By Hayden Williams On September 1, 2013 There’s a basic question every startup founder should be prepared to answer on a daily basis. It doesn’t matter whether you’re speaking with a fellow entrepreneur, a potential investor, or a girlfriend weary…
THE COUNTRY of Thailand has made trading in Bitcoins illegal within its borders. A notice on the local Bitcoin website said that the business has been attempting to register in the country, but has not been permitted to do so. "During the past several…
By Carmel DeAmicis On July 28, 2013Investment from traditional VC firms is a bit of a bar mitzvah for startups. It’s proof that they’re on their way to adulthood, and if they don’t raise VC money it’s like they haven’t come of age. When a…
On Tuesday, July 9th, 2013 at 8:00am thru Wednesday, July 10th, 2013 at 6:00pm VentureBeat held it's 6th annual flagship conference on the future of mobile, MobileBeat 2013.
Program themes include but are not limited to:
Brands and agencies: Mobile advertising hell — or heaven Mobile advertising was a black hole of despair for anyone trying to make money from it — until this year. We’ll be looking at the impending multibillion dollar advertising spend on mobile. Heavyweights like Lucas Entertainment and Oreo demonstrated a keen mobile dominance in 2012. Hear who will master the shift from one-time campaigns to long-term customer engagement in 2013 and beyond.
Picture from VentureBeat
IT: Consumerization of the enterprise No longer can enterprise companies rely on phrases like “enterprise grade,” “5 9s,” (99.999 percent uptime) and “security” to excuse a poor blend of design and technology. You need security, scalability, and rock-solid reliability alongside intuitive human design. We will explore how you can blend all these concepts to build killer enterprise products.
Infrastructure/Cloud: Scale is beautiful, but implementation is key Networks and cloud systems aren’t just a back-end concern: You must set them up to follow strong design ethics too. They need to enhance, not detract, from the end-user experience. We will explore principles to help you avoid inevitable system failure, risky slowdowns, and end-user backlash.
Mobile money: More money, more problems Banks, businesses, and Bitcoin operators are finally pushing mobile to become a financial tool, not just for advertising and social networking, but for doing actual transactions. How do traditional and more specialized institutions maintain or gain relevance with today’s always-connected, incredibly demanding end-users and enterprises? Learn what the top players are betting on in the next few years, and see how it can affect your business.
Commerce: Mobile experience determines whether you live or die For big retailers, neglecting an integrated strategy for mobile encourages “showrooming” — when shoppers scope out products in physical stores but end up buying online. Whether you’re an online or offline retailer, you need to learn to reduce friction, collect meaningful data, empower sales, and increase customer loyalty. Mobile devices will not replace stores just yet, but they’re influencing what consumer expect: deals, service, and trust at the speed of LTE.
Wearables by design: Welcome to the post-smartphone era How will end-users communicate, consume content, and work in the next few years? Voice commands, hand gestures, and data-collecting wearable devices will all contribute to a ubiquitous network around us.
Mobile gaming gets serious Mobile game studios are no longer a sideshow: They now engage players by the tens of millions, dominate the top of the charts, and know how to get their ad spend back — be it by catering to whales (big spenders) or balancing freemium offerings with in-app content sales. Gaming is ahead of the curve on mobile monetization; it sets the example all mobile businesses should follow.
Mobile development tools In the past few years, a whole industry has cropped up to support new generations of mobile developers. Increasingly, tension has built up between the demands of native platforms and the potential of the mobile web. But better tools are needed to bring the promise of the web and true platform agnosticism to fruition. Reporting, debugging, porting and other concerns dominate mobile developers’ attention. This track will explore the tools on which the mobile world is built.
Digital lifestyle: Curating context in a connected world No matter the business you’re in, context is a critical part of whether you’re successful with your customers. If you are to remain on the cutting edge, you need to know the “who, what, where, when, and why” of your customer interactions. Find out how to maintain that edge from our experts onstage.
Here is a video from the event by Matt Marshall, Founder & Editor-in-Chief, VentureBeat:
AngelList is a community of startups and investors who make fund-raising efficient. AngelList is a platform for startups to meet investors, talent and incubators. Started by the dudes who do Venture Hacks. Meet the startups and investors. AngelList was founded by Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi.
TaskMonkeys provides the ability for people to trade their time and skills for money, focusing mainly on small casual tasks. Task Monkeys was brought into this world by Wellington based professionals Shane Gibbs, Scott Lancaster and Eric Mooij who saw a need to revolutionise the way people earn money and the way people arrange to get tasks done that they would otherwise put off.
Find great people to help around the home and office.
Task Monkeys members can post or do tasks on the go, through a great looking mobile website interface. Task Monkeys members not only have a very simple user interface, they are also given assurance with:
Pre-payment security – Tasks are pre-paid on acceptance, held in security for the user performing the task, and released when the task is completed.
Community Vetting – Feedback and ratings are provided for the user performing the task and to the user who posted the task.
By Michael Carney On July 5, 2013 It’s no secret that the early stage investment ecosystem is changing. More money than ever before is flowing into Seed deals, but companies are finding it increasingly difficult to raise follow-on Series A rounds.…
Don’t ask me about money! I’m a startup founder. (via Pando Daily)
