Business 2.0 Posts their Picks for Top 25 Web 2.0 Startups to Watch in 2007

February 22, 2007 at 11:37 am · Filed under Business News

I’ll post the list here for convenient access. The full story can be found here.

Top 25 Startups to Watch in 2007

1. StumbleUpon
2. Slide
3. Bebo
4. Meebo
5. Wikia
6. Joost
7. Dabble
8. Metacafe
9. Revision3
10. Blip.tv
11. Fon
12. Loopt
13. Mobio
14. Tiny
15. SoonR
16. Turn.com
17. ADiFY
18. AdMob
19. SpotRunner
20. ViTrue
21. SucessFactors
22. JanRain
23. LogoWorks
24. Rearden Commerce
25. SimulScribe

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JetBlue Public Apology on YouTube

February 22, 2007 at 12:22 am · Filed under Business News

In case you didn’t see this posted yesterday, JetBlue Airlines, one of my favorite up until last week’s disaster, has posted a public apology from CEO David Neeleham posted on JetBlue’s website and as a video on YouTube.

JetBlue has also introduced a Customer’s Bill of Rights in which the company outlines specific steps it’s taking towards ensuring that customers are compenstated fairly due to delays that are JetBlue’s fault.

Key Highlights from the Customer Bill of Rights (expected to be incorporated into the airline’s contract with the passsenger

• Ground Delays and Departure delays means at least $25 for customers once it hits the 30 minute mark. The longer you wait, the more in vouchers you get until you get a maximum of a free roundtrip ticket.
• Anytime delays hit 5 hours, JetBlue promises to do everything possible to deplane passengers.
• If you are denied boarding due to overbooking, you “shall receive” $1000 - This is one that’s had the people talking. I’m still looking for details on this to find out if you get $1000 plus you get on the next available flight or you get $1000 and you get to book a new flight. If anyone knows, please post a link in the comments.

I think the gesture is sincere and I’ve read “Blue Streak”, a look at David and how he built JetBlue and I believe the company is smart and knows why they messed up and are taking positive steps towards solving those problems.

Some people are already calling this nothing more than a PR stunt and are already picking the Bill of Rights apart on The Consumerist. Let me know what you think.

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Why Another Search 2.0 Engine? Idea and Thoughts…

February 20, 2007 at 8:23 am · Filed under Personal News, Business News, Startup Ideas

Why Another Search Engine?
We use Google everyday and to a large degree, we’ve come to the conclusion that the results Google returns for our searches are “best in class”. Thousands of engineers high on unlimited caffeine and red bull at the Googleplex are refining that algorithm as we speak, thrwarting spammers, getting rid of phising sites, and improving the relevancy of the results overall. But imagine if we added in a social component that would allow for democratic participation in the rating of results based on human-perceived qualities that machines cannot determine easily — factors like quality of content, grammar and syntax, writing style, and even presentation and design.

Overview of Current Social-Ranking Search Engines
I’ve looked at 2 of the most similar search engines out there - Kratia.com and Wink.com. To a large degree, most people have not heard of either although Wink.com does have good coverage and have recently begun to focus more on the People search aspect of their engine and less on the “thumbs up, thumbs down” ranking system.

However, I think there are some shortcomings to both of these engines which hamper their ability to make socially rated search engine results a success.

• Both of these engine’s ranking system is not persistent as you navigate through the search engine results. Once you leave Wink.com, you have to return to Wink to provide a rating. On Kratia.com, the toolbar is persistent but in my testing on IE7 (it doesn’t work with on FF above 1.5), the toolbar was not aware that I was navigating search results for my search for “cat food” as I moved from site to site.
• There is no apparent effective spam/abuse system built-in. On Wink.com, that may not be as big of a problem because they determine results from a combination of both algorithm score + user ratings. On Kratia.com, their philosophy of “Equality: In Kratia every vote has the same value. There are no distinctions, no classes, no authorities” means that webmasters and spammers have the potential to upvote their own site rankings without penalty.
• One size fits all for voting - In the case of Wink.com, it’s a thumbs up or thumbs down and on Kratia it’s a “Like or Not Like”. Users value different aspects of websites which means that any rating system should consider some broader but logical aspects of a website to rank on such as content, quality of writing, presentation & style (quality of images, videos, etc.).

Key Ideas in this New Search Engine

• Leverage existing Google search results for best-of-breed algorithm base.
• Ratings toolbar should be a no-install to ensure maximum adoption. Can be achieved through “Netscape-like” persistent frame w/ AJAX/Flex UI for seamless unintrusive integration into surfing experience.
• Toolbar must be connected to the search engine to provide for navigation across search results even when a user leaves the main search site. This will ensure that users can provide feedback on the spot and move to the next search result w/o having to return to the search site.
• Votes should not be created equal - Merit based system would reward users who consistently rate close to averages to have their scores weighted more heavily. Spammers and those who abuse the system will have their rating’s relevance weighted downwards across ALL of their ratings, eventually diminishing their influence on the search results.

Why would Users do Something for Nothing?
People are inherently good.
Contributing to a more human search and web experience is truly something that can be achieved easily through the power of social networks.
Everyone wants their voice to be heard.
Everyone wants to be recognized. (We’ll have a Top Users board)
People hate BAD Search Results.

Finally, this would force web designers, businesses and individuals to focus on optimizing for People and not for Bots in creating their web experiences. Concepts such as keyword density, hidden text, black hat, white hat, etc. would become irrelevant. What becomes critical to success is relevant, well-written content that that is presented in a clear, easy-to-read, easy to understand format, with great supporting materials such as photos and videos when appropriate.

the Idea in Graphical Format

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