Jim Panttaja

I use Adium on my Mac – and have my Yahoo and AOL accounts on it. I also use iChat – thought not as much. Because I have an older PowerBook – I don’t have a built in camera. iChat wins when I want to use the camera – but it means unpacking it (and finding it first)… Most of the time, I use Adium.

The key features I look for are the basics. The ability to maintain multiple conversations simultaneously (and asynchronously). Also the ability – offered in Adium – to have ‘group chat’. We found these very effective at Sapias when we were doing deployments – everyone was listening in – and adding their status and questions. This is available in other tools as well.

Today I looked at Velvet Puffin. The following is from their web site:

Socially Active Instant Messenger
VelvetPuffin is a new kind of instant messenger, built on the idea that IM can be more intuitive, real-time, and socially active.

Through an Instant Messaging interface
Chat, share photos, blogs, videos & polls with friends
View your friends’ photos, blogs, videos and polls.
Receive instant alerts when friends share new content
View/share videos from YouTube, Google Video & Metacafe

Mobile Access
You can do all of the above on your mobile phone with
VelvetPuffin Mobile. (If the phone is Java based)

Velvet Puffin covered the basics (though I didn’t see the group feature). The key aspect is the ability to share pictures and videos with the people you are IMing with. There is value here from a social networking perspective – but I didn’t see any particular value added for the business setting.

Wireless matrix announced today that it is acquiring Sapias, Inc.:  Wireless Matrix Further Accelerates Expanding Mobile Resource Management Application Capabilities With Acquisition of Sapias.

I am proud of the team that we built at Sapias, and the technology and systems that Wireless Matrix is committed to utilizing as the next generation of their services.

Mary and I are in the process of figuring out what we want to create next. The process is an interesting, somewhat daunting, and definitely exciting one. We read blogs, read the newspaper, read books, talk to our selves (yes – sometimes talk to myself – but also have conversations with Mary), and talk to friends, acquaintances, business associates, and investors. Frankly – anyone who will listen – but even more important – anyone who will talk to us and with us. We also write (Mary is much better at this part than I am).

This trip to New York and Boston has included conversations with two investors in Sapias, Inc., a meeting with a former associate of ours at Netcentives who is chairman of the board of a company he founded, dinner with a former associate of ours when we were working with Powersoft, and their PowerBuilder product 10-15 years ago, and a visit to Talking Points Memo, a political blog portal (our nephew is associate editor).

All have been great conversations. Some with advice of specific companies, some with advice on questions to answer about anything we get into (see my earlier post), some have included discussions of their favorite potential investment possibility, or current project.

My own thoughts (I was going to say ours – but I can’t speak for Mary) are swirling – what is the right way to dig in to this. And the answer so far is to keep digging, thinking, probing. And Mary and I need to start filling in some of our ideas of what we might want to create.

Thinking more about the SVASE event earlier this week – it becomes clear that technology is not enough. It is always interesting (especially as someone who considers himself a technologist), but it isn’t enough.

Several of the companies presenting at Launch Silicon Valley had no customer related problem they were trying to solve. This was reinforced yesterday with a meeting we had with Chris Brody in New York yesterday. He was an investor in the company I have recently left, Sapias, Inc.

We have received much advice as we discuss what we are going to do next with our favorite investors, VCs, colleagues and advisers. But the best is focused on making sure that we know who the customer is and what problem we are trying to solve. As technologists, that isn’t always the easiest advice to follow – you want to do something that is ‘way cool’.

To be clear, sometimes you think you know who the customer is, and what problem they have that needs to be addressed – only to find that your solution is for a different customer and solves a different need. But you need to make sure that these filters are applied early and often: Is there a customer? Does he have a problem that you can address?

Chris Brody, offered us his set of ‘five questions’. Without explanation of the numeric inflation involved, there were seven questions on the list of five questions when he handed them to us. The first two were the two listed above.

His list will be tacked to my wall – and the rest of the questions may be fodder for future blogs.

Yesterday I attended Launch Silicon Valley sponsored by SVASE (Silicon Valley Association of Entrepeneurs). It was a sort of beauty contest, with about 30 companies making brief presentations (plus a three interesting keynotes – each very different – but each with some interesting insights). It was a particularly eclectic set of companies in very different fields. They were also different stages, some with cool ideas and technology but no apparent business model, or a business model, but no idea of how to market it. But to be clear, there were were several that are fully formed, and several with good technology concepts that need just a little more thought to get them positioned in the right space. Here are notes on a few of the companies that caught my eye.

Datamash Corporation allows you to share data in spreadsheets (with more sources and targets in the works). For a spreadsheet – this means that I can have a spreadsheet – which rolls up data from other people. As they update their spreadsheets, the data is reflected in my spreadsheet the next time I open it. For a sales manager, this is quite powerful. This creates an interesting database management system, and I can picture a number of issues that need to be explored – but it is a powerful concept.

Jaxtr is one of several services that connect callers – reducing their telephone costs (some use a local phone number), and connecting you without your caller knowing your phone number. Others include Jajah, Jangl, and, from Panttaja Consulting alumni Mahesh Lalwani, CCube. Different capabilities (depending on the company) include the ability to block specific calls, send some to voice mail, and limit what time calls are allowed.

ShapeWriter is a text input product that is based on gestures over a diagram of keys. You draw on the diagram going from letter to letter. You are able to learn the gesture for a given word – and if you are closes enough, the system figures out what word you had in mind. In seems especially timely with the announcement from Microsoft of Surface, and also seems like it would be useful with cell phones (especially iPhone).

TelID was a particularly simple, but compelling idea. It provides an alternative to local search based on a phone number. They are initially working with Yellow Pages companies – to include ads that indicate that there is a TelID link available. You then enter the phone number as part of the URL: www.telid.com/4155551212, and you get a web page about the company (or individual – allowing an insurance agent to have their own page – easily accessible on the web). This takes an existing, well known identifier – the phone number, as the search tool. Clever idea, and clever to link it to Yellow Pages as a first attempt to get critical mass.

Mary has also blogged on this event at mary.panttaja.com.