NewsGator announced that Dykema – a large midwest law firm – has implemented NewsGator Enterprise Server.  Dykema has 10 offices and 800 users nationwide and they wanted integration with Microsoft Outlook.  After considering several RSS aggregators that integrate directly with Outlook on the desktop (including NewsGator’s), Dykema determined that it was much more effective to use NewsGator’s Enterprise Server product and integrate with Microsoft Exchange (and correspondingly have seamless integration with Outlook, yet the benefits of centralized administration and no additional software on each desktop.)  This is especially helpful in a multiple location (in this case – 10 site) implementation. 

If you are at a law firm and you want RSS integrated into Outlook, you’ll no longer be one of the first adopters of this product.  Drop the guys at NewsGator a line (or me if you want to make sure you get to the right person) if you are interested.

After trying a few different address combinations, I finally figured out that Vonage’s 911 address database must suck.  Here’s the deal.

I don’t actually have a legal physical address.  I’ve mentioned this before in conjunction with issues I’ve had around the Patriot Act.  I came up with a solution that solves the Patriot Act issue (that the USPS will accept without rejecting my mail).  Occasionally it’s annoying (e.g. when someone tries to send a Fedex to my PO Box – yes – that still happens), but I generally ignore the fact that I’m theoretically off the grid since I have a T1 line coming into my house (thanks Qwest).

Whatever database Vonage is using for 911 doesn’t have my physical address.  Now – this wasn’t a problem for Qwest as they likely mapped my address based on my wired telephone pairs and their own special address database.  But presumably Vonage bought their database from someone and it depends on a database that – well – doesn’t include weirdos like me that don’t have a “legal physical address.” 

Interestingly, when I check Yahoo Maps, Google Maps, and Google Earth, they nail it – both displaying my address and providing correct directions – even though I don’t have a “legal physical address.”  I happen to know that Telcontar powers these services, so at least they are getting the correct data.

Presumably Vonage should give Telcontar a call.  But – it gets trickier.  In May, when I go to Paris, I’m going to bring my Vonage phone (and router) with me.  I’m using a public IP address (yes – I’ve already checked to make sure I know the configuration in my apartment) so Vonage should be able to find me that way.  Oh – 911 doesn’t work in Paris.  Hmmm.  Then – when I go to my place in Alaska this summer, we’ll have the same drill.  If I forget to update my “current address” at Vonage, the police will show up somewhere (assuming Vonage figures out my Colorado address) when the axe murder shows up at my place in Alaska.  Hey Vonage – there’s this thing called geolocation that can at least tell you when I’m not at the location you happen to think I’m at – at the minimum you could remind me to update my physical information.

I imagine this is going to get worse before it gets better as the regulated telco services (e.g. requirement for 911) intersects with new and exciting IP services.  Quova’s been on the front end of this with territory rights and the Olympics and Live NBA Games in Brazil (it’s not just a US problem although Quova has been working with Major League Baseball on this issue since 2003.) 

Geography + IP + Regulated Services = Mess.

I invested in Judy’s Book around Thanksgiving and wrote a long post about why I made the investment.  Earlier this week, Judy’s Book rolled out a major release which we’ve been fondly referring to “the facelift.”  The front end is significantly changed (and improved based on user feedback) as are a bunch of things under the hood.  In addition – like many good “early versions” – there were a lot of architectural changes made to make it much easier to rapidly roll out new functionality now that we have a pretty good sense of where we are going.

For the techies in the audience, we’re now supporting WOPM (“write once publish many”) where you can create a review in Judy’s Book and have it published automagically on your blog (TypePad, LiveJournal, Blogger, WordPress, and Movable Type are currently supported).  Oh – and these are formatted using the hReview microformat (hmmm – wonder where we are going with that? – remember – I said we made architectural changes to make it easier to roll out new functionality.)  There are plenty of RSS feeds easily discoverable to see what people are writing about in each city in the US, or – if you just want to see what a particular person is writing about, you can subscribe to their feed also.  Members get their own pages with a user-definable URL – think “platform” for this if you want a sense of where things are going.

For the non-techies (and techies) in the audience, give it a whirl and give us feedback.  We are providing some financial incentives over the next three weeks – $100 gift certificate each day to the person that writes the most new reviews that day – so don’t be bashful.

StillSecure – a company that I’ve been an investor in since 2000 – had a great week.  Raj Bhargava – the CEO – and I are close friends who have worked on five companies together going back a decade to NetGenesis – a company Raj co-founded that I was the first angel investor in with Will Herman.

StillSecure plays in the highly competitive security software market.  They’ve got a family of three products that are nicely integrated – VAM (Vulnerability Management), Safe Access (Network access control / endpoint security), and Strata Guard (IDS/IPS).  All three products are well regarded and have been reviewed heavily.  On Tuesday night, we found out that StillSecure’s Safe Access was chosen over six other finalists for the SC Magazine Readers Choice Award for Best Endpoint Security Product.

This followed an OEM deal with Senforce and a deep integration with IdentiPHI’s endpoint management solution.  Finally, StillSecure released their Endpoint Security Index.  The data in the Endpoint Security Index will change regularly and measures how various endpoint security policies protect networks from various endpoint-based threats.

 Congrats guys – nice week.

What’s not to like about the following lead in for an article:

What Toyota did for cars and Dell did for computers is what Rally Software hopes to do for application development.

Rally Software released their new versions of their software life-cycle management solutions for agile development on February 13th.  We had a board meeting yesterday and the first slide of the meeting was a recently received very large check from a customer.  Nothing like setting the tone nicely!

279: Own Your Mistakes: FeedBurner screwed up the other day.  One of the new guys on the publisher team sent out a generic, unsolicited email to about 90 people who aren’t FeedBurner publishers.  While it’s arguable about whether or not it was spam, it was bad form, stupid, and not FeedBurner’s style.  There was some immediate chatter about it from a few of the people that received the emails and rather than defend it, Dick Costolo (FeedBurner’s CEO) immediately commented on each post he saw saying “we screwed up – we’re sorry” and then put up a public apology on the web site later in the day.  Every company (and everybody) makes mistakes regularly.  Acknowledging them immediately, apologizing, correcting them, and learning from them is less common.

280: Our New Investor: Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures posted the other day about Why USV Invested in FeedBurner. I’ve known Fred since the mid-1990’s and have worked and invested with him in a number of companies.  Fred’s actually the guy that introduced me to FeedBurner a few days after I started blogging in May 2004.  When I led the last round in FeedBurner, I was working on it with Fred – he describes in his post why he and his partner Brad Burnham decided not to do the financing with me at the time.  However, they continued to help FeedBurner and Fred often said that FeedBurner was “the company he worked hardest for that he wasn’t an investor in.”  Six months later Fred and Brad realized they made a mistake by not investing, owned it (see #279 above), and approached Dick about investing.  While FeedBurner has regularly been approached by investors expressing interest, the company has no near term need for additional capital so we’ve simply passed on exploring it with anyone.  However, Fred and Brad had done so much work for the company, had built a personal relationship with Dick, and were unquestionably able to add significantly to the group around the table.  It didn’t take long to reach a deal that everyone was excited about.  Welcome Fred and Brad.

281: It’s a Platform: I love FeedFlare – it’s a supercool new FeedBurner feature.  FeedFlare by itself is plenty, but like every good company that is building out a platform, FeedBurner announced the FeedFlare Open API today.  Now anyone can write their own FeedFlare’s – the nice people at FeedBurner made a list of 101 different ones that they’ve thought of already in case you are inclined to write a FeedFlare.  Look for FeedFlares to start proliferating.

Are you a media company that is tired of losing online traffic to the RSS capabilities incorporated into My.Yahoo? NewsGator announced the general availability of the NewsGator Hosted Solution (NGHS) and will be showing it off at Demo. 

If you are a publisher, media company, or content provider and want to incorporate an RSS Aggregator into your site to increase the user experience for your online users, NewsGator has a great solution for you.  Look for launches from Newsweek.com, SFGate.com, and Macworld.com in the next month.  Oh – and look for the elusive “FeldReader” – whenever I manage to find a few spare hours to put it together.

I love exponential curves – they are beautiful things.  Whether they are linked to positive or negative things, they signal opportunity.  Dave Sifry – CEO of Technorati – has started on his February 2006 State of the Blogosphere report.  He starts off with a very pretty exponential curve and begins his periodic dissection of the growth of the blogosphere.

George Gombas passed away yesterday.  While you probably don’t know George, he was an entrepreneur with a big mind and an incredibly big heart.

I first met George when he and his co-founder Steve Buck were pitching me – in 2001 – on the idea of a company they had created called Npulse.  George, Steve, and a band of a few others had some really big ideas around monitoring, measuring, and managing application activity on the web.  I was interested and immediately liked George and Steve, but suggested they spend some time refining the idea with Ben Wen who was working for me at the time.

A few months later – in January of 2002 – I decided to invest in Npulse.  The first year was an exciting one, as the company grew from a few people to 20 and George, Steve, and the gang worked hard on getting a product out.  2002 was a particularly bleak year for me as I was mired in the midst of the dotcom meltdown (or rather, buried under the rubble).  Npulse and my interactions with George and Steve were a bright spot during this time.

George – who had been battling cancer for a number of years before I met him – was always fully present, no matter what he did.  He was always a pleasure to be around and brought infectious energy to every project.  As Npulse grew, we added a new CEO, continued to try to evolve Npulse from an early stage pre-product company to a real business.  George eventually left the company and took some time off to travel and get married. 

Npulse – which turned into Alignment – then did a financing / merger and became Xaffire, after which point it struggled to find relevance in the market.  The technology that George and Steve originally envisioned came to life, but as with many software product companies in very competitive markets, Npulse’s products were more “features” than products.  At the end of last year, Quest Software acquired Xaffire, providing a nice long term home for the technology that Npulse / Alignment / Xaffire had created.

I haven’t been in touch with George much over the past two years.  We’d email occasionally – he was always happy and upbeat.  A few weeks ago, we had a Xaffire party to celebrate their acquisition by Quest.  At dinner, Steve told me that George wasn’t doing very well.  I thought about calling him, but then got caught up in the normal flow of life and didn’t.

Steve sent a note out that George passed away yesterday.  I had a few sad moments and then though kind and happy thoughts about George and the vigor with which he lived his life.  George – you were a great person – I will miss you.