Category Archives: google

Please welcome SPARQCode to the Founders Co-op family

I was out for the past two weeks so TechCrunch beat me to the punch, but just before I left town we closed an investment in SPARQCode (the company has been operating as MSKYNET but is rebranding to match their flagship product name). I think of SPARQCode as “Bit.ly for the real world” – a drop-dead easy way continue…

Could Android become the OS for everything? Ford thinks so…

Fascinating news today from Ford (by way of Mashable’s Christina Warren): the automaker has just released the first version of their SYNC AppLink platform, allowing hands-free voice control of Android and BlackBerry applications to drivers of SYNC-enabled Ford cars. The company is working on an API for developers who want to tie their smartphone app continue…

Carrier-free cellphone coming in early 2010?

In March of this year I speculated that – between Google Voice and Android – the era of the carrier-free cellphone might be upon us. Many of my mobile-savvy friends scoffed – the existing model was too entrenched, they argued, and the carriers would fight like hell to delay their transition from value-added service provider continue…

The Google Giveth…

…and The Google taketh away. All of our companies at Founders Co-op rely on organic search traffic to drive revenue and margin (some more so than others), and we’re very careful to stay well on the “white hat” side of SEO best practices to ensure that our hard-fought gains on that front are lasting. But continue…

Android update: 2009 will be a big year after all

A while back I made a prediction that 2009 would be a breakout year for Google’s Android project. With the mid-year mark approaching and no new devices shipped that bet was looking a little shaky, but today’s announcements from the Google I/O conference put a little more weight behind my bullish view (phew). There’s been continue…

Nice piece from Fred Wilson on online aggregators

I just came across this mini-rant by Fred Wilson in my feed reader and couldn’t agree more. His key point: “Aggregation is the central element of distributing content on the web. It’s not going to get shut down by calling these services names, suing them, or even worse taking your content out of them. The continue…

Google Contacts – from poor to fair (& hoping for more)

Since switching to the G1 I’ve become even more dependent on Google Contacts as my default contact manager (because it now powers my phone contacts automagically). I’ve never loved the product – it’s always been slow, hard to navigate and even harder to edit – and I wasn’t excited about increasing my reliance on it. continue…