MappingTheWeb //

I often get asked which blogs I read on a frequent basis. To be honest, my RSS reader is crammed with over 100 feeds. This makes it nearly impossible to stay on top of all the headlines. Nevertheless I still scan over them on a daily basis. If a post title jumps out at me, I delve in. Having said that, there are a small number of blogs I read more often than others. It may seem like national bias, but most of my favourite tech blogs are Canadian tech blogs. The perspectives, writing styles, and post topics are engaging and thought-provoking. So here is the short, but sweet, list:

• Mark Evans Tech
• Mathew Ingram’s blog
• Deep Jive Interests

Extra kudos go out to Matt Ingram. He’s consistently been headlining Techmeme with interesting content.

For more information about the 3 blogs listed above, visit my older post My Favourite Blogs and Why. Note that Mark Evans no longer blogs at Maple Leaf 2.0, but the rather obvious Mark Evans Tech.

Other notable Canadian tech blogs include StartupNorth and TechVibes (whom I blog for). Both are focused on profiling Canadian start-ups and events.

Be sure to add your favourites in the comments.

Jango hit the scene in mid 2007 and has soared ever since. The company describes itself as “Social Internet Radio”. Similar to Pandora and Last.fm, Jango allows users to create customized radio stations and discover new artists.

The beauty of the system lies in the social network component. Some of the social features that Jango has integrated include:

• Adding friends and listening to their stations
• Viewing artist suggestions
• Rating artists’ songs
• Discovering “Like-Minds”, i.e. users who have very similar music taste to you

The service is completely free and no dowload is required. The New York-based startup is a legal service and has been licensed by ASCAP, BMI, SESAC and SoundExchange.

Revenues are generated via affiliate music sales. Jango has agreements with both Amazon and iTunes. I would imagine that an advertising model may emerge as well.

I tried out the service and I really enjoyed it. It was a nice, refreshing touch. The interface is slick and intuitive. Creating a station and discovering new music is simple. I would encourage everyone to try it out - especially those outside the US. After all, Jango may take over where Pandora stumbled… seems like good timing.

I get a lot of post requests by various companies. Rarely do I have the time to fulfill all their wishes. Nevertheless, I appreciate their thought and consideration, and often I do find time to profile a single company. In this case, I’d like to highlight a bunch of companies that have contacted me. I will include a one-line pitch and you can decide whether you want to delve deeper. Without further ado, here they are:

ScheduleOnce - Easy meeting scheduling tool.

PostMapper - Plots Wordpress blog posts on a central map.

WOT (Web of Trust) - Social-based website trust ratings.

AdRoll - Collaborative, niche ad network.

TagItOn - Centralized discussion facilitation tool.

Fixya - Community-based tech support.

There you have it… that’s the list. I’d appreciate any opinions or perspectives relating to the companies listed above. If the companies have anything to add, please do so.

Innovative ideas are what inspire me. I think that all these concepts are genuine and merit further scrutiny. Obviously not everyone can benefit from all products and services, but perhaps one may make your life a heck of a lot easier.

Yesterday’s post brought up an interesting topic. What is the definition of a “startup”? In other words, when does a startup progress to a “company”?

Is it defined by:

• Time? i.e. Less than a year old?
• Revenues? i.e. Under $10 million in revenues?
• Profitability? (Self explanatory)
• Traffic? i.e. Less than 20 million page views per month?
• Staff size? i.e. Staff size smaller than 50?

This topic is particularly interesting because many believe Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, etc… are still startups. I don’t believe so. Facebook, for example, has:

• Been around for 4 years
• Revenues in the hundreds of millions
• Billions of page views per month
• A staff of a couple hundred

Can you still consider it a startup? I’m not convinced…

On an ambiguous note, Wikipedia defines a startup as “a business with a limited operating history”. So basically, I’m no further ahead than when I first visited Wikipedia.

I’ve been thinking about a term to use to describe the aforementioned boundary or limit. I’m not certain whether a given term exists or not, so I’m going to coin one anyways. The startup threshold will now be known as the point when a business transitions from the startup phase to a full-blown company. The exact metric or number has yet to be established, but I’d like to get feedback from readers.

How do you think a startup should be defined? What number(s) do you think are most important? What would you consider the startup threshold?

Looking ahead to 2013, I wonder who will still be around (and thriving) in the online world. Obviously, the major players (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, eBay, Amazon) come to mind initially. Will this be the case? It is hard to say. But I can’t see any of those names dropping off the radar in an abrupt, dramatic fall. An acquisition, however, may eradicate one of those names from the list.

From a more interesting and debatable perspective, which current start-ups may become the major players of tomorrow?

Twitter? Joost? Pownce? Mahalo? Tumblr? Who are the true “game-changers”?

I could share my picks, but I’d rather hear yours… Keep in mind that we’re thinking about long-term sucess, not short-term hype.