerage accounts is “look-alike” web sites and emails that seem at first glance to be from a legitimate bank, but are actually phishing emails that attempt to trick users into giving up their data. In fact, last month FBI Director Robert Mueller almost fell victim to such a scam, showing that anyone can be tricked. These scams are nothing new either: The SIPC has a press release from 2004 on its web site detailing a request it made to the FBI and SEC to investigate one particular look-alike site for further action.

Of course, ISPs don’t need to be forced to block fraudulent sites — many do it already, to the best of their ability. That’s just good business practice. We noted last month that Comcast was launching a new program called “Constant Guard” to combat botnets, which are a huge threat to networks of all kinds. A few months ago I had the opportunity to speak to Ed Amoroso, AT&T’s chief security officer, who called botnets “as lethal a problem as I’ve ever seen.” Botnets may be nothing new, but there is also much to be done, and there is going to continue to be pressure on ISPs to take more filtering responsibility.

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So Why Did Apple Buy a Mapping Company?

Jordan Golson — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 05:57:34 +0000

[qi:gigaom_icon_geolocation] Apple purchased digital mapmaker Placebase in July for an undisclosed sum, according to Seth Weintraub at Computerworld. Placebase, which we wrote about last year, is a Google Maps competitor that focuses on adding layers of public and private data to existing maps with an easy-to-use API. One use for the product, called PolicyMap, layers various types of data — like home sales, crime or employment — over maps to help visualize data geographically. It’s big business, and the company was profitable without VC funding. So, why did Apple buy Placebase?

There are many reasons. For starters, it’s increasingly obvious that maps and geo-location are becoming crucial components of any modern operating system. Nokia was the first one to realize this and snapped up companies such as gate5 and Navteq.

Secondly, the acquisition allows Apple to decrease its reliance on former BFF Google. Apple could use Placebase’s technology to replace the Google Maps functionality in the iPhone and iPod touch (and the new tablet, perhaps?) with its an in-house mapping solution. The ongoing legal fight between Apple, Google and the FCC over rejected apps on the iPhone App Store is well-known, as is Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s departure from Apple’s board in August.

Weintraub claims the Placebase purchase closed in July, which is a curious timeline. Did Schmidt know of Apple’s plans to purchase the company, or was this an instance of him “sitting out” of a board meeting, because it was a place where Apple and Google were possibly competing?

Apple and Google are competing on more and more fronts, and Apple may be looking to cut as many ties with Google as possible in a seemingly belated attempt at keeping the fox out of the henhouse. The highest profile tie at the moment? The Google search box currently sits at the top of every Safari user’s browser window — a search box that likely sends a decently substantial amount of referral funds from Google to Apple. Given Microsoft’s need to expand its search share, it wouldn’t be inconceivable that Apple replaces Google with Bing. As long there is enough “cashback” for Apple!

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3 Qualities That Add Up to a Successful Product

Jordan Golson — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:40:43 +0000

Alcatel-Lucent CEO Ben Verwaayen gave a keynote speech this morning at the EmTech conference, running today and tomorrow at MIT. He spoke of tech innovations and — perhaps most importantly — the need to turn them into sustainable, profitable businesses. During the question-and-answer session, which always manages to be more interesting than the actual talk, Verwaayen shared his three requirements for a product to be successful:

Speed – From idea to execution, you must move quickly. “If it takes too long to get your product to market, it doesn’t matter if it is great.”
Relevance to customers – “You say: It’s great!’ But why is it great? ‘Because it’s great!’” That’s not enough. “The customer will ask, ‘What can I do with it?’” He noted that a product might seem great to its inventor, but if it doesn’t create value for the customer, it’s useless. Verwaayen quoted Apple’s Steve Jobs saying, “The most expensive phrase in Silicon Valley is ‘It will work, because it’s really, really cool.’”
Business model – Every product must have a viable business model. Lots of customers have a mindset of “great product! Thank you, but I’ll take it for free.” He asks, “Why is everything free on the web, but people are willing to pay for a ringtone?” It doesn’t make any sense. We’ve missed that boat as an industry, totally.”

Another questioner asked what was the “most surprising and unanticipated consumer demand” in telecom. Verwaayen said that the industry “missed everything.” “We missed email. We missed SMS. Some people have made a lot of money with ringtones…[Telecom companies] think technology; we don’t think end users.”

Afterwards, I asked him where he looks to see what the next trends in telecom are — to try to discover them before it’s too late. His answer? Whatever 15-year-olds are using.

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Adobe Agrees to Buy Omniture for $1.8B in Cash

Jordan Golson — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:23:14 +0000

Adobe said today it’s agreed to buy analytics and metrics firm Omniture for $1.8 billion in cash, or $21.50 a share. Customers want to integrate Adobe’s online products like Flash with services like those offered by Omniture, Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said during the conference call announcing the deal. With the purchase, Adobe diversifies its product offerings and takes advantage of the fast-growing SaaS market, on which Omniture focuses.

What the web is saying:
Media Memo: Adobe is offering $21.50 in cash for each Omniture share. That’s a 25 percent premium over today’s closing price of $17.32–which includes a large run-up in the last few hours of the day, before trading was halted around 3:45 pm EDT. Good bet the folks at the Securities and Exchange Commission will take a look at that leap.
Daily Finance: Today’s blockbuster acquisition by Adobe of Web analytics and optimization provider Omniture for $1.8 billion in cold hard cash may not fully answer the question, but it is a very positive sign — not just for tech, but for the broader mergers and acquisitions market, as well as the economy as a whole.
Charles Nicholls: That the Omniture leadership sold up at this point, after such rapid growth, indicates that they’ve been out of fresh ideas. The stock price of course is about one half of what is was two years ago, although it has had a good run in the last few months, in common with many other stocks. But you don’t sell up if you’re hell bent on revolution.
BloggingStocks: The deal for Omniture is not about cost synergies. Instead, it’s a way to expand the revenue base, which will get lots of help from Adobe’s distribution footprint. Of course, customers are looking for ways to monetize web assets — and Omniture has the kinds of tools that allow for this. Omniture will also give Adobe a strong cloud-computing platform as well as a recurring revenue model. True, the margins will be lower because of infrastructure costs. But over time, these should fall.

Narayen said it was “clear customers would like [Adobe] to do a lot more.” Media companies want to understand which rich video content is performing the best, for example, while advertisers and ad agencies that use Flash to produce online ads want to know the click-through rate of those ads in real time. Currently, Omniture integrates with Flash, but with the companies under the same umbrella, Adobe hopes to sell more of Omniture’s products to its existing customer base. One analyst noted during the Q&A that “all Omniture customers are probably Adobe customers, but not the other way around,” leaving a large customer base to which Adobe can push its wares.

Adobe has $2.6 billion in cash and short-term investments; company execs said it’s financing the deal through cash on hand and its existing credit facility.

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Why Buying Mint Makes Sense For Intuit

Jordan Golson — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:32:54 +0000

Intuit said today it’s spending $170 million to acquire Mint.com, a site that helps people manage their personal finances through budgeting and spending trackers, among other features. Mint has around a million users and has amassed a treasure trove of data on their historical spending and financial habits — data which is worth a fortune in the right hands, and which Mint has thus far stored but ignored.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based startup raised $32 million in three rounds, including a $14 million Series C last month. Mint, which also took home the $50,000 grand prize at the first TechCrunch40 event in 2007, has been gaining users at a prodigious clip, clocking 1.2 million monthly uniques as of August, more than double that of the 482,000 in August 2008, according to Compete.com. Mint allows users to set up links to their personal banking, credit card, investment and mortgage accounts to assist with budgeting and spending, and to gain a picture of their overall financial health — all through a pleasant-looking, easy-to-use site (and iPhone app, natch).

As a result, Mint has a massive cache of data on its users’ spending habits that it would have no trouble selling to third parties. Indeed, a report from earlier this year suggested the company was looking into the possibility, much to the dismay of some commentators who were concerned about privacy. Of course, companies like MasterCard have been aggregating and releasing such data for years.

Mint generates revenue mainly by recommending beneficial financial services to its users, like savings accounts or credit cards with better interest rates, then getting paid by financial service providers for successful sign-ups. Even with the economic implosion, banks are still aggressively looking to acquire new customers — especially those fiscally responsible enough to use an online personal finance site. Since Mint is private, we don’t have details as to its finances or profitability, but given the impressive rate of growth and the sector it’s in, it appears to be in an excellent position to bring in a lot of cash — especially with the deep and trustworthy pockets of Intuit behind them.

Intuit was one of the early movers in online software — I can remember doing my taxes online with TurboTax 10 years ago. On the business side, Intuit has been pushing a developer platform and an online database product called QuickBase. Last year, the company launched an online version of its venerable Quicken consumer-level personal finance software as a direct competitor to Mint.com. Quicken Online doesn’t have the feature set to match its offline sibling, but is more focused on basic financial behavior like budgeting and tracking spending — places where Mint.com is strongest, and has many more users. It’s unclear if Intuit will keep Quicken Online as is, or — more likely, I think — use Mint as its free, entry-level consumer offering and turn Quicken Online into feature-rich port of the more in-depth Quicken desktop application, and price it accordingly.

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Why an iTunes TV Subscription Service Makes Sense

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:00:00 +0000

Is Apple building a monthly television subscription service, like Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster claims? Maybe! Munster also thinks the Mac maker is going to launch a television that wirelessly syncs with your other Apple devices, and predicts an Apple set-top box with TV input and DVR capabilities. Both Chris Albrecht and I think most of that stuff is bunk, but I’m going to have to disagree with my colleague on this TV subscription deal. A lot of the pieces fit together too nicely to just ignore the possibility.

Television content producers have an ongoing need to find more eyeballs to showcase their wares. Sure, people are still watching television for 13 hours per week, but the amount of time spent online is skyrocketing, especially watching full TV episodes. Hulu had its best month ever in July; TV Everywhere is going to bring massive amounts of video online; Netflix is pushing streaming content hard; and Amazon.com is making its own online video play. And then there’s Apple’s current strategy of selling episodes piecemeal through iTunes.

It’s clear that content makers are open to new ideas. Hulu is doing very well and will be profitable “soon” (if you believe NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker), even with limited release windows and delays posting content. There’s clearly a strong market for online television. A Hulu subscription model has been bandied about for a while, so the concept of charging users for admission to the fun is certainly not a new one — and consumers are already used to paying for their video content through cable and satellite providers.

A subscription service from Apple consisting of a $35 or so monthly fee for access to a large and complete library of current-season television episodes via iTunes would fit well into the TV networks’ overall content strategy — Hulu has proven there is a demand for streaming full episodes, and the cable companies have long shown that consumers are willing to pay for access. In the past, Apple has succeeded in getting media partners to the negotiating table, bringing all the major movie studios onboard to rent and sell movies through iTunes. Oh yeah, and Apple has a massive pre-built market in the millions of people who own iPhones and iPod touches.

Cable and satellite providers would obviously be livid, and TV Everywhere proponents would feel like the rug was pulled from underneath them — but there’s nothing like a little healthy competition to shake things up, no? So, is Apple building — or should it build — a subscription-based television streaming service, or is it all just a bunch of wishful thinking?

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Is the iPod Touch a Bigger Game Changer Than the iPhone?

Jordan Golson — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 19:05:25 +0000

The iPod Touch might be hiding in the shadow of its big brother, the iPhone — both in volume, and revenue — but is it possible that the Touch is more disruptive than its cellular sibling? The iPod Touch has seen huge growth within Apple’s iPod category, with Touch sales growing more than 130 percent year over year, while total iPod shipments dropped 4 percent. Apple noted in its quarterly earnings call last month that while it expects total iPod purchases to continue to decline, it is cannibalizing its own sales with the Touch and iPhone. I suspect the Touch’s growth will accelerate as customers transition from simple music players to more multifunction pocket devices — and that switchover has the potential to seriously shake up the world of mobile gadgets.

The iPod Touch is a lightweight, highly portable music and video player, communications and gaming platform and, if rumors are to be believed, its next generation will include a digital camera for stills and video — and maybe even VoIP, all over its Wi-Fi connection. That’s a lot of power from a $229 device. It’s that easy access to the Internet through a Wi-Fi connection that makes the device so interesting. Almost two years ago, long before the iPhone 3G and the App Store made its debut, Apple executives were touting the iPod Touch as the first “mainstream, mobile Wi-Fi platform.” Now, with the 65,000-plus third-party applications on the App Store, the Touch platform has grown significantly since Apple first lauded it in 2008.

The iPhone, of course, is also part of this platform, which is why Apple frequently combines the sales numbers of the two products. At last count, there were 45 million devices capable of running this “Wi-Fi platform” worldwide — also known as the sum of iPod Touch and iPhone sales. By comparison, Sony has sold 58 million PSPs, and Nintendo has sold 108 million of its DS handheld gaming device since 2004 — both gadgets have Wi-Fi, but not nearly the interactivity and multi-functionality that the Touch has. It’s curious that the iPhone gets so much of the coverage, while the iPod Touch gets second shrift. The iPhone can make calls, but with free Wi-Fi networks popping up everywhere thanks to deals with ISPs — plus campus-wide Wi-Fi networks at most colleges across the U.S. — the iPod Touch is fast becoming the WiFi-enabled mobile device to beat. Even Rockstar is releasing an iPod Touch edition of its venerable Grand Theft Auto franchise.

Apple is perpetuating a “virtuous cycle,” as Gene Munster put it in a recent research note, to keep users on the iPod Touch — an improved version of the lock-in provided by the old iTunes/iPod music ecosystem. Users buy the iPod Touch; download apps; developers promote their apps (and the iPod Touch platform), which leads to more consumers buying the iPod Touch. Even better (for Apple), customers can only purchase apps through the company, leading to even more device lock-in.

iPod sales might be dropping, but Apple says half of new purchases of the device are to customers who have never owned one before. I’m willing to bet that many of those customers are interested in Apple’s new Wi-Fi platform. And then, in an even more impressive version of the iPod halo, iPod Touch owners could look to Apple when it’s time to buy their next computer. A virtuous cycle indeed.

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Book Publisher: e-Books Will Be Our Downfall

Jordan Golson — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:32:31 +0000

Sacre bleu! Amazon and Google’s digital book efforts could force publishers to slash prices and put them out of business, says Arnaud Nourry, head of French book publisher Hachette. He is concerned that unilateral pricing by e-book resellers like Sony, Amazon and Barnes & Noble could destroy publisher profits. “On the one hand, you have millions of books for free where there is no longer an author to pay and, on the other hand, there are very recent books, bestsellers at $9.99, which means that all the rest will have to be sold at between zero and $9.99,” Nourry was quoted as saying in today’s Financial Times.

This is only partially true, of course. Books have a long and very rich history that cannot be easily replaced by electronic versions. There are many bibliophiles (including myself) that have shelves full of books that won’t get tossed aside in favor of my Kindle — a gadget which, at the moment, has a malfunctioning screen. That’s a problem I don’t run into with a paperback. There’s nothing quite like going into a bookstore and browsing the shelves looking for your next great read, so the electronic revolution won’t affect books as much as it has music and movies. There’s something romantic about a physical book that just isn’t there with CDs and DVDs — perhaps because the printed book has been around for hundreds of years, and audio and video have gone through a quite a few format changes in their short existence. This also makes books unique in the content realm, in that they are quite difficult to pirate.

Regardless, Nourry has a point. He claims that retailers like Amazon are paying more than $9.99 for each e-book, thus selling them at a loss. He goes on: “That cannot last…Amazon is not in the business of losing money. So, one day, they are going to come to the publishers and say: By the way, we are cutting the price we pay. If that happens, after paying the authors, there will be nothing left for the publishers.” It’s not clear if that is true or not, but we do know that Amazon takes 70 percent of newspaper and blog subscriptions on the Kindle, with only 30 percent going to the content maker. Further, is it really a bad thing if the publisher is left out in the cold? Reading the rejection letters of hit authors makes one wonder what need there is for publishing houses at all, in the age of the Internet.

That’s what Mr. Nourry is so worried about. He is terrified that authors (and Amazon) will realize that they don’t really need his industry to get things done. Don’t worry, Arnaud. Yes, prices might go down and your cut may shrink — but perhaps you should be thankful that people will still be buying books in 10 years. That’s more than can be said for CDs and DVDs.

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Small Biz So Far Not So Crazy About the Cloud

Jordan Golson — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 04:01:08 +0000

Many companies are slashing budgets to improve the bottom line — or at least postponing purchases until later — but not all. Thirty-nine percent of small and medium businesses reported budget cuts this year, averaging a 22 percent reduction in IT funding, according to Spiceworks’ annual survey of SMB tech departments released this morning. However, 31 percent said budgets were flat year over year, and 30 percent saw their budgets increase in 2009, averaging 27 percent. Overall, IT spending was down barely 1 percent. Spiceworks polled 1,130 IT pro’s supporting companies with fewer than 500 employees. So, whether the budgets were smaller or larger, where was all the money going?

Almost 37 percent of IT budgets were spent on hardware, with 24 percent going to software.
Desktops remained slightly more popular than notebooks, but not by much. The average SMB plans to buy 13 desktops and 10 laptops in the next year, plus two servers. Companies plan to get 50 months of use — more than four years — from their hardware purchases, up from 40 months last year.
Backup and recovery (38 percent), antivirus and spam prevention (46 percent) and virtualization software (30 percent) topped the list for software companies’ purchase plans this year.
44 percent of SMBs are using virtualization, with companies reporting 21 percent of total computing capacity virtualized.
56 percent of SMBs use at least one cloud service, with web hosting (25.4 percent), email (21.2 percent) and online backup (16 percent) being the most popular.

Despite all the hype regarding hosted or cloud-based solutions, 65 percent of companies surveyed prefer on-site antivirus, and 75 percent use on-site backup. Thirty-five percent use hosted antivirus, and 25 percent subscribe to hosted backup services.

Only 4.8 percent of total SMB storage allocation is hosted off-site with services like Amazon’s S3, but going forward, companies plan to allocate 6.6 percent of their storage to hosted services.

The economy might be throwing some industries for a loop, but SMBs are still planning to buy — though they expect to get more useful life out of their purchases. However, it doesn’t seem like full-scale cloud technologies like Amazon’s S3 and EC2 have caught on as quickly outside Silicon Valley — the majority of the companies surveyed preferred to keep things in-house rather than trust an outside company. Plus, some companies simply don’t have the computational needs that tech firms have, so cloud computing is simply not as attractive.

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