On Monday, Gold Systems announced the release of the Gold Systems Speech-Powered Password Reset product, based on Microsoft Speech Server 2004 R2. This is a product Gold Systems has been working on for a while, building on their experience with speech, password reset, and call center applications. Microsoft has been putting plenty of energy behind their new Speech Server products with a recent unveiling at SpeechTEK this week.
The idea of automated password reset has been around for a while as the cost of staffing a help desk to deal with password reset issues within a company can grow to be silly pretty fast. Speech-based password reset is a highly secure and inexpensive way to address this issue. I’ve been close to the development of Gold Systems’ product and I think it’s awesome, especially given the tight integration with Microsoft Active Directory and LDAP.
Gold Systems has run an early adopter program for the past few months (deeper than a traditional beta) and the product has been received very well. One of the developers – Jason Groshart – has been blogging about the development of this product and the use of Rally Software’s Agile development tools (Rally – like Gold Systems – is one of my portfolio companies).
Some fun nerd facts for you on this gloomy Wednesday morning in Homer, Alaska (where is the fucking sun?)
- How many punch cards would it take to represent a 3–minute MP3 file? 40,960 (or 5’ 9” of punch cards – two inches shorter than Jack Bauer).
- Can I listen to your conversation in your car and or talk to you if you have a bluetooth enabled car? Um – yes.
- Is Jack Bauer going to be on 24 this season? Looks like it! (and thank god he’ll have a new girlfriend).
Which does Brad care most about: 1, 2, or 3? I wonder if Jack is going to use the cool bluetooth car hack in the upcoming season.
Dave Sifry – the CEO of Technorati – has published his latest State of the Blogosphere in two posts: Part 1: Blog Growth and Part 2: Posting Volume – that looks at the growth of the Blogosphere over the past six months. Some fun facts (as of July 30, 2005) follow:
- Technorati tracks 14.2m blogs and 1.3m links, about double what it tracked six months ago
- Technorati tracks 80,000 newly created blogs each day (a blog every second)
- Technorati tracks 900,000 blog posts each day (10.4 posts a second)
- 55% of the blogs Technorati tracks has a post in the past three months.
- 18% of the blogs Technorati tracks has a post in the past week.
- The weekend posting average is 5% – 10% less then the daily posting average.
Dave has more coming this week (Part 3 – coming tomorrow – includes the growth of tagging).
I’m fascinated with a Google Maps mashups (I prefer “mashup” to “hack”). Having recently read 109 East Palace (yet another very good history of the Manhattan Project), pondering nuclear (and other) holocaust in the brilliant Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and listening to Amy talk about “the great concavity” (the result of a nuclear explosion that is a central part of the geography on the eastern United States in Infinite Jest) – I’ve had explosions on my mind recently. I can’t say the Google Maps High-Yield Detonation Effects Simulator is particularly comforting, but it is enlightening.
Jason and I are planning to finish strong with some serious stuff in our term sheet series, but we figured we’d put one more term in that has us sniggling whenever we see it (a “sniggle” is a combination “sneer-giggle” – sort of like how I reacted to Kidman / Ferrell in Bewitched last night). The last sniggle term is as follows:
“Initial Public Offering Shares Purchase: In the event that the Company shall consummate a Qualified IPO, the Company shall use its best efforts to cause the managing underwriter or underwriters of such IPO to offer to [investors] the right to purchase at least (5%) of any shares issued under a “friends and family” or “directed shares” program in connection with such Qualified IPO. Notwithstanding the foregoing, all action taken pursuant to this Section shall be made in accordance with all federal and state securities laws, including, without limitation, Rule 134 of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and all applicable rules and regulations promulgated by the National Association of Securities Dealers, Inc. and other such self-regulating organizations.”
We firmly put this in the “nice problem to have” category. This term really blossomed in the late 1990’s when anything that was VC funded was positioned as a company that would shortly go public. However, most investment bankers will push back on this term if the IPO is going to be a success as they want to get stock into the hands institutional investors (e.g. “their clients”). If the VCs get this push back, they are usually so giddy with joy that the company is going public that they don’t argue with the bankers. Ironically, if the VC doesn’t get this push back (or even worse, get a call near the end of the IPO road show) where the bankers are asking the VC to buy shares in the offering, the VC usually panics (because it means it’s no longer a hot deal) and does whatever he can not to have to buy into the offering.
Sniggle. Our recommendation – don’t worry about this one or spend lawyer time on it.
Greg Reinacker has a tease up about NewsGator Enterprise Server, which is currently in beta and marching quickly toward release. Pretty (and satisfying) graph)
We’ve gotten a lot of help from Microsoft in their test labs – thanks guys.
Putting it All Together: Business Structures and Financing New Media Ventures
Anyone that knows me knows I love to talk (I also love to sit quietly and ponder things – ah – the duality of being me.) Another duality – I hate to sit and listen at conferences (I learn by reading, not by listening) but I love to speak at them.
I end up doing random speaking things when it’s convenient for my travel schedule (rather than deliberate ones that I have to travel specifically for.) I just got the invitation for a panel I’m going to be titled Putting it All Together: Business Structures and Financing New Media Ventures at the Law Seminars International Regulatory and Business Issues for New Broadband Services conference on September 26 / 27 in San Francisco (man – that’s a lot of words to describe a conference.)
Apparently I’m going to be talking about (according to the agenda) “What investment is necessary to ensure success in using broadband networks and distributing content over those networks? Who is funding what?”
If you’re going to be in the bay area on these days and need some CLE credits (lawyers = YES, entrepreneurs = NOT LIKELY), come “play.”
A few days ago, I wrote some thoughts on the war on spam. Today Matt Blumberg has an insightful post up on what’s going on in several state legislatures concerning so called “Child Protection Acts” which are actually just children to the mess that almost occurred at the state level at the end of 2003 which resulted in the federal CAN-SPAM law.
I hate the notion of “spin” when applied to articulating what’s going on. I especially hate spin when it gets in the way (in the middle of, in front of) a decision. (Picture of me calmly, but forcefully, saying “just tell me what the fuck is going on and we’ll deal with it.”)
Tom Evslin has an awesome post up today titled Decide First, Spin Second. He recounts the story of a small nuclear crisis that was occurring in Vermont when Richard Snelling was governor and Tom was Secretary of Transportation. Snelling started the cabinet meeting off with the following statement:
“First we have to decide what the right thing to do is; then we’ll think about the politics. Otherwise we’ll just confuse ourselves.”
Absolutely correct.