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How to get media coverage for your startup?

I have done some research recently about ways a startup (like ours: http://commerce.exorbyte.com) which hasn’t gotten approval yet by large numbers of paying users can get coverage from reporters, bloggers, influencers, etc. I came accross some good resources that I have tested over the past 2 months and I want to list them here by order of priority for other startups to use them:

Daily HARO – http://www.helpareporter.com – nothing new to many HNers – but consider this great query from a journalist today (sorry Haro T&Cs don’t allow me to disclose the name or email of the journalist. Just sing-up for free):

Looking for expert tips to include in an article on turning an idea into a successful product. Tips should reflect the stages of developing an idea, getting a lawyer, obtaining a patent, marketing, etc. Please include your quote, and how you would like to credited in your reply. Thank you!
BloggerLinkUp – http://www.bloggerlinkup.com – Similar to HARO but you target bloggers instead of reviewing requests for content
Business2Blogger – http://business2blogger.com/ – free and paid campaigns (starts at $50) and targets are bloggers
Pitch It To Me – http://pitchit.ning.com/ – Pitch your products to bloggers. They have stopped takingnew signups recently though. Getting too big. Keep checking.
The Product Review Place – http://productreviewplace.ning.com/ – You pitch your products, and let the interested reviewers come to you.
MediaSync: FREE media list service called MediaSync: search for influencers and find outlets and contacts that reach them. MediaSync has a database of more than 500,000 media contacts and 9 million articles and blogs. You can search for contacts or opportunities (including editorial calendars) using a simple search box.
NewsBasis – NewsBasis is for journalists to improve their targeting of sources. As a source, you can add your profile to the database and position yourself for interview opportunities.
MatchPoint – MatchPoint lets you post your pitch and search journalists who write about what you’re pitching.
PressWiki: FREE directory. PressWiki is a great media DB alternative.
MediaOnTwitter: MediaOnTwitter is a list of media contacts who use Twitter. There are similar alternatives like MuckRack andJournalistTweets (by Cision) that are great for finding journalists on Twitter.
ExpertTweet: Journalists tweet request for content through ExpertTweet. The message goes to ExpertTweet’s followers (you).
NewsCertified Exchange: NewsCertified Exchange (NCE) provides journalists with a searchable database of experts who have been ‘certified’ as interview-ready. For a fee, experts can be added to NewsCertified’s database (though you have to meet the editorial board’s requirements). This service is ideal for experts looking to build a national (or international) personal brand.
Journalistics: If you’re an expert, add yourself for free. Journalists come to search for content and experts.
PitchEngine: PitchEngine social media releases (SMR) help you package, distribute, manage and track your news across social media.
Press Kit’n: Press Kit’n stands out as a solution worth checking out.
AwardSync: AwardsSync is a FREE database of awards opportunities. There’s a lot of information to sift through. A little tweaking of the search results and you’ll save hours of work using this product.
PRSourceCode: PRSourceCode is a paid service specific to tech and telecom industries. PRSourceCode’s research team sends you alerts on a daily basis (similar to how query services work). They also have a great editorial calendar product worth looking into.

Hope this helps. I will keep growing the list as I use other or test other services.

TOP 10 Facebook Privacy Resources

No need to leave it all together. Fighting back is just a matter of using Facebook’s own weaknesses to get back at them and back to your private way of life. Here are a list of the best resources on the topic:

If that’s enough to convince you of the important loss of privacy Facebook usage has become for many of us just read on:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/05/12/business/facebook-privacy.html

: Facebook Privacy Statement Bizarro

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/07/facebook-privacy-changes_n_568345.html

FACEBOOK Privacy 2005

FACEBOOK Privacy 2007

FACEBOOK-PRIVACY 2010 (April)

First Evidence of Warfare Grade Security Threat to Major Grid Systems

Security experts have been announcing it. Smart grid pundits have been evangelizing it. Modern energy and utility grids are at risk from cyber threats as soon as you connect them to the Internet , and maybe even if they remain largely offline.

A mysterious malware virus that has been analysed by expert for some months now appears to be the ultimate SCADA and grid systems bomb. It’s called Stuxnet because of the name of some of the mysteriously encrypted files it contains. See more details in this good article on Yahoo!: http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20100921/ts_csm/327178
and on SmartGrid News:
http://www.smartgridnews.com/artman/publish/Technologies_Security_News/Stuxnet-Worm-Poses-Real-Threat-to-SCADA-and-Business-as-Usual-2775.html#blogcomments

So far, Stuxnet has infected at least 45,000 industrial control systems around the world, without blowing them up – although some victims in North America have experienced some serious computer problems, Eric Byres, a Canadian expert, told the Monitor. Most of the victim computers, however, are in Iran, Pakistan, India, and Indonesia. Some systems have been hit in Germany, Canada, and the US, too. Once a system is infected, Stuxnet simply sits and waits – checking every five seconds to see if its exact parameters are met on the system. When they are, Stuxnet is programmed to activate a sequence that will cause the industrial process to self-destruct, Langner says.
Langner’s analysis also shows, step by step, what happens after Stuxnet finds its target. Once Stuxnet identifies the critical function running on a programmable logic controller, or PLC, made by Siemens, the giant industrial controls company, the malware takes control. One of the last codes Stuxnet sends is an enigmatic “DEADF007.” Then the fireworks begin, although the precise function being overridden is not known, Langner says. It may be that the maximum safety setting for RPMs on a turbine is overridden, or that lubrication is shut off, or some other vital function shut down. Whatever it is, Stuxnet overrides it, Langner’s analysis shows.
“After the original code [on the PLC] is no longer executed, we can expect that something will blow up soon,” Langner writes in his analysis. “Something big.”

More detail;ed analysis is available on Lagnier’s website at: http://www.langner.com/en/index.htm

Is this the proof that grid attacks are now part of conventional war tactics? What do you think?

Michael Arrington Announces a Possible Major Case of Collusion and Price Fixing by Top Silicon Valley Private Investors

Years ago I worked with Michael Arrington. He was a rather standofish (or maybe introvert) guy who I knew little about during my time at RealNames. He came there from graduating for Stanford Law School, then working for a top Silicon Valley law firm (wsgr.com), and then joining Keith Teare an entrepreneur from the Internet boom era who had founded RealNames. Keith was erratic and the company a bit crazy. Michael left and tried to found several companies. Discouraged, in 2005, he started a blog covering Web 2.0 startups and people flocked to it soon making it a top news source for the global technology and new media industry.

In a blog post published 30 minutes ago, Michael Arrington, arguably the most important blogger covering Silicon Valley and the Technology industry with his famous TechCrunch blog, announced he uncovered a major case of price fixing (to keep company valuations low) and collusions (to keep coop-style startup incubators like Y-Combinator out) by a group of top venture capitalist and private equity investors.

Read it: http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/so-a-blogger-walks-into-a-bar/

This is major. He wouldn’t say this without being sure and there is no stopping him now. Mike, get ready for the witness stand!

SLI Systems – The Quiet Search Wave

SLI Systems - a rising search software player

In an industry increasingly devoted to loving or hating Google, and often more focused on turbulent M&A activity than on organic growth, observers could miss the quiet but steady rise a player like SLI Systems. The search software industry has now clearly been divided up in several main segments: enterprise search, site search, ecommerce search, and maybe more. SLI Systems is more or less on all fronts. From its base in New Zealand, SLI commands a growing market share with revenue rumored to be above $10M and a presence in California and the UK. The product lineup of SLI is currently the following: Learning Search, Learning Search Ecommerce, Learning Navigation, Site Champion, Ad Champion, Site Search Feedback. Also important to note that the SLI products are 100% SaaS hosted on the cloud. Clearly SLI started from its origins in Site Search with a traditional crawler, index, search results page approach. But since then, it has evolved. In a conversation with Ed Hoffman, VP of Global Business and Corporate Development, I learned about a few aspects which I found interesting:

Customer service: SLI has clearly committed itself to great customer service. In a space obsessed with technology prowess, it may seem old-fashioned but I have heard enough Google Appliance customers complain about it to know that this is a winning strategy if SLI succeeds at it which its growth seems to indicate.
Site Champion is an interesting product. It uses the search analytics data about popular searches to choose content which it pushes to the Google crawlers in the form of optimized landing pages classified in an alphabetic index of popular query terms. OK, this is not advertising but it’s getting close. I wonder what the cost ratio between CPC equivalent and site index visits is. Probably pretty good. Also, I don’t think this is necessarily better in my opinion than Synomia’s semantic version of this system, but very promising.
Autocomplete: SLI has an autocomplete feature much like the Google Suggest. It’s based on normalized popular queries and suggests queries to users in real time as they type each character of a query. It’s interesting but since I am a big believer in autocomplete features, I regret that the feature doesn’t return real search results or at least taxonomy-related results like Exorbyte does for instance.

SLI has about 300 clients worldwide. Most customers probably do not know that the major part of the development happens in New Zealand. Clearly it’s important to note that SLI has been able to tweak its positioning smartly and quickly and that the SaaS model is probably partially responsible for that. Good luck and a continued rise for SLI!

Smart Grid Oregon is Born

Newly formed Smart Grid Oregon

Last year and a part of this year, I participated in a very interesting initiative led the Software Association of Oregon, the Oregon Technology Business Center (OTBC), and a group of senior energy industry investors and entrepreneurs led by James Mater of Quality Logic.

The project was an effort to bring together this steering committee of experienced energy professionals with a group of about 30 would-be entrepreneurs in a concerted effort to explore business opportunities and form Oregon-based companies in the Smart Grid area. The project included initially 4 evening sessions and I joined the project interested about what opportunities might exist for software-based innovations for my work at Exorbyte and beyond.

I will not bore you with a list of what I learned during this project. I must say however that the best outcomes was the interactions with knowledgeable steering committee members and peers. The team I joined achieved promising initial results in the area of energy storage and distributed generation.

This great project did spawn an organization which will quickly come on every Smart grid or Energy professional’s radar in the Northwest very soon: Smart Grid Oregon The board of SGO is diverse and shows great promise with key entrepreneurial, investment, legal, and legislative players. Join quickly while the structure is still falling into place and you may have a shot at making a greater contribution! Phil Keisling is the board’s Chairman and can be contacted at phil@smartgridoregon.org about memberships.

Obama and I – We Run in the Same Circles

: Obama and I linked by Linkedin.
Dual window capture to avoid large image size. So I promise, the Pres. is at the top of that list on my profile!

I was very surprised to find that my Linkedin profile featured President Obama as a person which users also looked up on Linkedin while checking me out! Of course I immediately thought of complaining to Linkedin customer service since they omitted to feature me on Obama’s page along with Hillary Clinton, Kevin Bacon, and Bill Gates. What is wrong with these people?!

Then I sat back closed the draft email to Linkedin customer service team and realized this might be a bug ; or maybe everyone had Obama in their list. Do you? I feel flattered but I have a hard time understanding how such a great feature (obviously made to foster new relevant links between members) can work if it features popular profiles at the top of the list. Everyone is going have the same people on their list. Anyone knows what algorithms Linkedin uses?

Maybe Steven Stegman, Research Scientist and Senior Product Manager at LinkedIn can tell us. See his post about the feature.

If you want to view my profile just send me a message through our contact form and I’ll connect to you. Sorry but I have no public profile and this feature is on the private one anyway.

Is this the solution to the oil spill cleanup?

I received an interesting video from a friend. After the Kevin Costner solution, why not the good ol’southern boys solution?

Get the Flash Player to see this content.

Interesting idea. I can think of many reasons why this surprising idea to clean up the oil slick could possibly not work but:

I did test the principle of oil sticking on dried grass this afternoon with motor oil at home in my garage and it does the job very well.
Ideas like this seem no better than the other chemical or mechanical solutions in use today when they first appeared.

I say this needs to be developed. What do you think?

Google’s Ever Larger and Shocking Ambitions

Possible outcome: Larry Page turning Google as an octopus monopoly?

I read an article in the the French equivalent of the NYT today (LeMonde.fr) which had an interview of Larry Page, Google’s co-founder during a visit he made to the company’s Paris offices. I found some its content shockingly undemocratic and contrary to Google’s motto : “Don’t be evil.” Here is the section I want to discuss:

Le Monde.fr: You store a lot of data on your servers. Is this really necessary?

Most of this data is web page content, keywords, IP addresses [the identifier of a computer] . But you’re not logged in: we have little personal information, unlike credit card companies. Our search engine works to improve the quality of responses to search queries, and for that we need all this information. Our ambition is to organize all the information of the world, not just part of it. I am nevertheless concerned that some may feel that retaining so much information is not a good thing. That’s why we offer tools that users can see and control our use of their data ["Service Dashboard"].

The tone is shocking to me. How can Larry say in the same interview that:

Google is worried about the undemocratic practices of government censorship in some countries,
and then proceed to say that his corporation (a well meaning company but still inherently undemocratic like all corporations because controlled by a limited group of stockholders) holds the ambitions of organizing the information of the entire world.

Larry hedges against critics by saying that he is aware of privacy issues but let’s give Larry some slack on the privacy for a sec. This is another issue entirely. What’s democratic about a single group of stockholders controlling the tools that allow the entire humanity to access information beyond verbal contacts with their face-to-face network of friends and colleagues ? ? !

In another section of the article, Larry says that he worries about politically motivated censorship. By saying so, one could assume he cares about the effect healthy political structures like that of a democracy have on people’s life. Does he? Does his ambitions run smack into conflict with his political views? Or does he confuse economic liberalism with democracy for his own self-interest and greed? Or is just confused after years of trying to keep a tornado like Goolge under control?

Please react.

Utilities, Silicon Valley and the Rest of US

The Smart grid has been one hell of a buzz word lately. There doesn’t seem to be a day in the life of the high tech industry that doesn’t bring a new VC investment story or a new disruptive pilot project. Looking at this from the outside, one would think everything is fine and dandy in Smart Grid Land. But insiders know better.

I sat on a panel recently with an Intel VC who chose to insist on the fact that Intel Capital’s investment strategy for the energy industry had started to focus on startups that could show they had utility endorsement, support or even a contract with a utility. Because, as he put it, “nothing much happens or will happen on the grid without utilities approval”.

The same regulatory framework that have made utilities slaves to the gargantuan appetites of US energy consumers, have also laid the ground work for a “walled-garden” market where the consumer, the technology vendors, and all other players are slave to utility approvals. Utilities alone are licensed by the PUCs (Public Utility Commissions) to perform net metering, to allow demand-response networks to operate, to allow renewable energy asset to connect to the grid, etc.

How do you think this will play out?

Action-Oriented Consulting in Product Marketing and Business Development for the Energy and Information Technology Industries