Product Review | Kinkast Mobile Video Sharing
June 7, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
Disclosure: I’m an advisor to KinKast.
It seems of late that mobile video is going (or has gone) mainstream. Distribution of smart phones, higher quality video cameras embedded in those phones and the social phenomena of sharing appears to have hit an inflection point or has reached critical mass. In the wake of this, a plethora of video sharing apps have hit the scene: Viddy, Vlix, Socialcam and KinKast.
Most of the recent video apps seem to be imitating the success that Instagram has had with still pictures – allowing people to share their videos broadly with others (friends and strangers alike).
I’m Tired of One Night Stands
February 21, 2011 by admin · 6 Comments
At the risk of mixing metaphors, Luke Hohmann recently described Groupon, Living Social and other daily deal sites as enticing businesses into one night stands. At first I laughed but as I thought about my direct experiences with a plethora of group buying sites, I think he may be right. There is no doubt that these daily deal sites can deliver a deluge of coupon-grubbing customers to a small, local business’s door step. But at what cost? Negative margin, stretching service delivery to breaking point, alienation of regular loyal customers, attracting customers who don’t spend more than the deal amount and won’t ever come back are some of the well documented potential pitfalls. (And hopefully not STD’s!)
I often describe Groupon, Living Social and other daily deal sites as providing small businesses a large, fishing drift net to cast broadly into the ocean; the result is you will no doubt collect a lot of sea life, but only some of which will be the targeted species you are actually fishing for. Luke’s metaphor is certainly more colorful and may, in fact, be truer than mine.
Fanminder | 5 Questions for Paul Rosenfeld & Tracy Grover
February 10, 2011 by admin · 2 Comments
I met Paul Rosenfeld last year when he came to pitch Savvy Cellar Wine Bar & Wine Shop before it opened in Mountain View, CA on the merits of his new mobile marketing service called Fanminder. Always being one to extend and try new things and wanting to dip our toe into the mobile world, I said yes (plus Paul is very passionate and convincing). He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Fanminder. He spent about 15 years working for two of the best companies catering to small businesses — American Express and Intuit. At American Express Paul helped lead its first gift card program for merchants and worked in the Small Business Services division. At Intuit, he was General Manager QuickBooks Merchant Account Service; QuickBooks Online Edition; and led development of the FinanceWorks online banking suite.
Tracy Grover is Co-Founder and COO of Fanminder. Most recently, Tracy was Vice President of Product Management for AccountNow. Previously she served as Director of Marketing for LoopNet, which automates online marketing tools for small real estate businesses to help them compete with the big guys. Before that Tracy built, launched, and marketed online banking solutions for small businesses (for Bank of America & Silicon Valley Bank), a secure mobile application used by doctors & public officials (Certicom) and the first mass market online credit card, NextCard.
I recently sat down with Paul and Tracy and fired off 5 questions for them . . . .
1) What was the genesis of Fanminder?
Paul: Tracy and I started Fanminder literally in the teeth of the recession, in October 2008. We had very good paying jobs – I was the Chief Marketing Officer and Tracy was the VP Product Management for a local start-up. We saw how all the larger, Fortune-sized retailers were rushing into mobile and social marketing but when we “walked down main street” we didn’t see any local businesses doing anything.
Going Mobile | The Emergence of Mobile Cloud Services
“Out in the woods
Or in the city
It’s all the same to me
When I’m drivin’ free, the world’s my home
When I’m mobile.” The Who
The Cloud
Cloud computing or “The Cloud” is Internet-based computing, whereby shared servers provide resources, software, and data to computers and other devices on demand, as with the electricity grid. Cloud computing is a natural evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization, service-oriented architecture and utility computing (and certainly a phrase that many believe have hit the “Peak of Inflated Expectations” in Gartner’s Hype Cycle).
KinKast | 5 Questions for Raul Mujica
January 6, 2011 by admin · 2 Comments
Raul Mujica is CEO of KinKast, a recently launched startup looking to “take social engagement to the next level by making it effortless, impulsive and visceral”. Raul is a former colleague of mine at Netscape and AOL. He has been building products and brands at leading companies and start-ups for more than 17 years, including Untangle, Elance, AOL, Netscape, and Hewlett Packard. Raul holds a B.S. in Finance from Georgetown University and an MBA from New York University (but I don’t hold either of those things against him). He lives in Los Altos, CA and is an avid skier, digital photographer and coach of his sons’ sports teams.
1. What is KinKast?
KinKast is the fastest and easiest way to privately share video. On the iPhone you can record a moment and share it with two taps. There’s no waiting or size limits. (Or, upload video from any camera to the website.) Your friends will receive an email with links to a private website and they won’t have to create an account. Our goal is to make video sharing easy, fast and safer.