high technology : Innovation + Job News

NoLibs-based RezScore helps jobseekers to the top of the resume pile

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, November 08, 2011

What if you could get an objective grade on your resume? RezScore, a Philadelphia based startup, wants to see you with an A-plus. Founded by Sean Weinberg and Gerrit Hall, the free and simple process runs your resume through an algorithm that delivers instant results.

Weinberg was working as a recruiter at AC Lion, a New York firm specializing in staffing startups. "We were noticing trends within the volume of job seekers," says Weinberg. "If people knew about these trends and how they worked, they could create more effective resumes." Time and again, says Weinberg, certain types of resumes scored interviews, while others were ignored.

As a test, I asked if we could put my resume through the engine. But first, Weinberg provided helpful tips. One: your resume should resemble a magazine ad with a call to action. Two: your headline needs to be ten words or less. Three: use bullet points. Four: use adverbs and numbers. "People forget to be specific," says Weinberg. "People respond to action descriptions: I did this, I accomplished that. Here's the number attached. It tells the employer you are a doer."

Weinberg adds, "Anything that adds context and demonstrates value is good. People think they can't quantify what they do and they are usually wrong. They just haven't thought about the right angle." Stay away from putting references on the resume, and "References available upon request" can date you, he says. Better to use LinkedIn for colleague recommendations.

After a few tweaks, we sent my resume through the RezScore process. Got an A. Then got a follow up email, offering several paid options: sign up with Resume Rabbit, which allows you to register for the top job boards in one centralized location, a resume makeover, and an entire resume rewrite. Cost for the tiers is competitive with other resume writing and distribution services. "No one is more vulnerable than a job seeker," says Weinberg. "We like to give as much help as possible for free." Top scoring resumes are invited to the global leaderboard.

Weinberg calls his company ramen noodle profitable, and looks forward to potentially lucrative future partnerships and licensing deals. Rezscore's writers are now employed on a contract basis. Weinberg, whose company is headquartered in Northern Liberties, hopes to hire full time staff soon.

Source: Sean Weinberg, RezScore
Writer: Sue Spolan

Copyright, innovation and whack-a-mole: Protecting technological innovation in the 21st century

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, November 08, 2011

"I've been thinking a lot about Napster," says Rutgers-Camden law professor Michael Carrier. "Google just gave me a research award to examine the effects of Napster on digital innovation." Nice gig if you can get it, and Carrier gets it.

The author of Innovation for the 21st Century: Harnessing the Power of Intellectual Property and Antitrust Law, which came out in paperback earlier this year, Carrier promotes a new way to look at copyright, anti-trust and patent law as technology rapidly and dramatically changes commerce in several areas, including media, pharmaceuticals and innovation.

Ever since the advent of the VCR, issues of copying and sharing have kept courts busy. "Peer to peer offers real benefits to consumers," says Carrier, who points to the concept of dual purpose use, where a technology can be used for both infringement and non-infringement. As long as there is a single substantial non-infringing use, the technology should be upheld, he explains.

Carrier's work also extends to brand name and generic pharmaceutical products, a topic close to home, with the world's largest drug manufacturers within a 100 mile radius of Philadelphia. The big brands, says Carrier, pay generic makers out of court settlements to keep them off the pharmacy shelves. "The brand company is able to pay $100 million, which is a drop in the bucket for the billion it will make. The problem is that consumers don't have access to generic drugs," says Carrier.

On a grander scale, when asked if Carrier's bent is pro-consumer, he responds, "That's such a loaded term. Pro-consumer is consistent with what I am doing, but I would characterize it as pro-innovation." says the Rutgers-Camden prof, who also mentions threats to locally based media giant Comcast.

Two controversial bills were recently introduced into the U.S. Congress. The Protect IP Act, now known as the E-PARASITE Act (S. 968), goes after piracy and rogue sites all around the world. While E-PARASITE may be too controversial to move through congress, yet another bill, the Stop Online Piracy Act, was just introduced into the House on Oct. 26.

"It's a whack-a-mole game, designed to allow the government, and even private parties to shut down websites. The proposed laws are not as nuanced as those we have now," explains Carrier. "Internet service providers like Comcast would have to take measures to make sure these sites would not be able to be accessed."

While Carrier says anti-corporate sentiment is fashionable these days, he adds, "I don't know if I need to go that far. I believe in patents. Patents are needed for innovation, and for companies to able to make money." Rather, Carrier stands against the overly aggressive use of laws that limit innovation across a wide range of business practices.

Source: Michael Carrier, Rutgers-Camden Law
Writer: Sue Spolan

Welcome to the Novotorium: The suburban tech incubator funded by astrology and hookup lines

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, November 08, 2011

On a brisk fall night in Langhorne, Occupy Novotorium was going down. A publicity stunt that drew local police, three tents were set up at the entrance to Bucks County's newest tech incubator, compete with drum circle.

Novotorium, a concierge-level tech incubator, opened its doors last week to show off a full service facility aimed at mid-level startups that want to grow bigger. At no cost to participants, and with no contract up front, Novotorium offers a three month residency that includes brand new skylit offices, a fully outfitted fitness room, a data center and spacious kitchen. Currently, the space, located above Voice Systems Engineering (VSE) Inc., has room for 10 people, with lots of room for expansion.

"Novotorium seeks entrepreneurs who are at least beyond proof of concept and have some sort of product launched, and looking to grow and become profitable," says Mike Krupit, Novotorium's General Manager. "Most incubators focus on seed stage startups, making entrepreneurs venture-fundable, and plan for an exit. Our structure is not fixed like that of many incubators. We develop a program specific to the strengths and challenges, needs, and goals of the company."

The incubator is funded by Baron Innovation Group, the venture arm of Gary Baron, Founder/CEO of VSE and Vector180, also housed in the same building. That means Novotorium gets its funding in part from the profits of VSE's many websites, which include 1-800-gaylive.com, astrosource.com, and psychicsource.com. Vector180's website describes itself as "hospitality solutions for WiFi and surveillance."

"Our goal is to have two companies start in December. If we find our assumptions to be correct, the plan for 2012 would be an additional 12 companies," says Krupit, who is the former CIO of VSE.

Following the three month period, startups are free to go, and if they stay on, negotiate a contract that includes an equity share by Novotorium that will be determined on a per company basis, according to Maria Collins, Novotorium's Creative Director.

"Since we have only started taking applications this past week, it may be difficult to generalize the types of businesses that are applying," adds Krupit. "We have seen interest from information technologies, online services, offline services that are enabled by technologies, including one in the education space, and even an online radio company."

Source: Mike Krupit, Maria Collins, Novotorium
Writer: Sue Spolan

Search challenger DuckDuckGo expands to new office in Paoli, hiring

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, November 01, 2011

How much smaller is the bubble going to get? If Google and Facebook have anything to say about it, predictive search will narrow your results to the size of bath bubbles, one cell of information at a time.

Enter DuckDuckGo, a search engine challenger to the big guys that aims to burst the bubble, offering a disruptive paradigm worth $3 million in recently raised first round VC funding, which also allows for DuckDuckGo's physical expansion, from self-funded, home-based business to offices in Paoli by next month. The company now has two full time employees and four contractors, with plans to double staff by the end of 2012.

MIT-educated Gabriel Weinberg is the mind behind the engine. He launched his company in 2008, garnering national press. "I was well aware of Google's domination but it didn't phase me," says Weinberg. "It's not my goal to make a dent. One of my reasons for starting DuckDuckGo was the feeling that Google was too cluttered with ads and commercial results."

Ad clutter's not the only thing DuckDuckGoes after. Another feature is Zero Click, aka goodies, which are all free and open source. Type your query into the search box to get instant results for complex calculations, recipes, and statistics, rather than just links to web pages with answers. Weinberg and team are adding new features constantly, with growing contributions via open source channels.

To get the eye of the tech elite, DuckDuckGo rented a high traffic billboard in the SF Bay area at a cost of $7000 for two weeks. Weinberg, who grew up in Atlanta and went to school in Boston, strategically chose the Philadelphia area, and specifically Valley Forge, to raise a family and grow the business.

Weinberg attributes the surge of interest in DuckDuckGo as "a bunch of threads coming together," citing an increase in people looking for alternatives and growing concern about spam and privacy.

On privacy, and its increasing lack thereof, Weinberg says, "A large percentage of people would like their privacy reasonably protected if they had real choices and were educated on the issues."

Source: Gabriel Weinberg, DuckDuckGo
Writer: Sue Spolan

Open Access Philly: Empowering the intersection of data and community

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, November 01, 2011

Here comes the promise of Mayor Nutter. In less than two years, Jeff Friedman has revolutionized Philadelphia's role in connecting community engagement and technology. On Oct. 28, Friedman, manager of the Mayor's Office of Civic Innovation & Participation, hosted Crowdsourcing at the Intersection, a free all-day Open Access Philly conference.

Speakers at the Science Center's Quorum included crowd pleasers Robert Cheetham, Alex Hillman, Geoff Dimasi, Desiree Peterkin-Bell and Paul Wright, co-leader of the forum and Comcast's project manager for Local Media Development and the new Project Open Voice initiative.

Mayor Michael Nutter, who offered remarks right at the top of the program, announced that Philadelphia's efforts have won a top-10 place on the Public Technology Institute's list of Citizen Engaged Communities. "We are in the customer service business," says Nutter of the city government's outreach strategy, in which open data and constant communication is crucial. During his speech, Nutter tweeted a photograph of the audience to prove his point.

Friedman stated as his broad goal a movement without strict membership rules convened to articulate a shared vision for open access to data. Cheetham's company Azavea, in partnership with NPowerPA, Technically Philly, and The William Penn Foundation, created the Open Data Race, and Cheetham announced winners at the forum.

Out of dozens of contenders, first place went to Public School Notebook, which wants data on where Philadelphia public school students go after 12th grade; in close second place, the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia requested information on bike thefts, and third place went to Conservation Pennsylvania for vacant land data. In addition to information, winners receive cash prizes of up to $2,000.

Source: Jeff Friedman, Mayor Michael Nutter, City of Philadelphia; Robert Cheetham, Azavea
Writer: Sue Spolan

Philly Tech Meetup's rapid growth bodes well for region's brightest startups

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, November 01, 2011

In a matter of months, Philly Tech Meetup has grown into a force to be reckoned with. Rohan Mehta, founder and organizer of the monthly event, says he was inspired by New York Tech Meetup, which regularly draws a crowd of a thousand. Judging by the rapid growth of the local Tech Meetup, Philly isn’t too far behind.

According to the PTM website, 233 attended the Oct. 26 evening gathering, held at Quorum inside the University City Science Center. A show of hands indicated that over half were first-timers. PTM already has almost a thousand members in total.

"PTM exists to advance entrepreneurship and innovation in the region," says Mehta. "Our focus is on hosting productive events that engage and inspire. Our goal is to build a sustainable tech ecosystem, and that begins by convening all stakeholders regularly to learn and share."

This month, Lokalty, Spling and Ajungo gave demos in front of a standing room only crowd that was overwhelmingly male, although diverse in age and ethnicity. Of the several hundred in attendance, about a dozen were women.

Lokalty, a cross referenced loyalty program, gave the example of going to a spa, then getting a discount at a nearby coffee shop. While the startup has plenty of competition, it differentiates its offer by allowing users to accumulate universal points. Currently there are seven participating retailers, all in Center City.

Ajungo officially launched at PTM. The initiative mashes up social media with travel; notably, sports fans who follow their teams to away games. Members can connect, post pictures and reviews, and in the future, earn rewards.

DreamIt Ventures company Spling announced it has received a Series A round of funding from a Menlo Park, California VC firm, even though the startup is still in pre-launch. Also social in nature, Spling participants share and discover online media. Founders Billy McFarland and Mac Cordrey say they already have 2,000 users in the closed beta.

Philly Tech Meetup has been the darling of local startups; since February, rapid growth companies including Launchrock, CloudMine, RezScore, Storably, and ElectNext have been among the presenters. There is also a brand new Philly Tech Meetup website.

Mehta also announced the upcoming Tech Arts Beer (TAB) Festival, to take place in Spring 2012, gathering entrepreneurs from all three disciplines. You can sign up for one of the planning committees.

The next Philly Tech Meetup will take place on Wednesday, Nov. 30 at the Quorum. It’s free to attend. Startups that wish to present can apply for a spot on the agenda.

Source: Rohan Mehta, Philly Tech Meetup
Writer: Sue Spolan

Why everyone loves CloudMine's backend solution for mobile apps

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, October 25, 2011

CloudMine is the developer's developer. The DreamIt Ventures backed company was the buzz of Philadelphia Startup Weekend. The fledgling company used the event as a platform to officially launch in open beta, providing the underlying structure for several mobile apps that were created during the 54 hour marathon. CloudMine's goal is to take care of backend programming for mobile apps so you don't have to. Their tagline is "The mobile developers' backend-as-a-service-done-right company."

Here's an analogy. When you get into a car for the first time, you have to figure out where the turn signal and lights are. Some manufacturers have standardized their design so these basic controls are always in the same spot. That's what CloudMine is doing for mobile apps. "The majority of what mobile developers need is the same," explains engineer Ilya Braude, one third of the CloudMine trio, which also includes engineer Marc Weil and Brendan McCorkle, who describes himself as the suit.

"We're doing a ton of extra work to make it plug and play for you," says Weil, who toys with the term productization to define CloudMine's server side operations function. While CloudMine counts among its competitors StackMob, Kinvey and Parse, Weil points out that CloudMine is the first to launch in open beta, and one of the leanest in terms of initial investment. The national blog TechCrunch gave big props to CloudMine's launch in a recent post, which subsequently increased customers from 50 to 380 in about 48 hours. There are now 410 customers on board.

CloudMine is free while in beta, and once billing begins, will make money with each API call, or single server request. While individual requests can cost as little as $0.0001, eight million of those add up to some serious money. CloudMine, which uses Amazon Web Services for cloud computing, is a disruptive technology. While there will still be need for front end developers to make mobile apps pretty, CloudMine aims to do the under the hood work, handling server maintenance and other tiresome tasks. Weil also points out that CloudMine is designed so that front end developers are not locked into any specific way of designing apps, adding and changing features easily.

The company is actively looking for first found funding, and is pitching both locally and nationally. Also on the agenda in the near future is team expansion, and has just added intern Tess Rinearson. CloudMine is operating out of DreamIt offices at the University City Science Center.

Source: Marc Weil, Ilya Braude, Brendan McCorkle, CloudMine
Writer: Sue Spolan

Local tech VP appointed to FCC's advisory committee on diversity

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Brigitte Daniel is on her way up, literally. By the time you read this, Daniel will be on a seven-week fact-finding mission through Southeast Asia funded by an Eisenhower Fellowship. But wait, that's not all. Daniel was just appointed to the Federal Communications Commission’s Federal Advisory Committee on Diversity in the Digital Age. We'll get back to that tour of India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore in a minute.

How about that FCC appointment? Daniel, an attorney and Executive Vice President of Wilco Electronic Systems, is one of the youngest appointees to the committee and the only representative from Philadelphia. The committee will meet in Washington, DC to ensure that minorities and low income communities get broadband access. "It's being reframed as a civil rights issue of the 21st century," says Daniel, who adds that increasingly, institutional interactions require internet access. If you want to apply for a job, apply to college, and get social services, you need the web.

Wilco is a family business founded by Will Daniel, Brigitte's father. One of Wilco’s primary missions is to provide low cost, high speed advanced telecommunication services to minorities and underserved communities in the Greater Philadelphia area. “One of the reasons I was appointed to the diversity committee for the FCC was because Wilco served as a catalyst to bring together the various partners and community groups that formed the Philadelphia Freedom Rings Partnership. Freedom Rings is a citywide consortium of educational institutions, municipalities, The City of Philadelphia, and Wilco, which had the goal of providing high speed access to underserved and economically stressed areas."

While Freedom Rings provides free access to participants, Daniel stresses that ultimately, the goal is affordable service. "When you start talking about free, it's hard to be sustainable. Someone will always have to pay for it." Daniel adds that if the service is free it will perceived to have less value. "Our whole point is to make it affordable." To prove that point, Wilco customers can get digital cable, high speed internet and a laptop for under $50 a month. "It's our version of the triple play," says Daniel.

Back to that whirlwind trip to the other side of the globe: Daniel is a 2011 Eisenhower Fellow. The India and Sri Lanka segments of her seven week trip are funded by the fellowship; she added the other destinations in order to gather even more knowledge of emerging technologies and policies for connecting impoverished populations.

Daniel returns in December and begins a two-year term at the FCC while remaining at Wilco. "Whatever we recommend, I hope it's taken to heart. At Wilco, we are on the ground, in the trenches. If the FCC takes our policy recommendations seriously, that's exciting."

Source: Brigitte Daniel, Wilco Electronic Systems
Writer: Sue Spolan

DreamIt-backed data mashup startup Metalayer hiring

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Matthew Griffiths and Jon Gosier dream of clean data. The pair formed Metalayer to sort and visualize any kind of information gleaned from just about any source. The DreamIt Ventures backed company grew out of Gosier's 2007 company Ushahidi, founded in Africa to collect and map eyewitness reports of violence in the aftermath of the disputed presidential election.

Griffiths and Gosier met in Uganda, and although neither is Ugandan, both profess a love for all things African. "We met two years before Metalayer, working to find signal in noise," says Griffiths. "We identified key bits of information in times of crisis." Ushaidi's SwiftRiver project was awarded the 2011 Knight News Challenge.

Both came to the United States this year, where Gosier was raised (Griffiths hails from the UK), and realized that Ushaidi's algorithm could have verticals in other industries, particularly journalism. "Our passion is tools for better data narratives." For example, you might want to mash up a real time Twitter feed with XML, email, and a document you downloaded onto your hard drive. You might be looking for certain keywords.

Once Metalayer gathers data from diverse sources, the user can create infographics or visualize it on a map. Griffiths recalls that the whole process began by going through the motions of research themselves to understand the steps that human brains take. Gosier put together a video to explain the way the application works.

As far as revenue, Gosier says the idea is to package the technology. "We plan to offer the underlying APIs to developers. The application will be available for businesses or individuals to use." One potential revenue source is governments, which could use Metalayer to pre-empt or respond rapidly to uprisings and crises.

Gosier says Metalayer has virtually no competition because the only other companies doing this kind of data mash up are at a very high level, working for the military. "In that landscape, there are a couple of key players at the top."

Metalayer, now in talks with investors, is looking to hire in the area of business development. In addition to being a DreamIt company, Metalayer is also supported by the Comcast Minority Entrepreneur Accelerator Program.

Source: Jon Gosier, Matthew Griffiths, Metalayer
Writer: Sue Spolan

AssetVUE changing game in data center inventory management

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, October 25, 2011

When Comcast is your first customer, you know you're doing something right. It helps that Gary Aron has ties with the media giant, but as vice president of business development for AssetVUE, he has a lot more to offer than just some friendly advice.

Aron and company president Sean Cotter explain that AssetVUE has adapted RFID technology to rapidly read and inventory assets in massive data centers. AssetVUE works within the Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) framework, cutting inventory time by up to 90 percent.

Aron and Cotter had worked together previously, when Cotter was CIO for the DVL Group and Aron was an executive running data centers for Verizon, JP Morgan Chase and Comcast. "We talked for a period of time about things that didn't exist," says Aron. "I said, 'Let's go after those holes in the products.'" The biggest one, says Aron, is keeping information up to date. "Building a data repository is time consuming. People purchase products that can take years to implement, and they don't take full advantage of the tools they purchase."

The second piece is validation, which takes a considerable amount of time as well, working out where physical assets sit, as well as validating information pertinent to specific clients. This maintenance level information is kept in massive databases.

Before RFID technology, the client would go in, open up the doors to a rack, count information and compare. Now, with RFID, the same data gathering happens instantly, and it's also possible to get advanced views of a rack. "With these tools, you can get a top down, or elevation view," says Cotter. "When you click on a rack, it brings up every device in that rack within a minute's time."

Asset VUE now employs three full-timers as well as two contractors, with a recent $200,000 investment from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania slated for marketing and staff development.

"We have just two clients installed right now and we've engaged in a handful of proof of concepts that have gone well, so we expect that half dozen more companies will come on board," says Aron.

Source: Sean Cotter, Gary Aron, AssetVUE
Writer: Sue Spolan

Fast-growing software startup VCopious receives funding, expects to double staff by end of 2012

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, October 18, 2011

VCopious is expanding rapidly. The nine month-old, Conshohocken-based software company just announced it has received funding of an undisclosed amount from a consortium of four funders, including Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern PA, Emerald Stage2 Ventures, MAG and Silicon Valley Bank.

CEO Ken Hayward says VCopious is now "into a stage of development geared toward market facing activity," and capital raised in this round of funding will go toward global expansion. VCopious also announced that Siemens Corporation has signed a multi-year agreement to use the VC2 platform, billed as the "world's first virtual spaces application server appliance." The firewalled networking, socializing and tracking tool allows people to meet in cyberspace, regardless of physical location.

VCopious already has a strong relationship with SAP, which it counted as one of its first customers. "It's a proven model," says Hayward of the technology that was built with no original outside financing. "Unlike other tech startups that are trying to raise money to build the technology, we've been out raising money to expand market activities."

The next step for VCopious is to build out a sales organization that's focused on high level direct sales to enterprise, and then find distribution partners that will move the product beyond the reach of its own direct sales force, according to Hayward. "One of the most sought-after destinations is around collaboration, ecommerce and social media. Between those, the VCopious platform is an aggregation tool for all those capabilities."

While Hayward will not talk about revenue or company growth in concrete terms, he projects that the company's staff will double by the end of 2012, from 25 to 50 employees, which is impressive for a company that only launched in early 2010.

Source: Ken Hayward, VCopious
Writer: Sue Spolan

Audaciousness Alert: Eff the PPA emerges a winner from Philly Startup Weekend

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, October 18, 2011

If you want to get ahead in the startup world, it helps to be audacious. Startup Weekend Philadelphia took place this past weekend, and the winner was Eff the PPA, a mobile app for finding parking, preventing tickets, and fighting parking tickets for a mere $5 fee. Second place went to HangPlan, a mobile app and website that helps people make plans with friends. Third place was awarded to Intro'd, a simple mobile app for connecting your colleagues.

Philly Startup Weekend (Twitter hashtag #phlsw) took place at the Earle Mack School of Law at Drexel University, thanks to law professor Karl Okamoto, who was also a participant in the 54-hour event. Okamoto's initiative, ApprenNet, with the Law Meets project, grew out of the first Philly Startup Weekend in February and is already in use in 60 law schools as a way to leverage peer learning, with potential vertical applications in other kinds of businesses. In fact, Okamoto and team will be meeting with a national restaurant chain this week to see if the Meets model can translate to hospitality management.

But back to the winners. Eff the PPA draws its rebel energy from the team of Drexel Law student Hans Smith and entrepreneurs Ted Mann and Ashwin Dhir. In short order, the team built a powerful app that even includes a geolocation function and timer so you don't lose track of your vehicle or the time left on your meter. The team exhorts, "It's time to beat the parking authority at their own game. This app gives you the inside scoop on how to score a legal spot. And if you are still socked with a ticket, it gives you a quick and easy way to get it thrown out." While judge Tracy Welson-Rossman voiced her concerns about the name, saying she didn't want to sign up for the startup's twitter feed, the group got the most audible and hearty audience response of all presenters.

HangPlan, which came from the mind of Melissa Morris-Ivone, who recently made an impression at Ignite Philly with her presentation about the Operation Nice blog, is a way to streamline social gatherings. Rather than find out after the fact about a great party, HangPlan, endorsed by Philly Party Ambassador, lets users get the scoop before the first toast. "We not only created a web app, mobile app, and an API, but we developed a brand, gathered research, and put together a social media presence," says Morris-Ivone.

You can see a full list of all 20 startups that presented this weekend. Brad Oyler, one of the organizers of the weekend, thinks the more full-time presence of mentors made a big difference and he's looking forward to the next startup weekend in April.

"Also, a lot of the teams focused on customer feedback to help shape their business," says Oyler. "A few teams, like SME Brain and ApprenNet, even had meetings with some serious clients."

Source: Karl Okamoto, Brad Oyler, Melissa Morris-Ivone, Philadelphia Startup Weekend
Writer: Sue Spolan

Two newcomers among six startups to rake in more than $1M in Ben Franklin Technology funds

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Two suburban companies, AssetVUE in Bucks County and MobileReactor LLC in Chester County, were each approved for $200,000 investments in the latest round of funding announced in a news release on Monday from Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania.

AssetVUE, based in Bristol and led by President Sean Cotter, provides hardware, strategies, support, assembly and upgrades for data centers. The other new investment was for MobileReactor, based in Devon and doing business as OneTwoSee, which develops products and services that allow TV viewers to use mobile devices to play along with their favorite shows and other viewers in entertaining ways that are also meaningful for advertisers.

Also funded were:

Essential Medical, Wayne: $250,000 to aid in developing innovative products for use in cardiac catheterizations in leg arteries.

Novetas Solutions, Philadelphia: $200,000 toward processing and marketing of recycled glass that is crushed through a patent-pending grinding process and used in industrial processes. Previous Ben Franklin investments total $300,000.

Real Time Tomography, Villanova: $150,000 to continue its development of state-of-the-art image processing and image reconstruction for next-generation 2D and 3D medical imaging systems. Previous Ben Franklin investments total $425,000.

TicketLeap, Philadelphia: $25,000 for the e-commerce company providing online ticket-selling services for event organizers also provides barcode scanning, instant credit card swiping and design and tracking services. Previous Ben Franklin investments total $500,000.

Source: Jaron Rhodes, Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Southeastern Pennsylvania
Writer: Joe Petrucci

Take me to your leaderboard: Gamification growing up

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, October 11, 2011

It's pretty much impossible to surf the web these days without coming across some kind of gamelike feature. Do a Google search and a glinting +1 button accompanies each result, beckoning you to click. What's all this about? It's called gamification, and it's the hot topic for web design. There's only one problem. No one really knows how gamification works. There is no formula for fun.

Last Monday (Oct. 3), Penn's Wharton School hosted Gamification: Practical Advice from Game Developers. Ultimately, practical advice was trumped by theory. Panelists and speakers agreed that gamification is a nearly undefinable term. We know it when we see it. But how to achieve it?

If you think about the kids today and their incessant videogaming, refocusing the online experience to act more like a game makes sense. "Ninety-seven percent of kids 12 to 17 play videogames," cited Wharton professor Kevin Werbach, referring to a recent Gartner study. The mobile check-in service Foursquare is the poster child for gamifying, he said, with its point system, leaderboards, badges and fun little icons. Werbach also pointed to FoldIt, which was developed by researchers to crowdsource the process of protein folding. Werbach's current provisional definition of gamification: "The use of game elements and game design techniques in non-game contexts."

It's plenty easy to define what gamification is not. But getting to a place of practice is quite another challenge. Panelists included Frank Lee from Drexel University's gaming program who comes from a psychology background; Playmatic's Margaret Wallace; Ethan Mollick, an assistant professor at Wharton; Jesper Juul, who writes The Ludologist blog and is a visiting prof at NYU; and 30 year gaming veteran Eric Goldberg, managing director of Crossover Technologies.

Mollick, who wrote the book Changing The Game, said that the billions of hours spent online playing games are a powerful message to business. "It's a reality is broken approach," explained Mollick. "Life is boring. Games are fun." One thing all agree upon: if gamifying a site is purely a marketing ploy, it will not fly. Chris Grant, editor in Chief of Joystiq, posited to the panel that no one is fooled by a crass attempt at commercialization. Gamifying cannot be unethical, immoral, or exploiting people's time.

Eric Goldberg responded, "Games are an art form, like movies and fiction. One of the core lessons game developers learn early on is that we are in the crack cocaine business. It's the manipulation of people. Manipulation, like any other tool, has the potential for evil and good."

So, back to practical advice. Mollick concluded, "Fun is hard to theorize about. Competition is fun. Randomness and art are fun. The best way to figure out what is fun is through development, testing and gathering data on how to get closer to fun." Because fun is good. And quite possibly lucrative.

Source: Kevin Werbach, Ethan Mollick, Eric Goldberg, Chris Grant, Wharton Gamification Conference
Writer: Sue Spolan

King of Prussia life sciences Sharepoint provider NextDocs 'hiring nonstop'

Flying Kite Media Tuesday, October 11, 2011

NextDocs has probably quadrupled in the last two years, according to CEO and co-founder Zikria Syed, who says the company, a Microsoft SharePoint partner, is now in a period of 60 percent year over year growth. "We have 100 people now. In 12 months we'll employ 160."

As a result, King of Prussia based NextDocs is in a hiring way, and jobs are available throughout the entire organization, from technology and customer support to sales and marketing. NextDocs is also growing geographically, with a new office in Portland, Oregon to cover west coast operations. The company already has a presence in Western Europe and Canada, and in the next few weeks, will open another office in Japan.

When asked how many people NextDocs is hiring, Syed responds, "We're hiring nonstop. It's hard to tell. New people start literally every day. We are only limited by our ability to find people quickly enough."

In the past three years, the company has grown more than 3,000 percent; at the end of fiscal year 2010, it reported $9.8 million in revenue, and it projects 2011 annual figures at $15 million. NextDocs just received $10.3 million in Series A financing from OpenView Venture Partners.

The company, which has garnered best in class status in just five years, was founded by Syed and CTO Matt Walz in 2006. Both had been at Microsoft. "Essentially we are a technology company. We're focused on document quality management." When NextDocs began in the basement of Syed's home, it was in response to a lack of existing solutions for compliance and quality management.

Syed defines NextDoc's relationship with Microsoft as the software giant's go to market partner for life sciences, pharma, medical devices and biotech. He says that the recent $10.3 million injection will go to three areas: first, further investment in solutions and products; second, geographical expansion, and third, a deeper investment in customer support.

Source: Zikria Syed, NextDocs
Writer: Sue Spolan