Interesting companies

On Saturday night YouTube did a live event for which I have only seen basic traffic data and the event seemed to top out at approximately 700,000 concurrent viewers. I wonder if this was a marketing success for YouTube. They had several sponsors (LionsGate, Guitar Hero, Virgin America and Flip Video. As I didn't watch live I am not sure how and to what extent these advertisers were integrated. I think we will see more of this type of event programming from YouTube. But this is not what this post is about. I wanted to take some time to and talk about some companies I have been following for the past year that are doing some interesting things.

The YouTube event was a mass broadcast and as I said I think there will be more of these to come but I think the larger trend will be micro-broadcasting. People have been broadcasting what they have been doing for several years via microblogging applications like twitter, tumblr, Facebook Status, etc. and I think the following companies will bring the next evolution which will bring mobile video to the masses. Kyte, Qik, and Seesmic these applications allow you to micro-broadcast video of what you are doing live. Each of these applications allow you to not only broadcast live but they also allow you to have an IM like conversation live as you are broadcasting.  Qik is working on an iPhone app with for now will only work with jailbroken iPhones.  Here is Kevin Rose showing off the app on his iPhone:

These applications are very early on the Gartner hypecycle so there will be lots of time for evolution especially as mobile phone cameras get better and/or if one of the carriers embraces the application:

Since the title of this post is "Interesting Companies" I don't want to limit the discussion to the mobile space.  Sling and Orb (although Orb work with any media on your computer) allow you to bring your favorite TV shows with you anywhere you have access to an internet connection. Both companies are working on iPhone apps.

The last segment I have been following are social browsing companies. 

FriendFeed - Allows you to aggregate all your social application/sites into one feed. I have been using freindfeed for about a year and it definitely is an interesting application but it can get overwhelming if the people you are following overshare.

Me.dium - No longer exists but I always felt this application had a lot of promise. The app allowed your friends to have a shared browsing experience allowing for comments and IM/chatting experience. Me.dium has evolved to OneRiot a search engine with a social aspect.

Flock Browser - Is a full browser that allows for a shared experience, although I think this is probably the right model for social browsing experience Flock probably does not have enough users to make reach critical mass. 

Ultimately, I think Google has the best chance for doing something major in this area.  With google chrome browser, gmail chat, gmail video, and with the addition of search commenting/ranking google has all the elements and the large enough user base to make social browsing a mass application.

These are some of the companies I have been following that I think have huge impact on technology, social media, and/or the way we interact.

Blog writer

Just set up blog writer lite for the iPhone. On first look it seems very basic. I don't see how I would post a picture or a link. I need to see if the google app has a blogger part.

Update: In order to post pics and links you need to get the paid version (i think $4.99) and google app does not have blogger.

Snarky...

I hate when people have a computer in front of them and ask you a question they can easily look up. I had a girlfriend who would IM me questions that she could have easily googled...it really irked the shit out of me.  If this is happening to you and it bothers you now there are 2 perfectly snarky responses:

Just Fucking Google It - Tells people they are stupid and they should stop bothering

and 

Let Me Google That For You - Shows people what you did so they see how easy that was and they should stop bothering you

I love both of these sites.

Productivity gurus...

I first started hearing about productivity experts about a year ago when I came across Tim Ferriss (although Tim is an expert on a lot of stuff) and his book called The Four Hour Work Week. The basic notion is that most business people are too wired and are in a state of information overload and so if they step back, prioritize, delegate (Tim has a bunch of MBAs in India doing some of his work for him), and unplug (his example is set up an auto response on your e-mail that says "I will only be checking e-mail at 11am and 4pm if this is urgent call" and he thinks your productivity will sky rocket). 

Yesterday, I watched the video below that is a part of the Google Talks series where Merlin Mann gives a talk titled "Time and Attention (Getting Things Done)".


I really think more people and companies need to look more closely at these techniques for how people better use their time. I really think most people are great procrastinators (me included) and checking e-mail or grabbing the crackberry are great ways to avoid what you need to focus on.  Merlin also makes a great point about the defaults within calendar applications for length of meetings.  When I was at Verizon every meeting was defaulted to 1hr regardless of weather it was a 5-10 min conversation and so it let people who had little to do waste a lot of other peoples time.  I know there are also a lot of agency people who could really benefit from some of these time saving/focusing techniques.