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Frosmo’s analytics help web sites engage with people, not numbers - Fri, 03 Sep 2010

The problem with most web analytics is that they give you insight into numbers. You can see how many users are visiting your site, when they do so, and where they are coming from. But you don’t understand anything about them as people.

That’s where Frosmo, a Helsinki company originally founded as a tournament gaming company, could prove useful. Frosmo launched its Frosmo World casual game tournament business on Facebook last year. While doing that, it became intimately familiar with Facebook analytics. As Facebook expanded its reach to web sites this spring with its ubiquitous Like buttons, Frosmo saw an opportunity to deliver much better analytics.

Taking advantage of the fact that real people indicate whether they like a web site or not, Frosmo aggregates that information into useful analytics that companies can act upon. The company formally launched its Optimizer tool this month. It consists of a free analytics tool and a paid service that can be used to optimize the experience that return visitors have on your web site.

“We are now measuring people, not numbers,” said Mikael Gummerus, chief executive of Frosmo. “It’s like the social graph meets customer relationship management meets tactical selling tool.”

The analytics are useful because the Facebook Like buttons have access to the information that people put on their Facebook pages. You can thus aggregate the demographics of the people who Like your web site. You can determine their age, their occupations, their job titles, and how often they visit your web site. You can see what they look at and gather statistics on a daily basis that show what kind of audience your web site reaches. In turn, you can take that aggregate data and share it with potential web site advertisers.

But the heart of Frosmo’s Optimizer is the ability to engage with individual users. Now that you know who is visiting your web site, you can greet them by name every time they visit your page. Then you can steer them on a path that matches what their interests are, based on what you know about their past behavior. For instance, if someone has visited an e-commerce site 20 times and looked at the same car each time, the odds are good that user is getting ready to buy that car. The web site owner can then use that information to offer a discount on the car if they buy it right away. Each user can thus be individually optimized, Gummerus said.

It sounds pretty simple. But most companies are not doing this now. It’s fairly new because the Facebook Like buttons only started spreading to other web sites in March. Now, more than 2 million web sites are using them. Those web sites are collecting considerable numbers of fans who are giving them real world, not anonymous, information. If you can better identify those people, you can provide them with more relevant and personalized service, Gummerus said. And that will generate much more revenue.

For instance, you can understand who shares your web site data with the most people. You can see where users are making use of your site and identify the bottlenecks that keep them from spending money. You can zero in on those people and offer them more rewards for sharing your information with their friends. You can identify people whose behavior patterns suggest certain marketing offers. You can also figure out who among your users is the most influential when it comes to promoting your site or products. You can do that with very little cost. Frosmo calls this process Social Networking Logics.

Of course, there are still a lot of people who don’t use Facebook and who don’t click on Like buttons. Their behavior can’t be tracked so easily. But Gummerus thinks that the numbers of participants will grow over time. Customers already using Frosmo’s Optimizer include China’s RenRen social network, MTV Media, Kingnet, Yahoo, Sanook, Ekolay.net and a number of other companies. Frosmo still runs its game business, but Gummerus said the company may now make money from Optimizer.

Rivals include companies such as Google, Omniture and other analytics companies. Frosmo sees itself as offering a service that the others don’t at the moment. The company tracks visitors on a daily basis now. But it may start providing actionable data in real time in the future.

“We give companies information that they can use to take action,” Gummerus said.

Web site owners can get the same data from Facebook Like buttons that Frosmo collects. But the data won’t be packaged as neatly and the actions won’t be as easy to take. Frosmo argues its dashboard-like tools are the easiest for web site owners to create a unique path into a web site for every user.

“You know that companies like Amazon.com can do this,” Gummerus said. “Now, any site can do it. It’s a very pragmatic way to increase your sales.”

In games, Frosmo competes with the likes of Zynga, Playfish, Mindjolt and a host of casual game sites. Its investors include Riistos Silasmaa, a member of Nokia’s board. It raised 1.4 million euros from the Finnish government and has also raised two rounds of angel money.

Before founding Frosmo, Gummerus was managing director of E-Sports Nordic. But he spun Frosmo out of that company once he saw its potential.

Tags: Analytics, Facebook Like, Frosmo World, Helsinki, Optimizer

Companies: Frosmo

People: Mikael Gummerus

Plex and LG bring TV to all your devices - Fri, 03 Sep 2010

Plex is media center software, from a startup of the same name, which integrates video content from local and online sources. Thus far, Plex has only been available for Mac OS X and iOS (for iPad, iPhone, iPod). But today LG announced that in 2011 it will integrate Plex into its range of Netcast-enabled HDTVs and Blu-ray devices, making Plex a video solution for mobile, PC and TV.

LG’s NetCast Entertainment Access System gives direct access to online video and audio content. Many of Plex’s current users attach a Mac Mini to their TV, but this is an expensive solution in comparison to having Plex built into the TV.

Using the same media software across multiple devices means users will be able to starting to watch a show on their iPhone and then picking up where they left off on their TV set. Plex also does some clever things like converting content from different codecs into the correct format for iOS when users try to access the content on, say an iPad. Plex’s iOS version launched a couple of days ago to a hyperbolic review on CrunchGear and a more measured one on PCWorld.

Plex started out as a hobby project for the company’s founders, who wanted to design the perfect video system for their own use, and it shares some history with Boxee, since both products were originally based on the same open source project, XBMC. Plex’s strategy differs from Boxee in that the company aims to get its software embedded into third-party entertainment products like TVs rather than making its own branded boxes.

Developers can create plugins using the Plex software development kit to add new content sources. The Plex user experience remains the same across all devices, regardless of the number or variety of plug-ins being used. It’s quite a lot of work for a company like LG to add support for a single content source like NetFlix to its web-connected TVs. Plex enables TV-makers to give viewers access to multiple (and extensible) content sources.

One of the problems with online video content is that many of the big content owners like HBO or NBC have their own PC and/or mobile applications, whereas most consumers would prefer a one-stop-shop where they can access all their favorite shows regardless of the source. There is also a big divide internationally. Services like Hulu and Netflix are only available in the US and have European equivalents like LoveFilm and SeeSaw so TV-makers have to integrate different content sources for different markets. Software like Plex might help with both of those issues.

Plex CEO Cayce Ullman declined to give me exact figures on user numbers but said that users are in the six figures. He did give me some data from a user survey of 3,000 Plex users (admittedly a year old) which shows that 54% used Plex daily and for more than 6 hours a week. 20% cut off or reduced their use of cable or satellite services because of Plex. Ullman also told me that Plex expects to announce partnerships with a couple of set-top vendors in the next few months. Plex was founded about 6 months ago in San Francisco, is privately funded and has 10 employees.

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Tags: iOS, Mac OS X, TV, Video

Companies: Lg, Plex

People: iOS, Mac OS X

Nvidia’s new graphics chips will give you laptops with long battery life and 3D - Fri, 03 Sep 2010

Nvidia is announced a new family of laptop graphics chips today that will balance good 3D performance and battery life. The new Nvidia GeForce 400M series of graphics chips will be used in a number of new notebook computers coming from major computer makers including Acer, Asus, Dell, Lenovo, Samsung and Toshiba.

Those computer makers will ship laptops with Nvidia’s Optimus technology, which is also known as “switchable graphics.” Many computers have dual capabilities when it comes to graphics. They have low-end graphics integrated into the chip set on a motherboard. They also have a discrete graphics chip that is more capable. Optimus enables a laptop to switch back and forth between the lesser graphics and the more powerful graphics, depending on what an application needs. The switching happens seamlessly in the background.

Many of the computer makers will also ship stereoscopic 3D under the Nvidia 3D Vision brand in their new laptops. Altogether, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Nvidia is releasing seven new notebook graphics chips today. The GeForce GTX 470M and GTX 460M are for enthusiasts, while the rest are targeted at users who can get by with less performance. All of the GeForce 400M series chips support both Optimus and 3D Vision. Running cool games with graphics like the scene at the right are easy for machines with these chips.

The chips are all based on Nvidia’s Fermi architecture, which was released in desktop computers starting in March. The chips are 40 percent faster than previous GeForce 300M series chips. David Ragones, director of product marketing at Nvidia, said in an interview that the new chips will have lots of benefits for users: better game performance, faster web browsing, high-quality photos, and better high-definition video playback.

The chips will compete against integrated graphics chip sets from Intel. Nvidia says its chips are three times faster than Intel’s chips at doing tasks such as editing and sharing high-definition video. They are five times faster at retouching photos and 50 percent faster at browsing web photos. Games such as Starcraft II are unplayable on the Intel graphics, while they run fine on Nvidia Optimus-based notebooks.

New 3D Vision laptops coming this fall are the Asus G53Jw, with a GeForce GTX 460M graphics chip, and the Acer Aspire 5745DG with a GeForce GTX 425M chip. Some 425 games now support stereoscopic 3D on a PC. Asus is also launching its first all-in-one desktop computer with 3D Vision. The Asus ET2400XVT has a GeForce GTX 460M graphics chip.

Tags: 3D, 3D Vision, Fermi, GeForce, GeForce 400M, Optimus

Companies: Acer, advanced micro devices, asus, Dell, Intel, Lenovo, Nvidia, Samsung, Toshiba

People: David Ragones

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Zdnet Saas Blog

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Webware

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Google's Schmidt mocked in Times Square ads - Thu, 02 Sep 2010
Consumer Watchdog produced two cartoony ads slamming Google CEO Eric Schmidt as part of an effort to build support for a "do not track" list.

Originally posted at Relevant Results

Survey: E-mail eats up your time off - Thu, 02 Sep 2010
Outlook add-in maker Xobni finds Americans and Britons are having trouble getting away from the workplace because of the reach e-mail has into their lives.

Originally posted at The Digital Home

Two years on, Chrome reshapes browser market - Thu, 02 Sep 2010
The influence that Google's browser has had on the market is broader than its actual use. On Chrome's second anniversary, Google releases the sixth stable version.

Originally posted at Deep Tech