Cliff Edwards' Tech & You column this week profiles a new product from Emotiv Systems, a San Fran-based start-up backed by Technology Venture Partners (out of Australia) and Epicure Capital Partners. Emotiv has developed a mind-reading headset (yes, that's right) slated to ship this year for just $299. The device translates your thoughts into computer instructions using EEG technology (similar to what hospitals use). Emotive says it is initially targeting the entertainment and gaming markets. Sign me up, as long as I get to keep my hair that is.



-posted by Adrienne

The LA Times' Top of the Ticket blog has an entertaining post discussing the recent New Yorker magazine Obama cover and reminds us all what not to do when faced with an outlandish or otherwise icky allegation.

For those of you needing a quick recap, the New Yorker ran a cartoon cover with Obama and his wife dressed as terrorists, burning the flag etc. Obama's campaign immediately went public with a strong denunciation of the cover, which drew massive attention to the image, an image that Obama obviously would have preferred quickly die on the newsstands. Instead it became an Internet wildfire.

Days later on Larry King Live, when asked about the cover, Obama delivered a great response...

"Well, I know it was the New Yorker's attempt at satire. I don't think they were entirely successful with it. But you know what? It's a cartoon, Larry, and that's why we've got the 1st Amendment.

"And I think the American people are probably spending a little more time worrying about what's happening with the banking system and the housing market, and what's happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, than a cartoon. So I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it."

...but as the LA Times points out, it was unfortunately several days too late.

-posted by Adrienne

It has been a bad few weeks for the Mercedes and Lexus drivers here at Voxus, so I thought I'd share two new sites: DriverSide and RepairPal. Still in testing, both sites rely on user supplied data to quote price ranges for various automotive repairs. More details in Stephen Wildstrom's review (he prefers RepairPal).

-posted by Adrienne

As a friend of Melodeo, and someone that came of age in the 80s, today's news that Guns N' Roses guitarist Duff McKagen joined Melodeo's advisory board caught my eye. So now, besides humming Sweet Child O' Mine, I'm wondering what Melodeo has been up to - they've been kinda quiet this past year after receiving new funding. Well....it looks like they've launched a service called nuTsie that lets you move around your iTunes library from your PC to mobile, including blackberry. The cool part is that you access your tunes from your blackberry but don't actually load the files to the device. The service has received some great blog reviews and if it's really as easy as it sounds, me and my berry are going to be stoked.

[Wait, we have someone that works here that doesn't have an iphone? I'll have to look into this... -paul]

-posted by Adrienne

There's a new tech blog in town, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal...

Xconomy.com, a blog devoted to economic issues related to technology, said it's launched its second national site in Seattle. Launched in Boston last year, Xconomy said it's hired several journalists in the Seattle area to cover the area's technology industry. The company said it raised an undisclosed amount of funding in a Series A round of financing last year. Xconomy officials said they've received support from Alexandria Real Estate Equities of Pasadena, Calif., Polaris Venture Partners of Waltham, Mass., the Science & Technology Directorate of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association, the Washington Technology Industry Association, and the Technology Alliance.

-posted by Adrienne

In today's economic climate all manner of companies are looking at ways to tighten their operations, or simply stated, do more with less. And in the industrial distribution sector where labor is a significant cost, less often means less people. And yet, Inbound Logistics reports that almost 20 percent of warehouse workers responding to a recent Gallup poll describe themselves as "actively disengaged" from their work. As many as half of those surveyed were doing just enough work to get by.

PathGuide Technologies' customer Omni Services is doing more with less by automating its warehouse. As a result, it has decreased total man hours by 18.5% (and lowered costs to pick/receive a line by 7%). Read more in the current issue of Progressive Distributor.

I was surprised to read that Borders has selected Tukwila (really?) as one of the sites for its 14 digital media concept stores. While I don't get to Tukwila often I just might have to go check this out. The new stores, according to USA Today, include digital centers for downloading music and books, burning CDs, ordering photo albums etc.

Like (most) everyone, I love being around books and I love wandering through the aisles of a book store. Adding digital centers is a powerful way to monetize this advantage that physical stores have over their online competitors. Hey Borders, can you light up the Gig Harbor store next?

-posted by Adrienne

It seems like it wasn't that long ago when Seattle was getting slammed for its lack of green tech innovators, so it's nice to see Verdiem continue to make progress. According to PSBJ they've raised an additional $12M bringing total funding to $27M. Verdiem makes software that turns off computers when they are not in use, thereby lowering power consumption. At savings of $20-$60 annually per PC it's obviously a large enterprise play, and they've got some great customers to tout such as the state of Washington, Clear Channel Communications, and Turner Broadcasting. We're a small shop so we'll likely continue our power sucking ways, but we look forward to watching this company grow.

-posted by Adrienne

Seattle-based A Place For Mom has made its debut. The company offers the nation's largest referral service for senior care options. Since I just went through the process of finding a place to live for my fabulous and spunky grandma, this site appealed to me (and because in addition to spunky, my grandma is fickle, hence we're still scouting other options). I did a quick search - the site is easy to navigate and packed full of info.

Backed by Battery Ventures, the company's CEO John Temple was named to the Puget Sound Business Journal’s 2007 40 under 40 list. The company has also received several awards for its growth, including the Inc. 5000 and Entrepreneur Magazine Hot 500.

-posted by Adrienne

Starbucks at its annual shareholder meeting has pledged it will get back to its roots - coffee. New equipment, better/more informed baristas, fresher coffee, yahda yahda. Sounds like a good branding 101 plan. Joe Pine, co-founder of Strategic Horizons LLP and an expert on marketing experiences, warns that the plan could go wrong if the company doesn't do a good job explaining the changes to baristas who will be responding to "confused customer's questions." Not sure what's confusing...Starbucks is going to give me a better latte. What I do find confusing though, is the company's plan to begin offering energy drinks and get into the health and wellness business. Pretty sure last time I checked energy drinks and caffeine weren't so great on the body. Oh well, I'm just happy about the better latte.

Allison Linn's MSNBC article has more info.

-posted by Adrienne

On Feb. 24, coconut and babassu oil biofuel from Seattle-based Imperium Renewables powered a Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 from London Heathrow to Amsterdam, making Virgin the first airline in the world to fly on renewable fuel. According to the press release no modifications were made to either the aircraft or its engines to enable the flight to take place. And, Boeing will use the findings in another demonstration flight later this year. In case you're wondering, like me, what babassu is, it's a palm which grows in the Amazon region of South America. The oil is increasingly being used as a substitute for coconut oil.

-posted by Adrienne

According to the PSBJ, Lynwood-based Trupanion has raised $22M in financing from Maveron LLC. Trupanion sells pet insurance and has had a strong presence in Canada since 2000, primarily targeting veterinarians as its channel. Trupanion is now targeting "pet parents" here in the US. They must be onto something with backing from Maveron (leading consumer brand VC behind Starbucks and eBay) and Renaissance RE (a $4 billion dollar insurance company).

-posted by Adrienne

So it's not the first time I've screwed up a basic online book order. Yes, I did ask for it by cancelling my order, then placing another one, and then trying to combine them to get the free shipping all within the span of about 6 seconds, but nonetheless, I contacted customer service. Have you used the click to call service from eStara yet? very cool. Type in your phone number and a real human calls you, immediately. No annoying voice prompts or sitting on hold. And what was really great, when I managed to disconnect myself in the middle of the call, the service rep finished fixing my order and sent me an email to confirm. love you amazon.

-posted by Adrienne

This week's PSAMA event in Seattle was packed with marketing folks eager to hear from speaker Robert H. Bloom, former Chairman and CEO of Publicis Worldwide, (where he led accounts such as Loreal, T-Mobile, and BMW). He was there to schlep his book "The Inside Advantage" and spoke primarily about the need to know your core customer. While all companies have multiple customer types, to be successful a business must be able to define precisely who it is that they must own. Bloom also spoke about how product marketing must focus not only on tangible benefits but emotional benefits as well - case in point, when he held up a small and distinct robin's egg/aqua Tiffany box every woman in the room broke into a smile.

-posted by Adrienne

VOXUS client CozyBug, an online flea market and garage sale boutique, this week radically expanded its reach by tying into Trulia, Oodle, Vast.com, and Google Base. Now you can post a free listing once and gain much broader exposure for all that really great stuff cluttering up your garage. If you're one of the dissatisfied eBay users out there, give CozyBug a try.

-posted by Adrienne

Anyone who has worked even remotely with the majors (music labels) knows how unendingly painful it can be. Nonetheless, I could still feel the collective grimace go out last week when Qtrax backtracked (as the labels refuted) its claims that it had licensing deals (as reported by Reuters). Music industry veteran Bruce Houghton speculates it may have been a negotiation tactic or stock manipulation by Qtrax. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, happens now for Qtrax.

-posted by Adrienne

Voxus client SARS Corp. is doing some interesting work with the oil drilling company Rowan by tracking the location of Rowan's oil rigs (offshore and land-based) as well as buoys marking sunken rigs and helicopters transporting crew. As far as we know, this is one of the few industry examples out there of a single telematics service accessing information on three different asset types (actually four if you separate land rigs and offshore rigs) and delivering it to the customer within one single view.

You can also read more about SARS the company in today's Seattle Times article by Tricia Duryee.

-posted by Adrienne

There was a great turn-out at the recent South Sound PRSA Chapter event which was a panel discussion on the topic of how to leverage user-generated media. Panelists included Nathan Kaiser of nPost, Paul Ellis of Tacoma-Piece County Chamber, Mark Briggs of newstribune.com, and Frank Shaw (one of my most favorite persons on the planet) of Waggener Edstrom.

We had strong audience participation and panelists not only shared tangible advice and examples, they were also damn funny. A few basic themes (for companies interesting in better leveraging new media, or just plain getting started) included:

* know your audience and your communications objective - don't just follow the latest trend
* be authentic, be transparent, or in some cases, per Shaw, be "radically translucent"
* go for it - get out there and experiment, take some risks

For more details, check out Briggs' additional commentary http://blogs.thenewstribune.com/online/

Also check out a few examples of local and non-local companies and bloggers cited by the panelists:
Blendtec
Zillow
Dell
Hotel Morano
Sonos

Thanks again to PRSA, the panelists and audience members for a great event!

-posted by Adrienne

As PR professionals, it doesn't get much better when we have clients who not only have great technology, but hold a lengthy roster of happy customers. Case in point, VOXUS client PathGuide Technologies, a provider of warehouse management systems for industrial distributors. While warehouse management systems might not sound all that exciting, PathGuide customer Red-L Distributors saving $85,000 a year based on one small product feature (lot tracking) certainly is. Read more in this month's issue of Inbound Logistics.

-posted by Adrienne

We're pleased to have lined up the following panelists for the PRSA South Sound Chapter event on Nov. 8. It should be a great discussion on the topic of user generated media.

New Media: User Generated Media & Using it to Your Advantage
November 8, 2007
8:00am - 9:00am
MetroParks headquarters
4702 South 19th Street, Tacoma

Esteemed panelists include:

Mark Briggs, Editor, thenewstribune.com
Mark Briggs is editor of thenewstribune.com, the flagship web site for The News Tribune newspaper in Tacoma, Wash. He has worked in new media for newspapers since 2000 and has contributed to workshops, seminars and textbooks on the topic. He uses his blog to track the evolution of the local webosphere and other emerging trends that are important to the South Sound region.

Frank Shaw, Worldwide President, Waggener Edstrom
Waggener Edstrom Worldwide President Frank X. Shaw leads the Microsoft team at the agency and is responsible for all global PR efforts across the account. Frank is an avid follower of the blogosphere and tracks the impact bloggers have on corporate reputations, stock fluctuations, crisis situations and product launches. Frank began writing a daily blog for Waggener Edstrom Worldwide employees in April 2003. He covers a variety of topics on the agency's intranet relating to innovative public relations and the technology industry, and offers a witty perspective on "water cooler" subjects.

Nathan Kaiser, CEO, nPost
Nathan Kaiser is CEO of nPost, an organization that promotes and facilitates tech entrepreneurship. Nathan brings a unique perspective about new media and the opportunities and challenges facing businesses operating in a web 2.0 world.

Paul Ellis, Metropolitan Development Director, Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber
Paul Ellis is the Director for Metropolitan Development for the Tacoma-Pierce County Chamber, the South Sound's largest local business organization. Paul manages the Tacoma Technology Consortium, the Regional Access Mobility Partnership (RAMP), and divisions of the Chamber throughout the metropolitan area. He also directs the Downtown Tacoma Business Improvement Area, and 84-block assessment district that maintains and markets Tacoma's city center. Paul maintains a number of blogs. He brings real-world insight on what works and what doesn't when using blogs to inform and engage the local community.


See you at the event!

-posted by Adrienne

For those of you out there who spend way too much time entering data into your company's Siebel CRM system, our client Knouen has announced OfficeSync, an add-in for Outlook that provides bidirectional synchronization between Siebel CRM and Outlook. Lack of strong ROI and user adoption from CRM systems has long been a problem. Knouen founder Meetul Shah is a Microsoft veteran who worked on CRM alliances, and based on early feedback from the analyst community, his company is meeting a clear need in the marketplace.

-posted by Adrienne

One of our newest clients, CozyBug, this week joined the growing crowd of Facebook application providers. With CozyBug's new app, Facebook users can post rich classified ads and garage sale listings on their personal profiles. Read more about it on Mashable, the world’s largest blog focused exclusively on social networks.

-posted by Adrienne

Want to get the inside scoop on your favorite TV show? BuddyTV, a start-up out of Seattle, offers communities around TV shows featuring inside news, celebrity interviews and gossip. You can also read a recent nPost interview with BuddyTV CEO David Niu.

-posted by Adrienne

According to reports in the New York Times and on Forbes.com, business publishing mainstay Business 2.0 magazine's September issue could be its last. Even though the tech industry is cranking and start-ups proliferating, some of our favorite print publications (e.g. Red Herring) are not benefitting. On the upside though, sites such as GigaOm and PaidContent are growing. Nothing (yet) quite compares though to landing, and literally touching, that Business 2.0 cover story. If it's true, we'll miss you.

-posted by Adrienne

We're looking forward to the Casual Connect 2007 conference in Seattle next week. The event will bring together developers, publishers and distributors within the casual games industry (which is, by the way, the fastest growing segement of the video game industry). It should be a great event with speakers from companies such as MTV and Google, as well as local favorites Sandlot Games, PopCap Games, Big Fish Games and PlayFirst.

-posted by Adrienne

Seattle-based start-up mPoria is gaining momentum in its effort to cash in on the m-commerce space. According to IDC and Jupiter Media Metrix the m-commerce market has reached $58.4 billion this year in the United States, up from $29 billion in 2006. This week mPoria announced a deal with PayPal to integrate PayPal's automated mobile payment service into mPoria's m-commerce platform. mPoria converts online retail shopping sites so they can be accessed from mobile phones. Prior to this deal, mPoria funneled payment information to the retailer which then handled the transaction. Now shoppers can select the PayPal option to complete their transaction directly.

-posted by Adrienne

Seattle-based Attenex, a developer of electronic discovery software (targetting the legal industry) continues to build its collection of patents, recently announcing its 10th patent. Attenex also recently picked up a Red Herring 100 award, and was recognized at the WSA Investor Forum as one of the most promising private software companies in Washington State.

-posted by Adrienne

VOXUS client Intoto is taking aim at the middle market with a disruptive new model that offers free network-centric security software downloads. First out of the gate at Interop is IntruPro IPS, an intrusion prevention system. It's the first free server offering (free desktop offerings have been available) and it's the good stuff - unthrottled, high-end fuctionality - the same thing Intoto currently delivers to the OEM market serving many of the world's biggest enterprises. So why do businesses need IPS? According to Charles Kolodgy at IDC, "IPS systems are the next generation firewalls."

-posted by Adrienne