TechCrunch 50 Winner: FitBit is my Prediction

I spent the last few days at TechCrunch 50 and, while I won't be present at the 'award ceremony', I'd like to predict the winner... both of which are not traditional Web 2.0 companies. In fact, the highlights of the conference for me were around mobile and off-.com where innovation appears to be happening faster and more interestingly. There were great presentations and launches for .com sites (ie Hangout, VideoSurf) - but top to bottom, the mobile space was really impressive... and this will be a continuing trend as the mobile web becomes more efficient, more widespread and more usable thanks to new mediums and devices. FitBit, Swype, MyTopia and others were all standouts.

With that out of the way, my TechCrunch 50 winner was FitBit. Outstanding little device with amazing form factor: it can be worn anywhere and at any point (unlike the Nike Plus gadgets). It's also available at an unbeatable price point: $99. Better yet, it syncs wirelessly and has a full web interface to track your progress, health and friends. Awesome. This will be *the* holiday gift of 2008 (assuming it ships on time). It's also an important product for a serious issue: health.

My only critique: the website offers relatively little information about the product despite offering pre-orders.... I assume this is a consequence of remaining quiet until their TC50 launch. It's tough to ask for $99 without any meaty information. Also, this image is clearly photoshopped... badly:

TechCrunch 50: VideoSurf "A Website that Doesn't Suck" According to Robert Scoble

VideoSurf: Scoble is blogging and video taping from the panel... very funny. The user interface really is impressive and allows for immediate search and browsing of moments and characters within a video (or set of videos). Panelists: Bradley Horowitz Joi Ito Sheryl Sandberg Robert Scoble

Bradley: It reminds me of Flickr and I've spent years writing algorithms to try to detect and tag videos and images. People are better than algorithms at this... I didn't see any social capabilities here - is this coming? Answer: we are going frame by frame to understand entire videos; people can tag videos but it is not scalable to tag frames.

Joi: How accurate is it?

Scoble: How long does it take to index the videos? Can this be done for streaming video? (Qik, Kyte). Answer: working on solutions.

Sheryl: I like it. Very excciting. I look at this as an exciting development for video and the appllications that follow. I think that startnig out with a consumer facing website is the right approach to build your business.

Scoble: My thought when watching this was "finally a website that doesn't suck."

TechCrunch 50 Language & Platform: Swype Wows Panel

AlfaBetic: Monetizing across languages. Not sure how / if this works... but scaling content across various languages is a big business (if done technically) for big companies like eBay that operate in dozens of countries. Localizing content is immensely difficult and costly. So should this work (and demo isn't clear) it is powerful. Om: whose translation engine do you use? Answer: engine is internally built with emphasis on different locales. What's your accuracy rate? Answer: depends on domain and location - but 80-90 percent.

Om: How many ads can you serve per page there because the bloggers really control that?

Tim: how is this actually done - does blogger need to buy another domain name? (very good question...). Answer: we are interested in a syndication play where we become the portal (bloggers won't sign up for this, in my opinion).

Josh: what are the costs involved in monitoring / cleansing each post? Answer: $1,000 in all langauges per month for all TechCrunch.

Om: I wouldnt use this. If we went international, we would do it dedicated (like TechCrunch) and focus on each location.

Tim: I wouldn't use either - for the same reason.

PostBox: desktop email application. The presentation has a bizarre sound metronome behind it... I can't hear a word they are saying... OK - that was not their noise. He handled it very well - hilarious.

Josh: Question: Do you support POP, Exchange, etc? Answer: Yes: IMAP, POP, SMTP.

Tim: How far have you pushed it scale-wise? Will it support my 10,000s of emails? Answer: we have tested internally and it supports 30,000 messages to date...

Evan: Looks great but is it enough to combat the massive move from desktop email to web-based?

Tim: this is less an email client and more like a personal information management system. I look forward to trying it.

Om: Gmail is convenient and plugins make it easy to mimic what you do but in the browser? How do you get paid? TIm jumps in and says it could very well be Microsoft purchase.

Half the audience raises its hand saying they would download and try it.

Swype: "we will change how people input text on screens." He is drawing a line through a mock qwerty keyboard and swiping series of letters that it renders into words based on clusters of lettering (I think). Appears to be very forgiving. Corrects common mispellings. This is pretty amazing. The ties onto smaller keyboards is clear (video games, laptops, touch screens, gps, etc). Not sure how it works with symbols, caps, etc - all things the iPhone really struggles with. This is killer. Now the demo is wihtout a stylus - he used his finger and it about 50% the speed but still pretty slick. Demo moves to smaller screens (a Windows Mobile cell phone) and its slower than either the Blackberry or iPhone.

By the way... there is an iPhone app that exists already that does this.... not sure how quality stacks up - but it's exactly the same for the iPhone.

The panel tries to swype and Evan says "it's mindless." Josh asks if it will really work without a stylus? Answer: it works best on a screen designed for touch (like iPhone). Jason asks about characters and shifiting (my question): Om: These companies are notoriously difficult to partner / get to market with (speaking of Nokia, etc). Answer: you can approach both the carrier and the OEM... and the iPhone has created a pressure for non-iPhone decks to include better feature sets. Om: sell to Micrsoft now. Josh: isn't this a patent mine field? (great question).Answer: we believe its a strength not a weakness considering our history.

Dropbox: Synchronizing file sharing, updating and portability.

Tim: why isn't this a feature with Google or Microsoft? Evan: Microsoft has a product called FolderShare - how does this compare? Answer: we add a web interface and team dynamic. Josh: I like the user interface. How do you deal with multiple people editing documents at same time (big issue for software like Collab, Trac, Google)? Answer: not really an answer. Has to be manually resolved between versions.

Devunity: the panel is confused as to what it is... good, makes me feel better.

Quick panel recap - favorites:

Josh: Swype. For user experience, its great. Evan: Swype. Looked brilliant and big need. Difficult business though. Tim: Swype. Challenging biz-dev problems but interesting bet. I'd like to try out Postbox though. Om: Swype. By far the most practical.

TechCrunch 50 Finance Session: iCharts, Me-trics and Emerginvest All Winners

PersonalRIAMark Cuban: "I hate the idea but it still could work." How do you vet investment advisors and protect from fraud? Roelef: reminds me of Cake financial. You take advantage of sloth and greed: people want to make money and they are lazy. Primary question is customer acquisition?

Emergeinvest: Enabling foreign investments and trading information finding. Roelef: likes it alot. Solves personal frustrations. Cuban: Disagrees with Roelef. Sources of information are critical and this is not unique content. "Why would I come to you unless I am just window shopping?" Kevin: why can't Yahoo be the Yahoo of emerging markets?

ExchangeP: Virtual fantasy stock market for private companies. Think fantasy markets and protrade for web 2.0. Roelef: important question is can you have cash work here instaed of fantasy. users need to have a real ante and skin in the game; without that, I wonder if users will behave appropriately. Mark: interesting idea but wrong business. You won't have enough users to make real money. Become the toolset for people to create their own exchanges (ala Ning). Interesting... I agree here Don: value is in other verticals. what is business model here?

Me-trics: Google Analytics for you. Kevin: needs to be automated. The fun will wear off over time and difficult to keep people posting / updating. Don: interesting idea and takes advantage of our focus on health and fitness. But lots of these sites are popping up. Getting people to input data is tough - and implausible for things like blood pressure. Kevin: integrating with products like Wii Fit is a no brainer. And the marginal cost to consumers is low enough that people would buy as value-add.

iCharts: 40,000,000 onlne charts. 900,000,000 charts printed each year (really?). Trying to MS Excel + SlideShare. Roelef: Interesting idea because I spend too many hours slaving over Excel. Intrigued by the idea but we are dealing with an explosion of information and there is value in distributed inforamtion. Don: I love it. Search-ability is the big win and advancement. This might be a feature - not a company though. Kevin: I like the idea but spend time with the design. Critical here. What do you think of Google Charts API? Mark: you have the easiest business model of anyone we've seen todady. License the proudct to all of the other presenters today. People forget to follow the money - this is easy.

Favorites from this morning from the panel Roelef: iCharts and Emergeinvest / PersonalRIA. All three can get a Sequoia meeting. Don: iCharts is the best. Emergeinvest is second. Financial market is so huge. Kevin: Me-trics for what they could be. Mark: Me-trics has best long term opportunity. iCharts has quickest to money opportunity. ExchangeP can be big if they become ExchangeEngine.

TechCrunch 50 Mobile Session: FitBit and Tonchidot Steal Show

Best session of TechCrunch 50 so far... tons of innovation in the mobile space and it would have made sense to expand this 'vertical' with more companies.

MyTopia: Helping the mobile web play together. They are running a single game being played natively on all phone systems: Blackberry, iPhone, Symbian, Palm, Android, etc. This is Widgetbox for Mobile. Wow. This is amazing.

Tim OReilly: what is performance of the apps? Benchmarking? Josh Kopelman: Do you see yourself as a tool provider or a content provider? Answers: tool. Tim: Who pays you? I didn't hear the full answer... Tim says they need to figure out which angle to take quickly as it determines the product path. Evan: solves a need but there is a focus problem.

The demo for MyTopia was amazing... the Q/A session is quite confusing and dampened the excitment.

Tonchidot / Sekai Camera: bizarre presentation but freaking awesome product that I would use immediately but would kill the iPhone in about 15 minutes of usage (less their problem / technology than Apple's need to fix). It's a tag / social alerting system based on the iPhone and GPS.

Josh and Tim ask about where the current tagging data is coming from: internal and/or user-generated?

The founder has said loudly that he rejects a Google acquisition and the crowd went wild. He is hilarious.

Tim: wonderful concept but, "can you build it and are you building it the right way?' Also wonders how much of what they built is in aggregating what is done elsewhere so that they don't have to build it entirely themselves.

They are the clear fan favorites... this session is hysterical. Standing ovation.

MobClix: analytics and logging for mobile applications. Big need for mobile developers and the UI looks powerful. Think Google Analytics for your mobile apps (primarily iPhone Apps... exclusively? I cannot tell). They also have an ad system built in to help monetize apps.

Tim: Who pays you? What's the rev-split on the ad system? Where's the growth? The iPhone is great - but its not big enough to sustain a large enough audience. Tim: You need widespread adoption... why do developers choose you? You need developers with winning apps to make money. Josh: an investor in Pinch Media and therefore cannot comment. He says its critical to be cross platform / carrier.

FitBit: think Nike Fit on steroids.... a little device that clips on to your pocket, shorts, etc and monitors your activity. It's wireless and it uploads data to the bay station. Will sell for $99 and hit stores in December. Preorder available starting today. I am in.

Why not a subscription model? Answer: we plan on having premium subscriptions over time.

Tim and Evan: love it and want one. Josh: Form factor is slick. How do you differentiate from Nike? Answer: form factor is the solve. Tim: Do you make money at $99? Answer: yes.

It is not using GPS so it will not give pace. It is not the ideal running solution - but for general health it is ideal.

TechCrunch 50 Finance Session: iCharts, Me-trics and Emerginvest All Winners

PersonalRIAMark Cuban: "I hate the idea but it still could work." How do you vet investment advisors and protect from fraud? Roelef: reminds me of Cake financial. You take advantage of sloth and greed: people want to make money and they are lazy. Primary question is customer acquisition?

Emerginvest: Enabling foreign investments and trading information finding. Roelef: likes it alot. Solves personal frustrations. Cuban: Disagrees with Roelef. Sources of information are critical and this is not unique content. "Why would I come to you unless I am just window shopping?" Kevin: why can't Yahoo be the Yahoo of emerging markets?

ExchangeP: Virtual fantasy stock market for private companies. Think fantasy markets and protrade for web 2.0. Roelef: important question is can you have cash work here instaed of fantasy. users need to have a real ante and skin in the game; without that, I wonder if users will behave appropriately. Mark: interesting idea but wrong business. You won't have enough users to make real money. Become the toolset for people to create their own exchanges (ala Ning). Interesting... I agree here Don: value is in other verticals. what is business model here?

Me-trics: Google Analytics for you. Kevin: needs to be automated. The fun will wear off over time and difficult to keep people posting / updating. Don: interesting idea and takes advantage of our focus on health and fitness. But lots of these sites are popping up. Getting people to input data is tough - and implausible for things like blood pressure. Kevin: integrating with products like Wii Fit is a no brainer. And the marginal cost to consumers is low enough that people would buy as value-add.

iCharts: 40,000,000 onlne charts. 900,000,000 charts printed each year (really?). Trying to MS Excel + SlideShare. Roelef: Interesting idea because I spend too many hours slaving over Excel. Intrigued by the idea but we are dealing with an explosion of information and there is value in distributed inforamtion. Don: I love it. Search-ability is the big win and advancement. This might be a feature - not a company though. Kevin: I like the idea but spend time with the design. Critical here. What do you think of Google Charts API? Mark: you have the easiest business model of anyone we've seen todady. License the proudct to all of the other presenters today. People forget to follow the money - this is easy.

Favorites from this morning from the panel Roelef: iCharts and Emergenvest / PersonalRIA. All three can get a Sequoia meeting. Don: iCharts is the best. Emergenvest is second. Financial market is so huge. Kevin: Me-trics for what they could be. Mark: Me-trics has best long term opportunity. iCharts has quickest to money opportunity. ExchangeP can be big if they become ExchangeEngine.

TechCrunch 50 Collaboration Session: Tingz, Mixtt, Imindi, Popego

Tingz: cross platform widget system. Nice UI. I cannot get over the name Tingz - he keeps saying "you can share your Tingz with friends." Quite confusing.

Don Dodge: getting adoption will be very difficult as it is a crowded market. Kevin Rose: "invite system via email is done. People are over it." Kevin is the first judge during the conference to be really frank and harsh.

Both judges have questioned teh monetizability of the widgets.

Roelaf: you are trying to do too much. Difficult to start off being a platform. Companies become platforms over time - not on day one.

Mixtt: Seems like a social network for dating (they mentioned Match.com and Facebook quite a lot)

Kevin Rose: why not build it as a Facebook App? Don: I like it because online dating is HUGE. Big market. Your challenge is, "why is this not a widget?" Building a stand alone social site looks easy but getting adoption is incredibly difficult. Hyper local identification is incredibly difficult.

I'd add that hyper local content is difficult because it slices your community too thin and requires huge audiences. For Kijiji and Craigslist, go to Nashville and select a category - the depth of inventory is very limited. This will be worse for a new local social network and dating community.

Mark Cuban: how do you prevent the 'creep' factor? I agree - major challenge.

Imindi: "The world's first thought engine." I just heard a whisper: this will either be really cool or really disastrous.

First question: "what's the business model?"

Response: "Great question. It's an advertising centered model taking lessons from Google but going one step further."

Mark Cuban: "That sounds like the biggest pile of bullshit ever."

Don: "this is rocket science applied to the wrong problem."

Kevin Rose: "I consider myself fairly geeky and this is *way* out there."

Roelaf: "to be candid, I don't understand what problem you are trying to solve."

Popego: "bringing you a more meaningful web." Not sure if this is a product that belongs in TechCrunch50's Collaboration track or Meme track... seems like a mix of yesterday's Angstro and FriendFeed.

Kevin Rose: Streams and feeds are crowded - tough to stand out and it's an unproven space. Facebook has featured their feed front and center - tough to compete there.

Roelaf: Design and interface are very well done. Attractive site. "I worry about distribution." Business model is second "critical question."

Mark: Joining the "network management tools" space and the ones who won over time were the ones with a "sexy look". You need something to stand out. Figure out whats exclusive to you.

ComScore Announces Self Service Model - Coming After Quantcast?

At the poorly-attended breakfast session at TechCrunch 50 (maybe because its 8am) - ComScore has announced quietly that they are releasing a self-service model "in the next few days". A publisher will be able to tag their own site and then collect standard ComScore reporting metrics.

This places them directly across the table from Quantcast and opens them to smaller publishers who traditionally cannot afford to work with ComScore. It is yet to be seen how ComScore will treat their self-service (supposedly free) model with their revenue-based model (which is prohibitively expensive for most).

Quantcast is the clear leader in the self service space. Compete is trying to differentiate themselves through premium data. To date, ComScore has served the large publishers... interesting to see what traction ComScore gets with the smaller publishers... there is only room for so many tracking pixels on each webpage.

Also interesting to note that ComScore has now mentioned Quantcast in passing a handful of times during their presentation.

TechCrunch Advertising Session: OtherInbox Popular, CopyBox Interesting

CopyBox - dynamic ads created with APIs / intelligence. They aren't focused on small business - they are instead focused on ad agencies. *If they could focus on small business and make it consumer fronting*... I love it and it would have saved me hours (while improving conversions) while running paid search on Kijiji and beRecruited. Seems like a Google acquisition - scales ad building immensely.

Adgregate Markets - In-widget commerce including the entire transaction.

AdRocket - targeted ad engine for emails and delivery. Will it get through Spam filters? My non-advertising ads don't even go through routinely... major hurdle here.

OtherInbox - email organization tool to move the clutter from your primary inbox to your "other" inbox. Seems pretty slick but I am not sure that I would actually check back and get to those 'archived' emails. I guess its a blessing and a curse. Great presenter. The audience seems to *really* like the product - a third of the audience raised their hand when asked if they would buy the product.