LSQHA Blog Reviews

When YouTube first started streaming Indian Premier League cricket at the beginning of March, it did so on a time delay for matches shown in the United States. Today, the streaming video service has announced that the matches have become so popular in the U.S. that there's no longer a need to wait - the games will be streamed live here as well. Sponsor According to YouTube's blog post, the Indian Premier League YouTube channel has had over 40 million views, with the United States accounting for the most views after only the most obvious location - India. While some seemed to say that the quality was subpar at the onset, you can't really argue with more than 40 million views just over a month after launch. And, as a New York Giants fan living in the great state of Texas, I would know first hand that even a grainy Internet broadcast can be better than nothing. Currently, YouTube's IPL channel is its first and only foray into live sports streaming and, being on YouTube, is available to iPhone users as well as other mobile users that can access the site. And, according to Forbes , the cricket league is big business, so we can only wonder what the next step here is. So, for you displaced sports fans like myself, the semi-finals begin in just over two days' time and will be streaming live on YouTube. Get to watchin'. Discuss

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YouTube Streams IPL Cricket Live In U.S.

In an email to staff yesterday, new Ning CEO Jason Rosenthal wrote that "When I became CEO 30 days ago, I told you I would take a hard look at our business. This process has brought real clarity to what's working, what's not, and what we need to do now to make Ning a big success." With that, he announced Ning would be abandoning its longstanding business model and discontinuing non-paying sites on its network. In light of this, is it time to reevaluate and reign in some of the excitement about the freemium model for startups? Sponsor Offering free services for a product alongside premium fees for advanced or special features - the freemium - has been touted as a promising business model for startups for several years now: "Give your service away for free, possibly ad supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc, then offer premium priced value added services or an enhanced version of your service to your customer base." The Freemium Summit in San Francisco last month featured many companies who've been able to leverage the freemium model to great success, including Evernote , Pandora , and Dropbox . A recent New York Times article predicts Pandora could reach $100 million in revenue this year. Finding the balance between what to offer for free and what to charge for is not easy. The trick is to put enough in the free version to get traffic and usage, but not so much that there is no incentive to upgrade. Companies who use the freemium model need to integrate their free service or product into someone's routine so fully (either by making sure it's accessible on their computer and on their mobile phone, for example) that users reach the point where they feel they simply must pay. In yesterday's press release , Ning noted that 75% of its users do pay for some sort of premium service. It may well be then that Ning's announcements are less a reflection on the freemium model than on the company itself. Despite over $120 million in VC funding, Ning has been unable to develop a sustainable business. Yesterday's announcement about the end to free Nings was accompanied with news that 40% of their staff would lose their jobs - an indication perhaps that the company's overhead was simply too high. Nevertheless, the news may serve as a cautionary tale for those startups who think the freemium model guarantees success. As David Heinemeier Hansson wrote in a post on 37signals , "Eyeballs Still Don't Pay the Bills." It remains to be seen if Ning can pull through this reorganization and turn a profit, or if they will also serve as a lesson on what happens when a business that's used the freemium model dumps all those "freeloaders." Discuss

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Is the Freemium Model (Still) Viable for Startups?

YouTube has launched a new feature that allows channel owners to send text messages and links to videos to the front page of their subscribers' YouTube accounts. It's a cool, if logical, feature to offer and one that could make visiting YouTube a lot more fun. Called Channel Bulletins, the feature is pretty simple. But am I looking forward to seeing little updates sent out between videos from the people I'm subscribed to? Yes, I am. Sponsor It would be nice if YouTube allowed channel owners to pipe in RSS feeds, maybe Twitter messages. The personal touch should be nice too, though. If you aren't subscribed to any channels on YouTube, you're missing out on one of the best ways to experience the site. I'm subscribed to Steve Gillmor , Breaking the News , Social Data Revolution and Brown Man Thinking Hard , among others. (Would love to get your suggestions for video channels to subscribe to, RWW readers.) Blippy CEO Phil Kaplan brought this feature to our attention and framed it as YouTube's version of Twitter. It may play out that way for hard-core YouTube users, but I hope more casual publishers will regularly send out bulletins as well. I wouldn't mind getting them as emails, even. It would be nice for subscribers to be able to reply easily to Channel Bulletins, too. There are lots of ways this could go, but getting it started, offering messaging other than videos and comments, is a good move. Channels have long been a part of YouTube, Paris Hilton got the first branded one in 2006 , and it's pretty far-out to think that text message communication between channel owners and subscribers has taken this long to arrive. Perhaps when you're coming from a video-centric perspective, these things don't always come to mind. There are many other social features that could be added to make YouTube a more compelling site. Could I please be shown the YouTube channels and favorites of my friends on Twitter, Facebook and Google Accounts, for example? That would be great. Discuss

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YouTube Launches Twitter-Like Channel Bulletins

Scanning the news the other day and what do we see but a reminder of the many acronyms in the cloud computing world. Again, it's a vendor with a made up name. This time it's Verizon with an update to its "Computing as a Service" or CaaS for short. Acronyms abound in the cloud computing world - perhaps more than any other technology in play today. They are emerging at a rapid clip. It's understandable as cloud computing is so new and there are so many ways for it to be applied. But it's also frustrating. Sponsor Verizon's service looks solid. But the name creates more confusion. Get this: Verizon also offers "Everything as a Service." That takes the cake, or should we say... muffin! It makes the whole concept of cloud computing a bit confusing as you try to understand what really is available. It becomes an issue of "what is it now?" This week's other imaginative term - Virtualization as a Service - from Salesforce.com and VmWare. It's the center issue for our Weekly Poll: What does Virtualization as a Service Really Mean? Dave Geada, vice president of marketing at StrataScale, had this to say about what it means: I think [new names are] a lot of unwarranted marketing hype (and that means something coming from a marketer). Knowing very little about the announcement, I would guess that the two are partnering in order to provide a platform where Force.com partners can deploy integrated solutions to a VMware enabled Salesforce cloud. In essence these providers would have a one-stop-shop for delivering their solutions to market instead of having to rely on an assortment of hosting partners to deploy their solutions. A joint platform initiative like the one I just described would also benefit enterprises who could host their own customized VM appliances on this cloud and easily integrate them with their Salesforce implementations and Force.com applications. In doing so VMware would be able to access a segment of the market where it's been having some difficulties (i.e. SMB ISVs) and Salesforce would benefit from providing a more comprehensive solution to their partner ecosystem. If I'm right about this (and I reserve the right to be wrong), isn't that a much more compelling story than the mumbo-jumbo we're dealing with now? Cloud providers should demonstrate some more restraint in throwing the "cloud" label around and turn the conversation back around to the value that their providing to customers and partners. And high profile providers like Salesforce and VMware should be setting the example. We expect these ancronyms will filter out over time. Or perhaps VaaS and CaaS will stand the test of time. It's just too early to tell. Until then, how about a muffin? Discuss

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Another Cloud Computing Acronym To Drive You Bonkers

SnapLogic has launched its "snap" store - a service that uses a RESTful architecture to integrate third-party applications into enterprise environments. A RESTful architecture allows companies to leverage light weight, web oriented architectures to bring data in from any source. Sponsor SnapLogic calls its service a data flow to build services with information from the Web and SaaS applications. The snaps may be used for the desktop, a public or private cloud. The SnapLogic Store consists of a network of applications that "snap," into an enterprise without the need for custom integration. It's designed to serve the people who traditionally have had to code by hand. It acts as a reusable framework. Developers with particular forms of expertise can build custom applications that are certified by SnapLogic and offered for sale in the SnapStore. Snap developers receive 70% of the proceeds from the sale of Snaps, without having to pay an annual listing fee. Discuss

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SnapLogic Opens Store For Third Party App Integration