Personalized Web 2.0 RSS Aggregator

N. AmpazisN. Ampazis

Assistant Professor / FounderAssistant Professor / Founder

It is a Web based RSS Aggregator like, for example, Google Reader

BUT Feeds 2.0 was launched way before Google Reader even

existed (early 2006) RSS was in its infancy. Blogging boom and content syndication

via RSS feeds was just becoming mainstream The most popular RSS reader at the time was Bloglines

What is it?What is it?

That's it?

Feeds 2.0 is a personalized Web RSS Aggregator utilizes computational intelligence learning engine that ranks

posts according to what users find interesting users can aggregate hundreds of feeds and still see the most

interesting posts in the first couples of pages system learns what they like to read and what they don’t care

much about. Personalized feeds are built just for the specific user, picking the most interesting articles that match her individual interests

...plus some very interesting features as by-products of learning technology such as automatic tagging, news clustering, etc (see demo later on)

NO!NO!

Information Overload! Already difficult to find important news! Continuous Growth! Bloglines estimated a number of 1,121,655 feed sources that do “matter”!

RSS Growth (late 2005)

We realized quite early the upcoming problem of information overload inherent in RSS syndication

Development started September 2004 and continued throughout 2005 In early 2006 Feeds 2.0 was demoed to Chris Shipley (organizer of

DEMO conferences in USA) and was selected to be showcased and launched in May 2006 at Innovate!Europe2006

a LOT of publicity:TechCrunch:TechCrunch:http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/05/19/europe-shows-its-stuff-innovate-2006/http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/05/17/feeds-20-a-little-like-searchfox/

Information World Review:Information World Review:http://blog.iwr.co.uk/2006/06/feeds_20_an_int.html

CNN's Business 2.0 magazine ("Where to find the world's hottest startups"):CNN's Business 2.0 magazine ("Where to find the world's hottest startups"):http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/09/technology/webaroundtheworld.biz2/index.htm

Read/Write Web:Read/Write Web:http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/personalized_news_market_overview.php

… plus hundreds of other mentions in blogs, news sites, etc.

Feeds 2.0 Timeline

OK, publicity is fine but... WHERE IS THE MONEY???

Yes Sir, we have! In July 2007 we were awarded the Best Business Plan prize

for Feeds 2.0 at the 8th International Venture Capital Forum, Athens, Greece

Winner was selected by the VCs that participated in the forum based on the following:

Business idea - Innovative aspects Qualities of the management team Market potentials - Competitive advantage Expected returns Presentation - Integrity of business plan

Do you have a Business Plan for this?

Start-up FAQ:

You have: a good idea for solving a real problem at the right time (no

direct competitor!!!) a unique technology and know-how in order to implement it

plus you've already attracted a lot of attention

plus you've figured a way to make money out of this!

ARE YOU GUYS (M)(B)ILLIONAIRS BY NOW???ARE YOU GUYS (M)(B)ILLIONAIRS BY NOW???

Mainly because of:

External factors (related to funding)

Internal factors (...our own mistakes)

NO :(NO :(

VCs in Greece are not willing to invest as easily as they give top prizes (in fact we've never heard of them ever since the award of the prize!)

VCs in Greece have trouble in understanding value in state-of-the-art technologies as soon as they appear. They do consider investing only in more mature techological products or in products that provide fast ROI with zero(!) risk (e.g. photovoltaic systems backed by National/EU funds, etc)

European/USA VCs are not willing to invest in companies located abroad (especially in countries like Greece with very poor records in entrepreneurship)

Lack of funding => Eventual lack of resources for product enhancement, maintenance, promotion, strategic alliances, etc

Funding and VCs Funding and VCs

Spent a lot of time in travelling, meetings, etc trying to raise funding

Broke “Release Early, Release Often” rule - stayed in private beta for too long

Lost precious time (a whole year in fact – 2008) in a potential acquisition that shifted our focus from the Web to the mobile sector

Unwillingness to relocate among members of the team Eventual loss of commitement and discouragement

Own mistakes Own mistakes

All is lost then???

Usually “failures” provide more useful lessons than “success”. You tend to learn A LOT MORE on the why's and how's!

Gain precious experience in succesfully executing new tasks, e.g. from demoing to Chris Shipley or Michael Arrington or learning how to write a startup business plan, and pitching Saul Klein!

Learn not to trust your intuition but devise optimal strategies for future entrepreneurial tasks

ON THE CONTRARY !ON THE CONTRARY !

“Failing” to convert a good technology to business is usually the rule and NOT the exception. YOU'LL GET IT RIGHT NEXT TIME!

Technology is there, just needs to be “shifted” to a different domain. Open to collaboration with anyone interested in integrating our technology to the most “crazy” idea or product they have

As for Feeds 2.0 as a service, happy to discuss any idea on how to keep it up and running and alive (e.g. sponsored hosting, go open source, etc)

So, what's next?So, what's next?

THANK YOU!

Questions?