Archive of TheNextWeb.org
Written on October 14, 2008 – 4:59 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Khris Loux is a special guy. He’s one of the most optimistic and energetic persons I’ve met. That was during The Next Web conference, last April. He gave a keynote about open standards and interviewed Mr. DataPortability, Chris Saad, on stage. They certainly connected, and not just on the white couch: industry visionary Saad has joined Js-Kit as a Strategic Advisor.
But Loux’s positive attitude not just serves his network, he also managed to close a second round of funding in a time that everybody seems too busy worrying about the credit crunch.
JS-Kit’s Series B was led by Altos Ventures, with participation from Series A Investor TEF3. With the financial injection of $3 million, total funding of JS-Kit comes down to $4.8 million.
Thanks social media revolution, time for the next level
Next to the new strategic adviser, the funding of the social widgets provider has already enabled expansion of the development team to a dozen engineers and a quadrupling of the size of the data center. Loux: “We are now at 12 engineers and plan to continue to grow that team to support our growing user base.”
Loux also says he “has been proud to be part of the social media revolution” and that he “looks forward to taking things to the next level in the coming months and years”. Meaning that JS-Kit will also expand its commercial activities to achieve profitability in the medium term.
Nice-looking stats
When looking at both the statistics of Quintcast (cookies installed in the US) and Compete (visitors from the US), anyone can tell JS-Kit’s reach is increasing. Partly thanks to partnerships with major media players like WorldNow (good for 19 million potential users). When taking that in account, it’s actually not that surprising that JS-Kit keeps investing, financial crisis or not.
Photo credit: Anne Helmond. More information on Techcrunch now.
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Written on April 23, 2008 – 5:31 pm
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
DataPortability was founded in November of 2007 to promote the idea that individuals should have control over their data by determing who can use it and how it can be used. This includes access to data that is under the control of another entity.
After Red Hat sent a Cease and Desist claiming that the DataPortability logo was too similar (Identical, in their words) to the Fedora Logo the DataPortability Project needed a new design. So they asked their community to come up with designs and vote on them. They received over 400 designs and thousands of votes.
This is the new logo on the left, the old logo in the middle and the Fedora logo on the right:
(more…)
Written on April 4, 2008 – 4:35 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Khris Loux and Chris Saad became friends because of the Next Web. During all the meetings they noticed they generally had the same interest and ideas. Not that those shared interests matter though, since Khris started the couch interview with the remark that we all have to be friends with Chris. Whether we’re publishers, entrepreneurs or bloggers, Chris Saad’s Dataportability is good for you.
Thus I’m really glad that I digitally met Chris a couple of months ago when I interviewed him for this blog. I asked him how I should explain Dataportability to Average Joe and his answer probably is a good start for this post: “A user would simply log onto a site, grant permission, and their friends, personal details and media - images, video, documents - are already populated and accessible - Nothing more complex than that.”
Just like during Diggnation, there was beer on stage. The Next Web is one rock ‘n’ roll conference
When he said something similar on the couch, the audience rewarded with a round of applause. So it’s clear that users are looking forward to get control of their data. Yet what are the advantages for the vendors? Chris: “Vendors get a broader picture of the user. Google owns the search space, yet they have no idea what books people buy on Amazon.”
This sounds good, but at the same time companies traditionally make money because they have locked in their data. So all the big guys who are joining Dataportability now, aren’t they just doing that for good PR? Chris: “If some companies joined the Dataportability group just for the PR that is just fine with us, since they do endorse the conversation. And if they don’t implement the new open standards, others will. So if they don’t implement, that’s actually great since it gives everyone in this room a chance to out-innovate them. Now, the task of Dataportability is to give the companies best practices for implementing new standards. If those companies say they will implement, but actually don’t, it’s up to the bloggers and the audience to confront them with this flaw”.
Chris then threw out some great one-liners, like: [to companies:] “You don’t own users, users own you” and “If you don’t join the standard of the time, you’ll loose”. But I’d like to conclude with probably the most important one: “The new innovation platform is data”.
By the way, the audience could ask questions on Twitter. So I asked Chris which major company is taking a lead on the field of open data standards. His answer? Microsoft! Chris: “The ones who are loosing now are very interested and they’re the ones who apply pressure to the others”.
Written on March 17, 2008 – 11:06 am
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, Serial Internet Entrepreneur
In only 16 days The Next Web Conference will be held in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. From now on we will post short daily updates about speakers and events here.
Chris Saad ‘contemplating the future’
Chris Saad is the Co-Founder and Chairperson at DataPortability.org and CEO of Faraday Media and will be one of our keynote speakers during The Next Web Conference. Ernst-Jan wrote about Chris and his DataPortability project here before in a post titled “How to explain DataPortability.org to average users“.
This is how Chris explained DataPortability: “A user would simply log onto a site, grant permission, and their friends, personal details and media - images, video, documents - are already populated and accessible - Nothing more complex than that.”
The day after the interview was the day of Dataportability’s big breakthrough. Since then Google and Facebook have joined the DataPortability movement. Chris will be talking about his vision for the future of the web and how DataPortability will play a role in freeing our data. Chris lives in the South Brisbane Area, Australia and we are honored and thrilled that he will take the time to travel all the way to Amsterdam to talk to our guests.
Written on January 7, 2008 – 4:31 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Australian web attention expert Chris Saad is on a mission: he wants a complete reference design to combine technologies that make it possible for users to share their personal data between chosen tools. “We need a DHCP for Identity. A distributed File System for data.” DataPortability.org and a Google Group are his main platforms.
And what will this look like? Saad: “A user would simply log onto a site, grant permission, and their friends, personal details and media - images, video, documents - are already populated and accessible - Nothing more complex than that.”
Saad realizes he needs the support of users in order to complete his mission. “Users will need to be educated about their rights”, he says. But how on earth will he convince the normal user, Average Joe on Facebook, to start shouting: “We want to share our data!”? Since it’s a rather complicated and abstract story for people who aren’t involved in the Web 2.0 scene.
Saad of course thought about this and sent me a four-point list, explaining how he’s going to evangelize his mission:
- “People like Robert Scoble (watch his video) and other ‘Celebrity User Stories’ will help bring light to the issue.
- An education campaign needs to be (and will be) created with documentation and examples designed for users to understand. We have started this process by starting some ‘ActionPacks‘.
- We will begin promoting the DP Badge as a sort of ‘Intel Inside’ brand to look for when visiting sites. We hope this will be a simple way of identifying services and vendors that respect user rights and conform to the reference design.
- Workgroup members and early adopter start-ups will begin implementing the DataPortability reference designs and act as shining examples for users to get a feel for what the world could be like.”
His last point is interesting, since some start-ups and workgroup members might gain market share by having first mover advantage. Saad: “As you can tell by looking at the workgroup members already, there are individuals who happen to work at very large companies such as Yahoo, Myspace, Seesmic, Disney, BBC, NineMSN, Dow Jones/Fox and others. That’s not to say those companies have committed to anything, but the individuals involved are very smart and committed people.”
“A DataPortability enabled experience should be simple to use and to be expected”
Apparently, Saad wants to start a buzz in the blogosphere and geeky parts of the web, hoping that they will reach the average customers. “Exactly, we will start with early adopters and influencers and work our way into the mainstream. Ultimately though, the hope is that a ‘DataPortability enabled experience’ should be simple to use and to be expected,” Saad explains.
That will take some time, if it ever comes true. Yet, as long as Saad keeps explaining his plan in a simple way and manages to prove the major advantages, Average Joe just might start shouting.
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The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show of, the future of the Web. (
