Amazon's future could be acquisition...

Well, it's a gloomy Monday but don't let the weather keep you down. It just means some makeoli and Korean seafood pancakes are waiting for you somewhere. ;-)

Last week most of us witnessed Amazon's unveiling of the new Prime Delivery drones. Bezos says the service will be running in 4-5 years, despite the challenges and many skeptic reviewers it is entirely possible that will happen. The doubters claim three major issues: vandalism, safety, and theft. 

The real BIG THREE challenges have nothing to do with these challenges (which anyone with a mild imagination can figure out how to solve). Rolling out a drone delivery network takes... well, first a (1) NETWORK! Creating any kind of network, software or hardware, is not small task and requires lot's of really smart and creative folks from all levels of abstraction to get down. The next REALLY BIG challenge is the (2) OS. What will run these systems? Android? Not likely. Which leads me to the FINAL BIG challenge, the (3) battery. Even if you manage to get the right network, and the right OS... you still need a battery -- of course, if you read my email about Graphene you might not consider this to great a challenge!

Enter... the entrepreneur. 

Matternet is an awesome startup that will be either the next big platform or, at the very least, a significant acquisition down the road. Backed by Andreesen Horowitz (two guys who have a knack for early-stage investing I'd say) the company is rolling out it's network where the walled gardens have the North can happily get involved... Africa. How do you convince an unwilling populace to adopt the technology? Make it about helping people (since it is ultimately anyway!). How do you get your medicine in 30min instead of 5 days? Drones. 

The company was founded way back in 2011, and has since developed it's first drone which can carry a small package. Their ultimate goal is to deploy delivery drones which can carry up to 1000kg. 

Enjoy... and BTW if you're from Seoul watch the video for a neat surprise. 

https://mttr.net

Bio-hacking, the end of Jolt, and the future of retail

A few years ago I wrote a short essay about “Flow” and how the ideas in that book apply to a world where mobile computing enhances every moment of our lives. I never published it or anything, just showed it to a few friends. However, I did mention those ideas in my first post this year where I said that photo-sharing apps (and other “time-wasters”) are giving people a false sense of productivity and hence happiness.

My point is that mobile computing is going to make us happier, assuming Mihaly’s book is true. We can maximize the output of our day, improving our knowledge about things that interest us, and also ourselves. Apps that allow us to track (or check-in) to routines or habits -- like Lift, backed by Evan Williams -- are becoming very common and fairly popular. Even smarter tools like the products Nike has been pumping out for iOS users, or some of the new health care applications that can track all sorts of data about your body, are getting enough traction today that one can easily envision them becoming part of mainstream medicine within a few years.  

Bio-Hacking

Along with all this new technology, an avalanche of information about diet and health has been hitting the bookstores and blogs for the past decade. And it’s only getting better/worse(?). One of my favorite sites, the bulletproof executive, comes right out and says they update the site every few months at new breakthroughs occur (and are hopefully confirmed). This trend have a new name, that’s “bio-hacking” or the idea of hacking our own bodies to improve productivity at home, at work, in the bedroom, on the field, etc.

Are the days of Jolt-powered nerds at an end? It looks like it, sort-of. While there will always be the more cosmopolitan nerd who craves espresso romano, wine, and gourmet cheese -- yours truly ;-) -- the impact of a new generation of super-nerds who are hacking software AND their bodies could be something incredible. Most people will go through a super bio-hacking phase, and return to a better (though not totally ideal) lifestyle. However, the interest in itself means we’ll see more and more software integrating with our lifestyle goals, helping us overcome craving for example, or somehow infusing us with positive reinforcement when embarking on the challenging endeavor to break.. um create new habits.

How this will impact marketing

Data will become more accurate and more specific, of course. Imagine we have these really awesome applications which “speak” to machines at retail shops, and instead of promoting whatever junk-food is the craze… it knows we are on diet (it should even know what our streak is) and it recommends we purchase items that support that diet. Great right!? Furthermore, with the right technology installed at the store your software could be alert when you veer too close to say… the ice-cream, sending some kind of notification that “hey, you should get some apples” or “if you are craving something cold and sweet, why not a fruit popsicle!” You get the idea.

This could transform the image of many retailers, and could really improve the happiness of millions.

Investing In Education

Investment in education startups has boomed since early 2012, with a range of investors pumping in more than $1B into companies and funds. The number of investors in the space is staggering, even Ashton Kutcher is hip on Ed Tech with an investment in Y-Combinator graduate Clever back in 2012.

While Paul Graham’s Y-Combinator has worked with only a few Ed Tech start-ups (other than Clever), a cohort of new incubators and accelerators focusing on Ed Tech are emerging, led by  Imagine K12.

Imagine K12

Decades ago schools spent millions on technology (CD ROMs galore), but nothing really changed… just the medium. Today everything from publishing to management systems are up for grabs. Imagine K12 is looking to grow the companies of the future in the space, becoming the first incubator for Ed Tech to support entrepreneurs who all share a vision for truly impactful technology innovation for education.

Founded by a few big names in Silicon Valley who saw the next wave of school reform as Ed Tech’s new moment, Imagine K12 graduated their first cohort in 2011. Their portfolio includes hapara, NoRedInk, LearnSprout, Class Dojo, Bloomboard, and so many more. Awesome.

The “Most Active” Investors

While the list of firms and funds investing in Ed Tech is long, there are some standouts. In addition to the new incubators or accelerators focusing on Ed Tech, including Imagine K12, lot's of funds specific-to education exist in addition to older VC firms.

Some of the more active investors in Ed Tech are:

NewSchools Venture Fund

Founded way back in 1998, this fund is unique because it operates as a non-profit. The fund has invested “nearly $180 million” in “more than 100 nonprofit and for-profit organizations” and claims that through its investments reaches 12 million students in the United States. Impressive… most impressive.

Relatively recent investments in companies that I think are pretty neat are edSurge, hapara, and NoRedInk.

500 Startups

So much can be said about 500, it’s pretty much just awesome. Some recent investments in Ed Tech have been MindSnacks, Magoosh, and Motion Math. Looks like 500 is focusing on Game-based Learning and (the cash-cow of education) Test-Prep.

Learn Capital

These guys are rocking Ed Tech, boasting the most impressive portfolio of investments. No kidding, the founders of Learn Captial are seasoned Ed Tech entrepreneurs who have exited several companies to big players like HMH, Marvel.

Investments by Learn Capital are truly press worthy, check out their coverage including Edmodo, Coursera, Udemy, ClassDojo, Kalibrr, and more.

ReThink Education

New York City is in the Ed Tech game too, that’s where ReThink Education is leading the way to east-coast incubation for the next big-win. While a new fund, they have made some exciting investments including Bright Bytes, Education Elements, and Smarterer.

Sequoia Capital

Finally, the world-renowned iconic VC of Silicon Valley. Sequoia has not been too active in Ed Tech. However, they did invest in one of my absolute favorite companies: Inkling.

Inkling has been around for awhile now, having been developing interactive content for education since 2009. You could say they are the leaders in the space.

Content Is King

Content Marketing is not new, but it has changed dramatically in the past 10 years or so. Mashable released a simple yet effective illustration a while back, which I came across while looking through my old bookmarks. They described this shift as a comparison between “Content That Humans What to Share” vs. “Content That Ranks High in Search.” While there was a noticeable disconnect in 2002, by 2012 content people wanted to share and high search ranks were in near alignment.

That article was about SEO, Search Engine Optimization, and included some wise-words from SEO Moz CEO Rand Fishkin about what kind of content businesses or start-ups should create to get noticed in this “new” paradigm. The conclusion... basically, “good.”

Good Content

It’s impossible to say at a granular-level what “good content” is. We can all only speculate and abide by some fairly good guiding points: 

1. Good content must be genuine.

2. It tells a compelling story about you or your brand.

3. It is relevant to the target audience. 

4. Video and other visuals are used to convey information. 

5. Form follows function.  

Naturally, I intend to tap-away on my keyboard for the next 20 minutes or so to provide some thoughtful ideas about each of these points. But first, it’s important to consider just how important content is for business. 86% of B2C marketers use content marketing, and are spending 28% of their marketing budget on that content (37% for companies with less than 10 employees!). And that budget is enormous, reaching $100 Billion in 2012 and estimated to increase to nearly $120 Billion in 2013.

1. Good Content Must Be Genuine 

There are lot’s of ways to interpret this, so here’s what I mean. You want to genuinely want to improve your consumers experience, life, cup-of-coffee. Whatever it is you are into, you are into it because you sincerely see a way you can help improve the community. Think about it.

Ultimately, your business (user-base, etc) will grow because influential people like what you are doing. This doesn’t have to be some cohort of celebrities, but ultimately it may be. People will want to work with you, will want to support you, if they feel you are doing something they believe in. In the words of Simon Sinek, author of Start With Why, “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

2. Good Content Tells A Compelling Story About Your Brand

This is not the same as point 1, but yeah they are (they all are) related. YOU MUST HAVE A STORY... this doesn’t matter if you are selling yourself, selling your business, or selling a house. Stories sell, and for lot’s of good reasons.

Your story is what is going to convey that genuine desire, it’s the vehicle that carries your excitement, your inspiration, your love, your frustration, whatever emotions you feel are motivating you to do whatever it is you are doing... those are carried to the hearts and minds of your audience via the words, those compelling words of your story.

You can start getting the right story by having the right mission statement. Your mission statement should convey your reason for existence, your "why," in addition to some hint at "what" you do. 

It’s like the mantra of your brand. Make sure you nail it! Check this out.

FASTT Monsters Teach Kids

Scholastic released a really neat application a few months back, and my son is almost old enough to start playing with it. Okay, not really he just likes to watch me play with it. Sushi Monster is a fantastic application (particularly on iPad) for kids who need to learn fundamental mathematics.

4 Out Of 5 Stars

Sushi Monster has gotten great reviews already, but please let me add to the chorus of raving parents and teachers. Common Sense Media rated the app 4 out of 5 stars for Quality, saying it “is a fun and effective way to practice addition and multiplication.”

The monsters are well drawn, both funny and colorful (and cute?) enough for boys and girls, moms and dads alike. Imagine if Domo suddently had an app to teach fundamental math skills, and he brought a dozen friends along! That’s what Sushi Monster is like.

Aside from the well designed characters, the application really does offer value in terms of learning. The application is based on a math fluency curriculum offered by Scholastic, and the game engages learners in challenging but fun exercises to learn addition and multiplication. Sushi Monster disguises the learning perfectly well, no boring math here... again, even my 2 year old wants to play with it.

Best Apps for Kids writes: “Sushi Monster is on eof those apps that you just can’t go wrong with -- it is entertaining, educational, and free!” And Free Tech 4 Teachers says you should definitely add Sushi Monster to your list of apps for elementary math. Agreed!

FASTT Math Next Generation

Fastt Math is a math program for grades 2 through 8 which stands for Fluency and Automaticity through Systematic Teaching and Technology. Scholastic developed the program to address Operations and Algebraic Thinking, Number and Operations, The Number System, and Expressions and Equations, and has nicely unpacked how their program addresses new Common Core Standards for each of these.

The program works well as digital content due to the short duration. Rather than a demanding 30 minutes (or more!) the progam calls for just 10 minutes a day. This great for attention spans of young people, but also great for delivering content via a tablet. It’s also easy for teachers, who can implement the program is a variety of ways including in-class, as intervention, at home, etc. It’s fun and versatile.

Coming soon, Scholastic promises to release 17 more new games built on the FASTT math program. Hurray for us all if they are as engaging and creative as Sushi Monster!

"Adorably Morbid"

Dumb Ways To Die is the “most arresting hook since PSY’s Gangnam Style” wrote the Melbourne Herald Sun back in November, 2012. Within a month of release it was the “6th most shared ad of all time” according to Google Insights. The “adorably morbid” video campaign has since expanded to be a hit game for iPhone and iPad too.

The viral hit was created by Sydney-based agency McCann to help address a rise in dangerous behavior around Sydney trains.

Awesomely Entertaining

Since last year, the Dumb Ways To Die video has garnered nearly 50M YouTube views. While that is only mildly impressive compared to the 1B + views of Gangnam Style, the Dumb Ways To Die phenomenon is a public service message, not a hit song from Seoul. While PSY’s hit song was picked up by music moguls in the US and transformed into an international hit, Dumb Ways To Die seems to have spread almost entirely via word-of-mouth.

That said, awards help contribute to the viral growth of any campaign, and Dumb Ways To Die has racked its fair share. At this year’s Webby Awards the viral sensation took home more awards than any other, including four People’s Voice Awards. Dumb Ways also took home several Australian awards such as best radio ad, and is being touted as a favorite to win at the upcoming Cannes Lions Sweepstakes by none other than The Gunn Report.

Last month the Dumb Ways To Die game was released for iOS and was instantly the #1 free app in Australia. A month later the app has taken the top spot in the US App store as well (screen-shot taken today), beating out huge names like Candy Crush and Vine. No doubt there are millions of in-app views to add to the YouTube total.

Exceptionally Effective

Entertaining a tough demographic was one of McCann’s aims for the campaign. However, this was a public service initiative... so was it effective?

Brilliantly.

Reports vary, but back in February (a couple months after the campaign launched) the Sydney Metro reported that “near-miss” accidents were reduced by more than 30 percent. WHOA! Them be big numbers.... and that’s before the game released for iOS, before the most recent push for global virality. With the app taking the top spot for free apps in the US, I wonder what kind of reductions we will see in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco?

And it is only the beginning. The Sydney Metro recently signed a licensing agent to spread the Dumb Ways To Die characters across the retail-sphere. Anticipate T-shirts and cups, stationary, and more in the months ahead. With any luck, the important message of these “adorably morbid” characters will continue to promote safety around trains.

Getting Buffer

A couple of years ago a friend introduced me to what was then a relatively new service called Buffer. It instantly became one of my favorite applications, since I like to share what I’m reading online but only have a set time during the day when I get most of my reading done. For many people this is a problem because we are in multiple time zones, or because it means we are slamming the network all at once.

Buffer solves this by allowing you to share organically but schedule those tweets or posts to a predetermined schedule on whatever networks I choose. Sounds like Hoot Suite or Tweet Deck, but Buffer is much simpler and feels a lot more like the way I want to share. In other words, this utility really nailed the user experience.

Getting Buffer

Buffer has gotten way buffer since the release of their iOS application -- beefing up on lot's of nice integrations. The once little known web application with a Chrome plugin is now a platform supported by dozens of applications, as well as the big boys Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin. According to TNW, Buffer reached 500K users earlier this year and continues to grow. No doubt, since they continue to iterate with new and very useful features like “buffering” retweets for Twitter, and integrating with super products like Feedily.

Filler Features

Buffer does what you have always wished a social media utility to do:

1. Painlessly add stories or your own content to your “buffer” from awesome services like Chrome, Feedily, Twitter (retweets too!), and more.

2. Share them to your network via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn... you can choose which one as you’re adding to your buffer -- some content is appropriate for LinkedIn, others just twitter, etc.  

3. Adjust your post schedule to meet your audience’s needs and keep yourself from spamming them with an barrage of posts -- without complicated excel spreadsheets.

4. Killer analytics to better understand your audience.

Buffer Rocks

Buffer has been slowly building an incredible product. I’ve worked with dozens of people (entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs) during the past 3-4 years who focus on 1M downloads, or 10M users, perfecting (identifying?) that killer feature, etc. It’s discouraging. Sure, those are important milestones, but the focus both early-on and for the long-term must be on building a great product.

Buffer should be praised for their resilience and for remaining focused on building a great product, that people want to pay for. They nailed the user experience, building a useful product that their target audience loves.

TNW interviewed Buffer’s CEO Joel Gascoigne, you should check it out! He really nailed the pain points of professionals who want to -- or have to -- keep up with their social media but just have 15-30 minutes in the morning or evening to really focus on trends in their field.

Buffer is your elixir. If you aren’t using it yet, best start now!

The Future Of The Cloud? The Crowd.

Iran isn't the only one launching monkeys to space these days. Launch Festival 2012 winner of best startup, Space Monkey, finally launched last month on Kickstarter. Boy I’m so excited and so should you!  

What Clouds Are You On?

For most people, the cloud is an amorphous thing that exists somewhere online. In reality, the cloud services consumers use (i.e. Dropbox, iCloud, etc) are supported by massive data centers and enterprise software built and operated by Amazon, IBM, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, and a host of companies you've probably never heard of. New players are entering the Big Data fray too, such as VMWare, whose data centers are scheduled to go live next month in a few US states (more locations coming soon). 

While most people have at least heard of Dropbox, the Big Data vendors are where the real monkey is. An open source professional community called Wikibon published a list of Big Data vendors, along with their revenues which exceeded $11B in 2012. Gigaom reported that IDC  forecasts Big Data revenue will reach upwards of $70B... or $20B by 2017 -- um, yeah they’re not sure, it's “like herding cats."

Anyway, according to the Wikibon community, these companies should have a 31% compound growth rate for the period of 2012 - 2017. Holy Cow! Indeed, we are all moving to the cloud. What’s next, outer space? Sort of.

Monkeys Astronauts Are Everywhere!

Most cloud services are built on these massive Big Data vendors, and the migration to cloud based computing means these vendors are building new data centers in rural (supposed secure) locations in the rural United States and elsewhere everyday. However, two guys set out to change the way we do we use the cloud.

And boy did they pick a cool name: Space Monkey.

Space Monkey has a different vision for the cloud, and it starts with you. When you subscribe to the service you get a 2TB storage device. This device (which looks really awesome - btw) is connected to all the other Space Monkeys in the world, each sharing 1TB or 50% of the storage space available to distribute the data across the Space Monkey network.

Sounds like it would be hard to do right? Well, the device itself is apparently not that complicated... but the founders are geniuses so no kidding! The really amazing part of this company is not just the technology though, it is they are really building a distributed storage network with real users. While Dropbox and other cloud services are forking out cash to rent space at Amazon’s (et al) data centers, Space Monkey is building a crowd-based data center where each user is contributing to the total capacity and efficiency of the service.

Is It Better?

Ten Times Better. They don’t have to lease from Big Data vendors so Space Monkey can offer x10 more storage for a fraction of the price. Don’t believe me?

1TB of storage on Google Drive will run you $50 per month. Dropbox... forget about it. When you sign-up for Space Monkey, you get a 1TB for $10 per month... $120 per year. Plus you get this really rad looking device to show-off to your friends. The user experience is way better too, since you can store everything virtually without taking up precious space on your local disk. Basically you can afford to have enough storage where backing up and storing files you can access from anywhere is a totally pain-free experience.

… There Is Another

Interestingly, all the hype around Space Monkey has overshadowed a very similar product.

Symform also offers a new type of cloud that also leverages distributed data storage in a similar way to Space Monkey (or kind of like torrents actually). Symform allows you to use your local hard drive to contribute to the cloud community, and offers a really unique pricing scheme. 10GB is free, and you get 1GB for every 2GB you donate. Cool!

Endless Fun With KPCB’s Next Big Winner

My son, 27 months, read my t-shirt the other day. Sure, he has no idea what “unsweetened juice” means, but he was reading it phonetically.

As you know, Ed Tech is booming -- or ballooning in the opinion of some who believe there is a bubble. Among the famous investors joining the fray is the acclaimed Venture Capital firm Kleiner Perkins (KPCB), and they have once again backed the right horse: Callaway Digital Arts.

Endless Alphabet

For the past 6 weeks or so my son has been thoroughly enjoying Callaway Digital Arts flagship application, Endless Alphabet (or Endless ABCs). Like most parents, particularly those with bilingual children, there is a sense of urgency around getting language learning started early. Loads of development data shows us that this is critical for future achievement. So my wife and I scour the web and app stores for the latest new applications for learning literacy.

However, most of the time they fall short. Either they are too much fun and not enough learning, or they are too much learning (too difficult for that early age when we parents are anxious). Enter the Endless Alphabet.

Endless Fun AND Learning

The application has received critical acclaim from every “kids apps” review site, has been featured by Apple, and written up in Wired’s Geek Mom section. Geek Mom’s Kelly Knox said her daughter “squeals in delight when a new” word is ready in the app.... same here. And it deserves all the praise. 

Children absolutely love the application, and play with it for as long as you will let them. Replaying the hilarious and brilliantly animated definitions, and giggling through the touch-and-drag letters as they transform into ridiculous monsters that spew phonetics repeatedly until they are placed in the correct position.

See it for yourself, and try it with your own children. My son continues to be enthralled by Endless Alphabet, and more words are being added all the time. 

But most importantly, it works. Not only is he trying to read words that have never appeared in the application (thanks to the fun phonetics) he is using new words he learns via Endless Alphabet in the correct context (thanks to the brilliant animations).

For example, the other day when he ate some food he didn’t find particularly appealing he said “yucky!” Excuse me? Yes, and he never learned it from me.  

About Callaway Digital Arts

Callaway (CDA) is fastly becoming a serious player in the vastly lucrative educational content market. To date they have received $6M in funding from a list of A Team investors led by the iconic Kleiner Perkins.  Founded back in 2011, the company has released several successful applications in the Ed space, with partners indicative of their investors’ network value such as Sesame Street and Hasbro.

Penguin's New Breakthrough

In case you haven’t noticed, Ed Tech continues to boom. Last year Ed Tech startups grabbed more than $1B in funding -- ONE-BILLION-DOLLARS... just looks bigger that way. Since my first passion in business was actually educational technology, from time to time I’ll post about Ed Tech applications. Here’s the first!

Penguin Publishing is an old company, they’ve been around since 1935. Most people probably consider publishing a dull and non-innovative space. Some may even believe that with advent of Amazon Self-Publishing traditional publishing companies are already in decline. I beg to differ... and Penguin’s new app really blew me away.

Poems By Heart

This is probably my new favorite app, really!

Why? I guess some people are forever hopelessly romantic long after high-school. Poems By Heart is a really fun and simple way to memorize poems. You can impress your friends or, if you’re like me, someone special to you by reciting to them poems of all kinds, from William Blake to Emily Dickinson, and more.

This app isn’t just my favorite because if the value it gives me -- that is, my wife loves it when I recite to her a romantic poem -- it is my favorite because it is one of the most innovative ideas I’ve seen in a long time. Penguin Publishing has taken something many people probably had forgotten about, and made it interesting and modern all over again. Truth is, we all wish we could rattle-off poetry like they do in the movies, don’t we?

Poems By Heart is a game, with levels of difficulty for different poems. The app takes you through stages, removing words from stanzas or lines to help you memorize. You select the correct words from several below the stanza or line you’re memorizing. For your final mission you have to recite the poem by heart to the app, and it records it for you. You get points for doing missions quickly and filling in the blanks with the correct words.

Not only is it fun, it’s educational since you are engaging with literary history (the poem) multiple times, learning vocabulary and usage -- not to mention learning about the poets themselves (or just poets period!).

But it gets better. From a business perspective, this app is a brilliant innovation. It’s clear that Penguin invested a lot of time and talent to leverage it’s massive store of content to generate new revenue through mobile. While the app offers new users with two free poems, to memorize more poems -- or specific poems that you love -- you have to purchase sets. The sets are sold as poetry genres now, but you can imagine with all the poetry in the world the possibilities for Penguin are endless.

Hat’s off to Penguin... then again, “He who binds to himself a joy / Does the winged life destroy....” We’ll see if it sticks, but so far looks like a big win for Pearson and for poetry all around.