simon koldyk » Uncategorized http://simonkoldyk.com web entrepreneur - vancouver blogger Thu, 05 Mar 2009 01:19:19 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 TrAvid http://simonkoldyk.com/travid/ http://simonkoldyk.com/travid/#comments Thu, 05 Mar 2009 01:19:19 +0000 Simon Koldyk http://simonkoldyk.com/?p=46 TrAvid a combination of Avid Traveler is a new site trying to make planing your next trip a little easier. Jerry Tian the founder of TrAvid told me that sites like TripAdvisor work when you know where your going and planning to stay, if you don’t TrAvid is here to help you. Using other users pictures, comments, votes, videos and stories the site guides you though finding a place to go.

The site is still in private beta so the amount of user content is very limited, although the tagging and other features make the site look really exciting to see what happens with a little bit more content.

If you need an invite just leave a comment on this post with your email.

]]> http://simonkoldyk.com/travid/feed/ 0 Building an E-Commerce Site http://simonkoldyk.com/building-an-e-commerce-site/ http://simonkoldyk.com/building-an-e-commerce-site/#comments Wed, 10 Sep 2008 21:23:02 +0000 Simon Koldyk http://simonkoldyk.com/?p=35 More and more brick and mortar stores have started up E-Commerce sites due to:

  • Internet sales are less costly to fulfill
  • Internet sales free up labour resources
  • You can process Internet sales efficiently at your convenience

Recently Livingspace a local furniture store launched their Ecommerce site.

They did a very good job on it, a few positivies

  • the navigation is well laid out and easy to read
  • Search bar easily accessible on the top right
  • URL’s have been made user and search engine friendly.
  • Offer Free Shipping, people will be much more willing to buy if they think they are getting a deal.

A few things I would change/add

  • There are no meta tags for the pages so you haven’t given the search engines and descriptions of the pages or keywords to work with.  They are not necessary but doing so you can rank higher for the given keywords so why give away that traffic, is that now what this is all about?
  • They run a blog on a different domain; but, have not announced it there yet.  Google and the other search engines love links especially from other domains, so give it to them!

See the store at shop.livingspace.com

This was just a basic overview and there are many blogs that focus on Ecommerce, my favorite would be Get Elastic from Vancouver based Ecommerce software provider elasticpath.

]]> http://simonkoldyk.com/building-an-e-commerce-site/feed/ 1 TechCrunch40, Where are they now? http://simonkoldyk.com/techcrunch40-where-are-they-now/ http://simonkoldyk.com/techcrunch40-where-are-they-now/#comments Mon, 08 Sep 2008 19:21:22 +0000 Simon Koldyk http://simonkoldyk.com/?p=34
  • App2you – At TC50, big announcement in 20 days.
  • befunky – series A $550k 6/08
  • Broadclip – Now called Flytunes, no blog updates since Feb 2008.
  • Cake Financial – Just launched Cake Take, Scout, and Cakedex.
  • CastTV – No news since Nov 2008; but, just had spike in Aug traffic (Source: Compete).
  • Ceedo – Recently launched Ceedo Enterprise
  • CrowdSpirit – No blog updates since May 2008.
  • Clickable – Completed $14.5 Million Series B funding.
  • Cognitive Code - No news since end of Oct 2007.
  • Cubic Telecom – Now called MAXroam, has 100k customers and launched V2 at TC50.
  • .docstoc – “200,000 registered users and sees around 2 million visitors monthly” – TechCrunch
  • Extreme Reality -
  • FAROO – Has keep up traffic, and is attending TC50 as alumni.
  • Flock -
  • flowplay – See comment on this post.
  • GotStatus – Dead, site offline.
  • Kaltura – Partnered with Wikipedia.
  • Kerpoof – TechCrunch has an update.
  • loudtalks – Just launched enterprise version.
  • musicshake -
  • mEgo -
  • metaplace -
  • Mint – See TechCrunch’s post on this.
  • orgoo -
  • PubMatic -
  • Ponoko -
  • Powerset – Acquired by Microsoft
  • StoryBlender -
  • Spottt -
  • teach the people -
  • Tripit – TripIt has been honored by Under The Radar, the Web 2.0 Summit and was a 2008 Webby Nominee. Also, at the recent Office 2.0 conference, Google Enterprise Products head, Matthew Glotzbach named TripIt as a top 10 Web service.  TripIt has over 100,000 users.
  • Trutap – Plugging along.
  • Viewdle – Just got more funding in March 2008.
  • woo me -
  • wixi – Over 200,000 members and hosts more than 1,000,000 files.
  • Xobni – Turned down acquisition offer from Microsoft, Bill Gates demoed Xobni.
  • Yap – Got $6.5 million in funding in June 2008.
  • zivity -
  • ZocDoc – Series A $3mm 8/08
  • 8o2o publishing -

    • If you have details on these companies or work with these companies, post it in the comments or email them to me simon@lingermedia.com

    ]]>     http://simonkoldyk.com/techcrunch40-where-are-they-now/feed/ 4     New Blackberry Fund http://simonkoldyk.com/new-blackberry-fund/ http://simonkoldyk.com/new-blackberry-fund/#comments Sat, 10 May 2008 18:34:06 +0000 Simon Koldyk http://simonkoldyk.com/?p=30

    Research In Motion, the RBC and Thomson Reuters have invested in an $150 million venture investment fund, called the BlackBerry Partners Fund, to support developers of applications running primarily on the Blackberry.

    The fund comes on the heels of the iFund, a similar $100 million fund announced by Kleiner Perkins, a well-known Silicon Valley venture capital firm, to support the RIM Blackberry competitor, the iPhone.

    The fund will be used to invest in both applications and services for the BlackBerry platform, but it won’t be exclusively to support the Blackberry. Companies that support other mobile platforms in addition to the Blackberry can also apply for monies for the fund. According to our source, the fund isn’t designed to be competitive with the iFund, because it will be free to invest in applications serving that platform too.

    VentureBeat

    Interesting, although a lot of the Blackberry applications I’ve seen have been free, maybe this will change some things.

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