By Ben Haber
During this week’s Market Edge podcast on WebMaster Radio, Larry Weber discussed the future of entrepreneurship with Mike Hirshland, General Partner at Polaris Ventures in Boston.
Mike joined Polaris in 1999 and focuses on information technology, internet and digital media. He represents Polaris as Director on the boards of Automattic, Black Arrow, Hangout Industries, Quantcast and more. Before becoming a technology investor, Mike served as counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee where, among other things, he led the Senate’s Microsoft hearings and supervised the Senate’s hearings on “Competition, Innovation and Public Policy in the Digital Age.”
You can listen to Larry’s discussion with Mike here. To learn more about the future of entrepreneurship you can read Mike’s blog and follow him on Twitter.
July 8th, 2009
By Kyle Austin
CNNMoney.com, the joint online business effort of CNN, Fortune and Money magazines has become the latest business news outlet to launch an iPhone application. It joins the New York Times, the AP, Reuters,Bloomberg and others who currently offer applications for iPhone users.
Canadian-based Polar Mobile, who has designed previous mobile applications for Rogers Publishing Limited and TheStreet.com, was behind the launch of CNNMoney Mobile. In addition to the iPhone application, the mobile initiative also includes future service plans for BlackBerry users.
The free iPhone application features breaking news alerts, top headlines, near real-time market and stock data and video. It also allows users to personalize content including news sections and a stock watch list.
Given CNNMoney’s focus and demographic, it’s somewhat strange that users (like myself) on the de-facto mobile business device (i.e. the BlackBerry) will have to wait longer than iPhone users for a mobile app. However, they’re obviously going for early adopters and attempting to strike while the iron is hot around iPhone apps. BlackBerry apps and the BlackBerry App World are still in their infancy. But why free? Didn’t they learn anything from USA Today? Or read Malcolm Gladwell’s review of Free?
Look at what the Journal is doing with some specialized, paid content on WSJ.com. Users will pay for exclusive news, especially business and stock news. That applies to the mobile content as well. It’s something I noted in responding to a survey that Fortune’s Andy Sewer, Stephanie Mehta and David Kirkpatrick are currently undertaking for the upcoming Brainstorm: Tech conference. I hope this app doesn’t curtail a future Fortune mobile app. There is a better revenue strategy to be put into play by publishers getting into the mobile app space.
July 8th, 2009
