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Aug 31, 09 – 10:07 pm Comment from: DizzyD

ROTFLOL!

Aug 31, 09 – 10:11 pm Comment from: twilightmoon

“Awkward” Pretty much sums up everything about Microsoft and their products.

Aug 31, 09 – 10:12 pm Comment from: kneugent

Maybe it will help someone remember the name “Vista”.

Aug 31, 09 – 10:19 pm Comment from: Deus Ex Technica

Alone, and in terror, the office chairs shiver and await their fate…

Aug 31, 09 – 10:24 pm Comment from: Jubei

I’m spreeeeaaaading the news about this to “EVERYONE”!

Aug 31, 09 – 11:02 pm Comment from: kirkgray

You can’t make this stuff up!!

Too funny for words.

Aug 31, 09 – 11:11 pm Comment from: Demon

Herman Miller Office Furniture just got another $150,000 order for new chairs to be delivered to Ballmer’s office, the PA for Ballmer reportedly requested unbreakable chairs.

Aug 31, 09 – 11:17 pm Comment from: TheConfuzed1

Wow.

If this was fiction, no one would think it was believable.

Sep 01, 09 – 12:05 am Comment from: Lurker_PC

Too funny!

Thanks.

Sep 01, 09 – 12:34 am Comment from: Jubei

@Demon

Ballmer has an open order account with them.

Startup Weekend’s Award Winners: Search Kick and Learn That Name

Gregory T. Huang 8/31/09

[Updated 8/31/09 11:15 am. See below.] Startup Weekend brought together about 180 people from 15 teams to compete for 54 hours at Microsoft’s Redmond campus, and in the end, two official winners emerged last night. A mobile software application called Learn That Name, for the iPhone and Palm Pre, won the audience favorite vote, while contextual search startup Search Kick won $5,000 from Microsoft’s BizSpark startup program, plus a potential investment of $5,000 from H-Farm, an Italian-based design and investment firm that set up shop in Seattle last fall.

Search Kick is a browser plug-in that displays discounts from your trusted memberships while you search the Web. Say you have a AAA card, or are a member of AARP or the American Bar Association. As I understand it, you could install the Search Kick plug-in, and then when you search for things like restaurants, hotels, or any products, the software identifies any discounts you may get based on that membership. The startup, led by developers from Microsoft’s Bing search engine, would go beyond that, but that’s the initial concept.

Max Ciccotosto, founder of Seattle-based Wishpot, was there to represent H-Farm in its selection of Search Kick. “We liked the team, we liked the progress they made over the weekend and we liked the idea as well (it’s simple, useful and everyone gets it in one sentence),” he said in an e-mail this morning. “We also think we can help quite a bit in that space.” [This paragraph, and the final one below, added at 11:15 am.]

Learn That Name was led by Eric Koester, an attorney at Cooley Godward Kronish. He came up with his product idea on Friday night after forgetting the name of another attendee at Startup Weekend who was one of his LinkedIn contacts. His team’s mobile app quizzes you game-style on the names of people in your LinkedIn, using their photos and multiple-choice answers. As part of its demo, Learn That Name had two of the Startup Weekend organizers, Clint Nelsen and Cameron Preston, go head-to-head to see who could correctly identify the most attendees on an iPhone.

In the demo, Koester added that a future version could help people network more effectively. “In terms of growing this further, we think there’s going to be ways you can actually communicate with people,” he said. “So what we want to see in future releases is, if you miss someone, it will recommend, ‘Hey, you should talk to this person, and get to know this person better.’”

Afterwards, Koester said the team is planning to launch the app on the App Store and Palm Pre store in the next few weeks—that involves adding and testing some final features, submitting the app to the stores, incorporating the business, and getting the word out. He also told me that the Startup Weekend experience was particularly interesting to him as a startup lawyer. “I learned more about what my clients go through every day,” he said. “Building a successful business is an art—so seeing that unfold in a 54 hour period was really eye-opening for me. Lots of hard work and collaboration…fun to be a part of it.”

I also asked Ciccotosto for his advice to entrepreneurs at future Startup Weekends. “I’d say to focus more on the ‘proof of concept.’ Define the problem, give a rough idea of the market, and most importantly get some of the key scenarios to work,” he said. “Ideally the outcome should be ‘could I now bring this to a few prospective customers and validate the idea?’”

A new iPhone app “Learn That Name,” is designed to help LinkedIn users memorize people within their network. iPhone and Palm Pre users can use this app as an effective name memorization technique packaged in an entertaining mobile game. The app won the most votes at Startup Weekend, 54-hour coding marathon held on Microsoft’s campus. Interestingly, 14 of the 15 teams at the event built their products on the Microsoft platform — driven in part by the prize money offered by the BizSpark program, reports. Eric Koester’s 10-minute pitch:

App Demo:

More info: Learn That Name

Here is a chicken and egg question: Which came first, Tata – the Indian business conglomerate or tata – the synonym for good bye? Personally speaking, it doesn’t matter. When my friend says tata as he leaves my home, I’ve not stopped to wonder why he is uttering Tata’s name and not Ambani’s. That’s because, to me, Tata the company and tata, the good bye word are entirely different.

But that is not what Tata Sons think. A good three years after MakeMyTrip.com launched an online travel community and called it OkTataByeBye.com, Tata Sons finally realized that there is a ‘tata’ in the name which badly hurts their image. In their words, the name was registered “to misappropriate the reputation associated with the Complainant’s well-known and famous trademark TATA.”

The case in this regard was filed with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and after close to four months of hearing, WIPO has ruled in favour of the Tatas. It is not surprising that WIPO has ruled in Tata’s favour, but the question to be asked is what is with the timing of this allegation? MakeMyTrip is one of the leaders in the online travel segment and it is a shame if the authorities in Tata Sons hadn’t known the existence of OkTataByeBye.com for so long. If they had known about it, why is the case being filed now. All I can speculate is that Tata is probably eyeing an entry in this segment pretty soon.

Anyway, all is not over for MakeMyTrip as yet. The company shall be approaching the Delhi High Court soon and I hope sanity prevails. What do you guys think? Is Tata right in disputing the usage of their name in OkTataByeBye.com? Tell us in the comments.

P.S. : To answer the question asked in the beginning, the good bye word came first. In 1823. Yes, I know I have no life

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A group of Facebook executives believe the company’s “Pay With Facebook” business could someday outstrip the social network’s advertising revenues.

We’re curious to hear if people in the industry think that’s plausible.

I spoke to an analyst who covers eBay to discuss this issue.  Then I pinged Business Insider editor-in-chief Henry Blodget for a quick IM discussion on the topic.

I’ve pasted the latter exchange below.  Please weigh in in the comments.

Nicholas Carlson: An analyst I just talked to thinks the only way “Pay With Facebook” works is if they partner with PayPal or Amazon (AMZN).

Henry Blodget: If they can get a decent cut, it certainly makes sense to do that.

NC: But then, she thinks Zynga’s whole $100 million business is BS — she can’t believe anybody spends money on virtual goods.

HB: Well, she’s not keeping up with times then.

NC: The big hurdle to clear is getting people to use Pay With Facebook the first time. But if Pay With Facebook is the easiest way for all these kids to buy their virtual goods then boom — they sign up once and now they’re Pay With Facebook users their whole life. Paying with one click is very satisfying.

HB: Yes. No question about that. It’s hard to get the necessary scale, though. Yahoo tried this…flopped.
Citigroup…flopped, etc.

NC: That’s what she was saying. AOL and Google Checkout, too, right?

HB: Flops.

NC: PayPal had eBay.

HB: A huge help. And PayPal had first-mover advantage.

NC: So I guess…can the virtual goods economy be Facebook’s eBay? Or is it too small?

HB: It could. But again, if Facebook can get a cut, why not use PayPal? Alternatively, Facebook could just create credits within Facebook that you could redeem once in a while for cash. That would be fine and maybe easy. Buy $100 of fbook money, pass it around to your friends, buy virtual crap, etc. and just leave it in there. But that’s a far more limited opportunity.

NC: It is. And Zuckerberg says things like the Facebook of the future isn’t on Facebook.com.