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Is Plinky a Smarter Twitter? Posted: 30 Jan 2009 11:15 AM PST Plinky is a new service that operates a bit like Twitter, but instead of asking what you’re doing right now Plinky asks you a different question every day. Sounds intriguing? It certainly adds some dynamics to the concept of microblogging Twitter ushered in a few years ago. After registering your Plinky account, you can go right ahead and answer the day’s prompted question. For me, it was “Share where you’d fly for the weekend if your best friend had a helicopter.” You can choose to answer this prompt or you can skip to the next one. Some prompts are pretty basic, such as the one I received today. Others are more conclusive, and have multiple parts to answer. And depending on the context of a given prompt, Plinky will incorporate other media (maps, photos, etc.) into users’ answers. If you’d like to use Plinky as yet another launching pad for content you’d like to spread across the web, you can do so. Actually, that’s the point of Plinky–to easily create comprehensive content and redistribute i elsewhere. So far you can do this automatically with a handful of supported services like Wordpress and Tumblr. There’s also an embed code available for manual “redistribution.” And Plinky has also added Twitter and Facebook Connect support, though these are case-by-case options that are available to you regarding individual prompts. Overall Plinky is pretty easy to use, and its concept is quite reminiscent of a feature from a Six Apart blogging platform Vox promotes every day. Plinky founder Jason Shellen may be familiar with this, as he worked at Six Apart for a short while last year. But Vox encouraged users to create new posts by posing a new daily question. From there, you could easily see what other Vox users within and outside of your Vox neighborhood have written in response to the daily question. Shellen’s use of the daily prompt puts this feature into a microblogging format and elegantly creates content around it with minimal effort from the users. The interesting part of such a format is the fact that you can follow users, or follow prompts. It’s a new way of creating and following content within a microblogging platform, and remains lighthearted and fun. I imagine incorporating some type of revenue-model into Plinky’s format could include indirect market research or sponsored prompts, among other options that aren’t readily available to other microblogging platforms. What Plinky is missing, however, is a non-prompted option for sharing one’s thoughts or simply creating content. Perhaps this was a very intentional way in which to differentiate Plinky from similar services, but I think further integration with other platforms (i.e. email) and especially mobile devices will make Plinky more fun and more accessible to end users. Below is a video interview Robert Scoble did with Plinky.

New Austin Incubator Seeks Startups for Summer Program Posted: 30 Jan 2009 10:19 AM PST Despite the dismal outlook of the economy and the changed landscape of venture capital funding for web-based companies, a new technology incubator program called Capital Factory is launching in Austin this week. Founded by local entrepreneurs Joshua Baer, Same Decker and Bryan Menell, the new incubator program is currently accepting applications for its first 10-week summer program. Beginning on May 22nd, the summer program for the chosen 10 startups ends in August with a live-streamed presentation from participants, so investors and others interested in the startups can see the culmination of Capital Factory’s first run at an incubator program. There’s the expected emphasis on mentorship with the Capital Factory, but there’s also some cash rewards as well. Participating startups can receive up to $20,000 and office space, along with some basic IT infrastructure options and recruiting support, among other things. And Austin is a good city for an incubator program focused on technology, as there’s already an established community of successful entrepreneurs and ready access to other necessary resources for the startup environment. Lucky for the Capital Factory, the deadline for accepting applications is shortly after SXSW, which is also based in Austin. But is now a good time to start an incubator program? I’ve spoken with a number of incubator program directors since the market took a turn for the worse a few months ago and the overall hope for many of these programs is to weather the storm and focus on funding quality companies. Now’s the time to invest, right? While competition is lower and a focus on a solid business model means more promising returns on investments to incubators such as Capital Factory, the text books all point to such encouraging outlooks for the startup environment. That includes Capital Factory’s own focus on capital-effecient startups that can weather the storm and come out ahead as well. Founder Joshua Baer is the Founder and CEO of OtherInbox and has a killer combo of technical, business and legal experience that he’ll be sharing as a Capital Factory mentor as well. Sam Decker is the Chief Marketing Offer at Bazaarvice and has authored two books on word-of-mouth marketing, while Bryan Menell is a current adviser for Moximity, MomenumSI and Socialware, and has his own experience launching startups including Fusion Learning Systems. Click here for more info on Capital Factory and applying for this year’s summer program.

Mobile Social Networks Help the Mobile Industry Overall Posted: 30 Jan 2009 09:35 AM PST Some web trends do eventually translate into mobile web usage.  According to a comScore report this week, the use of mobile social networking is driving mobile Internet usage in Western Europe (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, UK).  In November, 34% of mobile phone owners in Western Europe that visited social networking sites accessed social media, but not other mobile web content.  That means that a good portion of the 12.1 million mobile users in Western Europe are using their mobile web access just for social networking purposes. Compared to other applications for accessing mobile web pages, social network mobile access grew at a much faster rate, clocking in at 152% increase between November 2007 and November 2008.  As far as the Western Europe countries go, the UK has the highest penetration of mobile social networking, at 9%. So what’s it all mean? Perhaps we’re seeing the mobile divide beginning to close. The increase in mobile web usage overall seems to be positively correlated with the increase in mobile social networking.  All those social networking applications must be starting to really pay off.  Between these socially-oriented applications giving users mobile access while on the go, and an overall improvement with mobile devices in the past two years alone, there seems to be an intensely growing trend towards mobile social networking overall.  It’s simply easier to do. And the trend is good for most parties involved.  Even before popular devices like the iPhone emerged, many web-based social networks were seeking ways in which to offer mobile integration through SMS and mobile web browsing.  Aside from offering on-the-go access to end users, many of these social networks also realized the global potential of offering mobile social networking, as it broadens the pool of potential users.  Increased mobile web usage also encourages the mobile device market to make even more compatible phones that are geared for supporting social networking applications.  This goes for the mobile network providers as well.  Over the past year we’ve seen an especially dedicated effort to partner with social networks and mobile device manufacturers in order to offer an enticing package deal to consumers that desire mobile web browsing. While comScore did not go into detail about the causation of the growing trend, I believe all the factors above could have contributed in one way or another to encourage mobile web usage.  And whatever the direct causes for such growth may be, it’s an interesting yet expected trend in the mobile world.  I’m sure only see this growth increase over the next year, in Western Europe, the US and beyond.

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