A five company day

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Yesterday I visited five companies to get you the latest that’s happening in the tech industry.

Here’s the five companies I visited (now you know why my email isn’t getting answered):

1. Xobni. This is a cool add-on for Outlook. Tim O’Reilly has been raving about it on his blog. I’ve been using it for about a week and it lets me see patterns in my email that I wasn’t able to see before. I spent a lot of time with the founders talking about their business and the industry. Sorry for splitting the video up into three pieces, but if the cell phone connection disappears for some reason it ends the stream and I have to restart it. I’m trying to get Qik (the service I use to stream these videos live) to address this and make it possible to join videos together. Part I; Part II; Part III.

2. LifeSize. HD videoconferencing. Pretty affordable compared to other HD systems I’ve seen (starts at about $5,000). Awesome quality and a good demo of state-of-the-art of what videoconferencing systems can do.

3. Vusion. HD streaming. Oh, my, is this cool for cable companies and others who want to bring you HD video to your computer. You need to download a small plugin, but once you do this brings the highest-quality video to your browser I’ve ever seen. This one too is in three parts, sorry for the cell phone troubles. Part I; Part II; Demo.

4. Equals. This is a startup that hasn’t shown anyone its main product yet, I get an exclusive first-look at what they are doing. Wow, what a new way to work using Twitter, social networks, phones, and more. If you only watch one, I’d watch this one. The CEO is a bit wordy, but the demos he shows me are interesting. Part I; Demo; Demo of separate product called Party Line.

5. Google. I filmed a few videos at the Google Friend Connect “Camp Fire One” (aka press/blogger conference). Short video of people standing around, including my former boss, Vic Gundotra. Short video of Mike Arrington and friends (goofy). Long video of entire press conference along with a few interviews at the very end.

Bonus video? Check out the video I did of Kevin Fox, famous interaction designer (used to work at Google, now works at FriendFeed). We talk about “Googly” design.

Today? I’m going to slow things down just a bit and visit Longjump. Gotta run, see ya later on my Qik.com account.

Published by Robert Scoble

I help entrepreneurs build their technology business' story, help with getting ready for investors, with other launch plans, and many other strategic things that can help your new startup. Call to talk: +1-425-205-1921 (text first).

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22 thoughts on “A five company day”

  1. I have been using Xobni for a few weeks now. Very clever application. I only wish they allowed the user to export both the contact information and the attachments in bulk. I would love for it to suck out all my data in a plaxo-type fashion and allow me to store it in alternative locations. In general, I am very impressed.

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  2. I have been using Xobni for a few weeks now. Very clever application. I only wish they allowed the user to export both the contact information and the attachments in bulk. I would love for it to suck out all my data in a plaxo-type fashion and allow me to store it in alternative locations. In general, I am very impressed.

    Like

  3. Vusion… just not seeing the advantage over Vimeo’s (no download needed) HD offering.
    Sure it may look better in it’s windowed offering, but its what 15-20% smaller than the Vimeo window, any compressed video looks better smaller.

    You want to see nice streaming HD check this cat out http://www.vimeo.com/973337 while i uninstall the vusion plugin.

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  4. Vusion… just not seeing the advantage over Vimeo’s (no download needed) HD offering.
    Sure it may look better in it’s windowed offering, but its what 15-20% smaller than the Vimeo window, any compressed video looks better smaller.

    You want to see nice streaming HD check this cat out http://www.vimeo.com/973337 while i uninstall the vusion plugin.

    Like

  5. Andrew: Vimeo isn’t even close on my machine. It was jerky and not as sharp. I bet it also is far bigger since it was flash based in size, so a lot more expensive to distribute. I sure wouldn’t want to watch a feature film in Vimeo if it’s going to be that jerky.

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  6. Andrew: Vimeo isn’t even close on my machine. It was jerky and not as sharp. I bet it also is far bigger since it was flash based in size, so a lot more expensive to distribute. I sure wouldn’t want to watch a feature film in Vimeo if it’s going to be that jerky.

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  7. Pingback: Bill Watt’s Blog » Blog Archive » Twitter offices! Google!

  8. HD video is not a significant innovation. It’s merely a scale up of non-HD digital video. There’s nothing terribly exciting there.

    An outlook plugin is doomed to failure. Outlook is a despised software program that is controlled (and locked down) by corporate IT. A plugin doesn’t stand much of a chance at market penetration unless the Goons from Redmond acquire it or something.

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  9. HD video is not a significant innovation. It’s merely a scale up of non-HD digital video. There’s nothing terribly exciting there.

    An outlook plugin is doomed to failure. Outlook is a despised software program that is controlled (and locked down) by corporate IT. A plugin doesn’t stand much of a chance at market penetration unless the Goons from Redmond acquire it or something.

    Like

  10. Does the Xobni download even work? The “Click Here” for the download just sends you to the homepage.

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  11. Does the Xobni download even work? The “Click Here” for the download just sends you to the homepage.

    Like

  12. Pingback: Xobni - Outlook Plugin to Organise, Collate, Track, Search, Correlate your email « Iain’s Blog

  13. 1, Outlook plug-ins are dead in the Enterprise space, and they don’t even exist in the consumer space, power-user geeky market kinda, the same 500 that use ActiveWords, and can tolerate the truckloads of bugs.

    2. Lifesize is more of an advanced webcam, to call it videoconferencing is a serious abuse of the term, good for small teams, maybe, but has all sorts of third-party “professional services” outlet’s “setting it up” and charging you tons, so that $5,000 becomes $25,000 real quick. Bait and switch. The biggies will just go Cisco or Halo, where teleconferencing and “telepresence” actually have bite (if way pricey).

    3. HD Streaming big rip. When there is enough demand, it will be commodity already.

    4. Gah, social networking casseroles. And “windbag” is more the word, over “wordy”. Doomed already.

    5. Google parties, blah blah. I totally adored the “short video of people standing around”, just had to run that one again.

    Companies should start painting their doors with the blood of a spring lamb, before the 10th Plague of Scoble cometh hither.

    Like

  14. 1, Outlook plug-ins are dead in the Enterprise space, and they don’t even exist in the consumer space, power-user geeky market kinda, the same 500 that use ActiveWords, and can tolerate the truckloads of bugs.

    2. Lifesize is more of an advanced webcam, to call it videoconferencing is a serious abuse of the term, good for small teams, maybe, but has all sorts of third-party “professional services” outlet’s “setting it up” and charging you tons, so that $5,000 becomes $25,000 real quick. Bait and switch. The biggies will just go Cisco or Halo, where teleconferencing and “telepresence” actually have bite (if way pricey).

    3. HD Streaming big rip. When there is enough demand, it will be commodity already.

    4. Gah, social networking casseroles. And “windbag” is more the word, over “wordy”. Doomed already.

    5. Google parties, blah blah. I totally adored the “short video of people standing around”, just had to run that one again.

    Companies should start painting their doors with the blood of a spring lamb, before the 10th Plague of Scoble cometh hither.

    Like

  15. Pingback: Equals.com (Scoble QIK Interview): Solve Solicitors Calling You « Tim Bauer’s Running Thoughts

  18. Xobni looks interesting but 80/20 Retriever provided the person view years ago and today X1 finds everything fast (better than Google desktop–more formats indexed).

    What I haven’t seen, and would pay for, is a heat map / cloud of words that could be clicked on.

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  19. Xobni looks interesting but 80/20 Retriever provided the person view years ago and today X1 finds everything fast (better than Google desktop–more formats indexed).

    What I haven’t seen, and would pay for, is a heat map / cloud of words that could be clicked on.

    Like

  20. Pingback: Xobni, sacando partido a Outlook « Blogging for Nothing

  21. I’ve been using Xobni for a week or so. Of the people that actually use it, are you finding it useful?

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