Portaga’s TripSync: Simplifying Business Travel (Part 1)

Continuing on our coverage of the Online Travel industry, I bring you Portaga, a small private company that is working on simplifying the challenges of booking and changing travel plans from within your calendar, desktop or mobile. Here, we speak with Portaga’s CEO Robert Kost. SM: Please describe your business value proposition and your product.

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Wize up on what to buy (Part 1)

Following my conversation with TheFind, a lifestyle shopping service, here, we explore Wize, a product research engine. In this discussion, I am speaking with Tom Patterson, CEO. SM: Please describe your business value proposition and your product. TP: Wize is focused on helping people decide what to buy. We do this in several ways. First,

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SME ERP: Netsuite + (eBAY AND AdSense)

Recently, I pointed out that there are 20 Million businesses in the US that don’t have any employee. These include ecommerce businesses that thrive on eBAY and small publishing businesses that leverage Google AdSense. I have also discussed the SaaS trend at length, and covered the NetSuite IPO that is coming. Netsuite has recently done

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Making User Generated Content Sustainable

Steve Rubel has an excellent post called Web 2.0’s impact on Travel and Tourism, where he makes the case that users who are creating quality and popular content ought to be compensated, to keep the content coming. See below: :: Maryclaire730 has put together a terrific itinerary on the Yahoo Trip Planner of my home

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Web 3.0 = (4C+P+VS) = YahooBAY

On September 8th, 2005, I wrote a piece called YahooBay, not SkypeBay, as eBAY prepared to buy Skype. Since then, eBAY has stabilized, their core auction business is doing better, although Skype still remains a relatively unmonetized asset. I hope this changes relatively soon, since I am a shareholder, but I still maintain, it is

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Another Reorg at Yahoo

You can read about it at Techcrunch. Has Susan Decker read 4C: Yahoo’s Turnaround Formula? Here’s an org chart by Cogmap.

Netflix+Flixster = (4C + P + VS)

Recently, I wrote 4C: Yahoo’s Turnaround Formula, in which I suggested that Yahoo organizes itself by segments, and puts the 3C (Content, Community, Commerce), in Context (4th C), and layers on Personalization (P) and Vertical Search (VS) on top it. Here is a very good analysis from Read/Write Web on Flixster, where the Context =

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Cisco, not Adobe acquires FiveAcross?

Cisco buys Five Across, and enters Social Networking. Much as I applauded their previous purchase, Scientific Atlanta, which, judging by the recent earnings reports, is paying off, this one seems to be a frowning moment. That said, I like the FiveAcross value proposition a great deal. I wrote this piece called Media Shuffles back in

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