Nicolas Kardas

Silverlight 1.0 launch!

2007-09-05T22:51:00Z

I am excited to see that that Microsoft has delivered on schedule the RTM version of Silverlight 1.0. Earlier this year in April at Mix, we successfully unveiled the Silverlight brand, tools, run-time and roadmap and commited to our customers that we will ship Silverlight 1.0 in late summer.

Specifically, we are delivering:

Silverlight 1.0 and Expression Encoder 1.0 (formerly called Expression Media Encoder)
Silverlight 1.1 September preview that’s compatible with Silverlight 1.0

Silverlight on Linux: Microsoft also announced that it will work with Novell Inc. to deliver Silverlight support for Linux, called Moonlight, and based on the project started on mono-project.com. The decision to work with Novell to offer Silverlight support for the Linux platform is in direct response to customer feedback

Silverlight Partner Initiative: Microsoft also unveiled new Silverlight customer experiences on “Entertainment Tonight,” HSN and World Wrestling Entertainment, and also launched the Silverlight Partner Initiative, a program designed to foster collaboration among solution providers, content delivery networks, tools vendors and design agencies.

I think it is really a great news for the developer community. It allows them to use their skills with Microsoft tools such as Visual Studio for a new category of Rich Internet Applications (RIA), which are accessed through a Web browser and are designed to be easier to use and have better features. Silverlight runs on multi platforms (Windows, Mac) and multi browsers.

Chris Swenson, an analyst with NPD Group, said the competition for Flash will be good for consumers (see article here).

If you are a startup interested in building on Silverlight, I also wrote a couple blogs that might be of interest to you:

Loopt to launch on Sprint as first-ever social Mapping Service on a major US carrier

2007-09-03T23:53:00Z

It may sound like an old news for those of you who are monitoring what is happening in the social networking/mapping space but I did not write about it when the news came (sorry for the delay): on 7/2/07, Loopt announced the launch of a social mapping service on Sprint. Loopt will be available in the coming weeks on more than 25 Sprint and Nextel phones for $2.99 per month, plus standard data charges.

Loopt uses the GPS capabilities on select Sprint phones to facilitate real-world interaction between friends: by using Loopt, they are able to share their location and status messages, send proximity-based messages and view geo-tagged photos and content on-the-go using loopt on select Sprint phones.

The Loopt service launched in December 2006 through youth-oriented wireless carrier Boost Mobile. According to Evan Tana, Director of Product Marketing at Loopt, “The service quickly became one of the most successful mobile service launches ever, adding more than 100,000 users in a matter of months.”

The Microsoft platform powers the Core Service: The Loopt service is powered by Windows Server 2003, ASP.NET, and SQL Server 2005. Loopt chose Microsoft technologies over the competition for a number of reasons, including the ability to use IIS 6.0, an extensible, standards compliant web server, and ASP.NET that allows them to use Microsoft Visual C#, and the .NET Framework and its comprehensive class library.

Congratulation to Loopt for this new large customer. And it is just the beginning....

If you are interested in learning more about Loopt, I wrote a blog about Loopt and my team wrote a nice success story article.

Interesting article on Silverlight

2007-09-03T22:45:00Z

Shawn Wildermuth is a Microsoft MVP (C#), MCSD.Net, MCT. He published an interesting article on 8/9/07 on ComputerWorld.com regarding Silverlight. In this article, he presents a balanced view of Silverlight. As Shawn wrote, there is "so much Silverlight information available right now, it is difficult to distill what is important and what is hype. Shawn has done a good job at highlighting 10 things that you should know about Microsoft's Silverlight. He covers the following chapters:

Silverlight Avoids Cross-Browser/OS Issues
Silverlight 1.1 Is the Real Story
Silverlight Uses Technologies Your Developers Already Know
Silverlight UI Is just Markup -- Like HTML
Silverlight and AJAX Technologies Are Complementary
Silverlight Allows Developers and Designers to Work Together
Silverlight Deliverables Are Not Atomic
Silverlight Is New
Silverlight XAML versus WPF XAML
Silverlight Is a Great Way to Learn XAML

If you are a startup interested in building on Silverlight, I also wrote a couple blogs that might be of interest to you:

If you are developing Rich Internet Applications (RIA) on Silverlight, please let me know. I am very interested in seeing what very creative startups can build using this (great ) - technology.

Codeplex: a very active growing open source community publishing high quality projects

2007-09-03T21:38:00Z

As you certainly know, CodePlex is Microsoft's open source project hosting web site. You can use CodePlex to create new projects to share with the world, join others who have already started their own projects, or use the applications on this site and provide feedback. Codeplex hosts Open Source project written on several platforms (not only Microsoft).

Codeplex is very clear about Microsoft's role (here): Microsoft does not control, review, revise, endorse or distribute the third party projects on this site. Microsoft is hosting the CodePlex site solely as a web storage site as a service to the developer community.

A very active community:

On 9/1/07, there were 2177 projects posted on Codeplex.

eWeek has published a good article on 8/23 about the 25 most active Open Source projects at CodePlex - something many entrepreneurs and startups may not be interested in. The highlighted projects include the Ajax control toolkits, a mapping engine and SQL Server product samples.

Windows Live Quick Applications

Windows Live Quick Applications Beta is a project published on Codeplex. This project contains a few out-of-the box solutions for specific Web scenarios. Each Quick App is built on Windows Live services and is offered as a source code download for you to use today. These applications are well commented and can easily be customized.

Codeplex now supports Subversion

Since 6/18/07, Codeplex has been offering support for TortoiseSVN as a source control client with CodePlex. It was the number one new feature request from Codeplex users. I am glad that the Codeplex team has been listening to its users to offer them the ability to use the source control tools of their choice with the most flexibility possible.

The ways it works is that TortoiseSVN creates a “bridge” that emulates a Subversion server and converts the requests from TortoiseSVN into calls to Team Foundation Server. This approach offers the following benefits:

Users can choose to use either TortoiseSVN, the CodePlex Client, Teamprise Explorer, or Visual Studio Team Explorer with any project
All existing and new projects will immediately support using TortoiseSVN as a source control client

Mercora’s ‘M’ Delivers Anytime, Anywhere Music and Entertainment

2007-06-28T23:17:00Z

“Give me the music I want, when I want it”. By addressing this need, Mercora believes its software-as-a-service (SaaS) business model could be the killer app for socially connected wireless music and media, including podcasts, video and more.

The Mercora network has more than 200,000 unique visitors daily, constituting more than 2 million page views per day. And the service is growing some 20 percent a month. Company officials say the Microsoft Windows Mobile platform is a ‘key enabler’ for its next-generation wireless content service.

The new Mercora M transforms any Windows Mobile Smartphone or Pocket PC into a wireless music player. This gives users CD-quality music over the air while on the go. There are essentially three major features: First, it gives users over-the-air access to the music collections stored on their home PCs; second, it also gives people access to the music collections of their friends and family; and third, it provides access to more than 100,000 channels of streaming radio (IMRadio). The Mercora M is offered as a paid service, currently priced at $4.99 USD per month, or $49.99 USD per year.

Mercora has paid attention of developing a model to legally stream music: according to Avikk Ghose, Mercora’s Vice President of Business Development: “We took the time to really understand country-specific copyright laws and developed a model to legally stream, not transfer or download, as do competing solutions. Through this model, we pay the public performance royalties on behalf of our DJs, which is a completely innovative and brand new concept.”

Mercora chose Microsoft over competing technologies given its ease of use, flexibility, feature-rich capabilities, and speed of developing for the Windows Mobile operating system. Further, Mercora is a Microsoft Certified partner is also part of the Microsoft Mobile2Market Program, designed for Windows Mobile-certified applications for Windows-based Smartphones and Pocket PCs. Mercora teamed up with Microsoft at the launch of the M v2 to provide Windows Mobile users with a six-month complimentary subscription to the service, available at www.windowsmobile.com/DoMore.

The company claims to have already signed key distribution agreements with wireless device and content providers such as Handango, MobiHand, Mobile & Wireless Group and Motricity, who are marketing the service on a subscription basis.

Data Synchronization from your Desktops, Laptops and Phone: a Growing Need

2007-06-28T22:45:00Z

Personal Computers processing power have been following Moore’s law for several decades now. We now all use very powerful machines (laptops and desktops) that are able to do much more than just rendering web pages inside a browser. With the standardization of Web Services and the growing number of web APIs provided by most sites/applications, more and more data will be created on the edge of the network. Distributed computing is here to stay. It’s about the data. With all the data created on the edge, on different computers, on cell phones, etc… it is becoming more and more important to synchronize them and make the data available anywhere anytime.

A few startups have created powerful synchronization engines. I like these products because they solve a real problem for me. These are two companies that I met which provide good products:

Sharpcast is a Silicon Valley based startup. Its vision is about creating the most delightful and simple experience to manage your data across various devices and applications and services, online and offline (read this blog for more information). The first application that Sharpcast has released is a Photo editing/storage service. Yes, “another photo sharing application”…. But the user experience is very compelling because it automates many things like uploads, downloads, backups, etc… Sharpcast has also created a client for Windows Mobile phone that lets you access your whole photo collection from your cell phone. It caches pictures on your cell phone (without downloading your whole library J) and the user experience on the cell phone is very nice with low latency. But it is just one “application” on the top of their synchronization engine: Sharpcast is (private) beta testing “Hummingbird” that provides file synchronization with versioning.
Adesso Systems: Tubes Now: Adesso’s secret sauce is a replication and synchronization engine that keeps application data and application logic synchronized across all devices. Using Tubes, anyone can easily share anything they want with their friends—photos, docs, videos, audio, and applications—while maintaining control, privacy and simplicity. Adesso started building applications for Enterprise customers and moved to the consumer market 1+ year ago. Adesso decided to build on the Microsoft platform (Windows Server, .Net, SQL) to support a very highly-scalable service. Read here a success story.

There are many other companies building data synchronization engines. I just mentioned 2 that I know. Microsoft completely supports this vision of having data created on the edge of the network by rich applications. Microsoft acquired Foldershare in Nov 05 (P2P file synchronization service that helps customers access information across multiple devices) and also provides synchronization with Live Messenger. This is definitely an emerging space and we should see many innovations in the next few years from startups and larger companies because it is a real customer need.

Re-Mix 07: a rich dialogue with the Silicon Valley Developers and Designers

2007-06-27T06:03:00Z

My team organized the “Re-Mix” event in Mountain View last week (Friday 6/22). The MIX conference in Las Vegas in May 07 created a lot of buzz in the Web 2.0 space. Many people were not able to attend the event because it was sold out. So we decided to create a ‘ReMIX’ event in Silicon Valley with the most successful sessions of MIX. ReMix was sold out as well…

It was effectively an informal discussion with the Silicon Valley developers and designers. The highlights were a keynote from Scott Guthrie who runs Microsoft’s Silverlight and ASP.Net development teams (among others). Scott demonstrated the version 1.1 of Silverlight with .Net support and the new Expression tools for designers. John Richards, Director Windows Live Platform, Microsoft presented the latest news regarding Windows Live Services (new services, new Terms of Use) in the session Using Windows Live Services in Your Own Web Applications.

I was responsible for organizing the panel: Services on the Web: Build or Buy. The moderator was John Richards and the panelists were Don MacAskill (CEO and Founder, SmugMug), James Hamilton (Architect, Microsoft), Jeff Somers (Director of Partner Relations, Zillow.com) and Anita Garimella(Director of Products, Wallop). SmugMug and Wallop both use Amazon S3 and Zillow uses Microsoft Virtual Earth. These companies also provide Web APIs to access their services. The panelists discussed the reasons why they decided to buy web services from service providers (such as mapping and storage), the challenges they faced and they gave some thoughtful advices on what services should be outsourced vs built. Although there was a panel on the same topic at Mix, most of the panelists were not the same and so they had different perspectives. It was not just a “re-run” of the Mix session: it was a new dialogue.

What made this event particularly interesting to me were the questions from the attendees and the 2-way dialogue that happened. It was informal and very open: for example, during the session “Using Windows Live Services in Your Own Web Applications”, someone from the audience asked for a demo of Popfly (Microsoft Mashup web tool). Although no demo of Popfly had been prepared for this session, someone from the audience came on stage to show Popfly and we started discussing how Popfly fits into the Windows Live Services strategy.

Remix was not recorded but the videos and presentations of the Mix sessions are available on http://sessions.visitmix.com/.

Loopt Creates New ‘Social Mapping’ Service

2007-06-27T00:33:00Z

Loopt was founded in 2005 by friends from the computer science departments at Stanford University and MIT. They set out to create a service that would be a valuable tool for people to find their friends and interesting places, communicate, and improve their social life. Loopt has created what they call the world’s first ‘social mapping’ service. Using location-based technologies, powered by Windows Server 2003, ASP.NET and SQL Server 2005, the Loopt service lets users know where their friends are by automatically updating their locations on a map on their mobile handset and the Web.

After securing initial funding from Y Combinator to build a prototype, and getting such strong response, the Loopt team made the decision to leave school and pursue their dream full time. They secured $5 million in Venture Capital from Sequoia Capital and New Enterprise Associates, hired industry veterans, built out its engineering team, and ended up submitting an RFP to Boost Mobile, the youth-oriented wireless carrier (MVNO) of Sprint.

Loopt won the RFP: Boost launched the Loopt service ($2.99/month) in December 2006. According to Tana, Director of Product Marketing for Loopt, “The service quickly became one of the most successful mobile service launches ever, adding more than 100,000 users in a matter of months”. Later this year, Boost Loopt will be pre-installed on every one of the carrier's handsets. This early momentum on Boost has translated into commitments from other major wireless operations to launch the service in 2007.

The service combines mapping software with global-positioning technology and proprietary code to send out alerts when a friend in your opt-in personal network is nearby. With Loopt, you can also view photo diaries of your friends’ lives, ‘chirp’ them with push-to-talk features on certain phones, and display maps that show where your friends have gathered.

Loopt chose Microsoft technologies over the competition for a number of reasons, including the ability to use IIS 6.0, an extensible, standards compliant web server, and ASP.NET that allows them to use C#, and the .NET framework and its comprehensive class library. According to Tana, “SQL Server is a great choice for our business — it’s easy to configure and maintain, cheaper than some alternatives we looked at, and still delivers the performance and features that we need.

Loopt has worked with my team (the Emerging Business Team) for almost 6 months. They have had an Architecture Design Session at the Microsoft Technology Center in Mountain View. We want to help partners like Loopt who build very innovative products and take full advantage of the rich capabilities of the Microsoft platform.

And just recently, the company was named one of the 10 wireless entertainment players to watch in 2007 by IDC, the premier global market intelligence and advisory firm in the information technology and telecommunication industries.

Loopt is definitely a company to closely watch…

Great list of Silverlight resources: tools, code samples, papers, videos, demos, etc...

2007-06-26T21:38:00Z

Tim Sneath is a Vista/Silverlight evangelist at Microsoft. He put together a list of very useful Silverlight resources: downloads, tools, code samples, papers, videos, demos, etc... This is a great list. Thanks Tim!

Bits & Bytes

Get Silverlight
Telerik RadControls – 3d virtual rooms using control based framework
DLR & IronPython on Codeplex
Silverlight Developer reference "poster"
Forums - Installation, troubleshooting. Lots of good information in this forum. It is actively monitored by the Silverlight development team.
Electric Rain Harmony (coming Summer 2007) - Flash (SWF) to silverlight XAML converter
Silverlight 1.0 Beta QuickStarts
Silverlight 1.1 Alpha QuickStarts

Sites

Main Microsoft site
Community site
MIX conference

Experiences & Demos

Getting started with silverlight - Scott Guthrie demos how to build an app from scratch
"How Do I?" with Silverlight 1.0
"How Do I?" with Silverlight 1.1
Using Blend with Silverlight 1.0
Community gallery
Top 3 samples in the community gallery:

Beijing Olympics Use Silverlight
Channel 9 screencasts
Watch movie trailers & videos via Silverlight
How to do Rich media advertising - Example using eyeblaster

Blogs

Scott Guthrie – no intro needed
Jim Hugunin - chief architect of the DLR
Mike Harsh – silverlight team
Lutz Roeder – Expression Blend team
Delay of Silverlight Airlines demo
Ironpython

Tech talks

All recorded MIX07 sessions
ScottGu’s MIX keynote and great overview
ScottGu’s Channel9 interview

Building Rich Web Experiences using Silverlight and Javascript for Developers
Deep Dive on Silverlight Media Integration
Developing ASP.NET AJAX Controls with Silverlight
Creating and Delivering Rich Media and Video on the Web with Silverlight, Expression Studio, and Windows Server
Building Silverlight Applications using .NET (Part 1 of 2)
Building Silverlight Applications using .NET (Part 2 of 2)
Extending the Browser Programming Model with Silverlight
Just Glue It! Ruby and the DLR in Silverlight

Papers

Getting started whitepaper
Silverlight Architecture Overview

Adify: Build Your Own (ad) Network

2007-06-25T21:23:00Z

Advertisers always want to better target the “right” prospects, specifically for display advertising. This is why certain sites can monetize ads at higher CPM than others.

Adify has created a private-label branded ad platform solution called Build Your Own Network (BYON). It enables top publishers/media sites who sell out their inventory at a relatively high CPM to increase their available (publishing) inventory. For example, The Washington Post (an Adify’s customer) has used Adify to create an ad network that aggregates inventory from several significant bloggers. The Washington Post knows these bloggers well and is confident that they have the same type/quality of audience as the Washington Post. The ad inventory is sold by the Washington Post sales team, who get a decent CPM (much higher than what they would get with an ad network like Google AdSense for example).

BYON offers a suite of tools and services, designed to support the entire process of conceiving, building, managing and supporting an ad network created completely under the publisher’s brand. BYON provides services ranging from creating custom publisher applications and site lists to ad serving, campaign optimization, performance analytics, billing and payments.

The platform is already multi language and multi currency. A significant portion of the revenues comes from European customers.

Adify’s BYON is completely built on the Microsoft .Net platform. Adify selected the Microsoft platform because it wanted to build an easy to use highly scalable system with high quality of service (uptime).

Adify’s customers are traditional media companies expanding their online franchises, including NBC/Universal, Washington Post/Newsweek Interactive, Reed Business Interactive, Time Magazine Group, and Comcast. Its emerging vertical advertising network customers include SportSyndicator, HouseBlogs Ad Network, and Good Health Advertising Network.

SharePoint and Popfly integration: Web 2.0 enterprise data consumption

2007-06-14T18:19:00Z

Many blogs have been written on the Microsoft Popfly Mashup tool and how it is a very Web 2.0-style product. The major boast to its popularity came from Popfly being part of the Facebook Platform. Facebook users now have tools that let them create pages reflecting their personality even if they have no development experience. An extract from Dan Fernandez's Blog:

· Popfly Facebook Block: Available immediately, we've added the Facebook block which provides access to Facebook data including the User Profile, Friends, Photos, Photo Albums, and Events.

· Leverage Existing Blocks: You can build Facebook applications using Popfly blocks like Flickr, Digg, Soapbox, Twitter, Windows Live, Xbox Live, and Virtual Earth.

· Silverlight Support: Another big win here is Facebook has native support for Easily build next generation applications using Silverlight. With 24 million users and 40 billion page views a month, this is a huge, huge win for getting native Silverlight support on Facebook

· Visual Studio Support: The Facebook Developer Toolkit enables developers to build applications for Windows, Web, or Microsoft Office.

But there is a very powerful use of Popfly for Enterprise that has not been discussed a lot in the blogosphere: Sharepoint and Popfly integration. 2 main areas of integration:

· Popfly consumption and display of SharePoint driven content

· SharePoint consumption and display of Popfly delivered content.

There is a blog on MSDN from Michael Gannotti that I recommend you to read that will walk you through both of these approaches. It shows how Popfly and SharePoint can be used in tandem to provide rich mashups against a number of data types including SharePoint RSS feeds. Information can be pulled from SharePoint into Popfly, served up from Popfly to SharePoint, and even re-exposed as a Windows Vista Sidebar gadget. All of this can be done literally in a few minutes by users with little or no programming skills and easily shared with others.

Come to ReMIX07 Silicon Valley for the Next Web NOW! – Friday June 22, 2007

2007-06-14T07:51:00Z

Whoever said that what happens in Vegas has to stay in Vegas?

The MIX conference in Las Vegas in May 07 has created a lot of buzz in the Web 2.0 space: the main announcements were the version 1.1 of Silverlight with .Net support, the new Expression tools for designers and the news regarding Windows Live Services (new services, new Terms Of Use). There were a lot of great breakout sessions and demos.

Many people were not able to attend the event because it was sold out. So Microsoft has decided to ‘ReMIX’ with a twist right here in the Silicon Valley! This event will feature a keynote from Scott Guthrie who runs Microsoft’s Silverlight and ASP.Net development teams (among others). If you are interested, you should quicky register because this event promises to sell out too! To register (it’s free!), click here.

What to expect at ReMix07 Silicon Valley…

If you’re in the web business, learn about:

Building a better user experience to unlock new revenue opportunities
Forging tighter, stickier customer connections
Building innovative media experiences into your site

If you’re a web developer, build:

Silverlight applications quickly and easily
Sites and applications that consume Windows Live services
Rich, interactive sites made for the next web

If you’re a web designer, learn about:

Using Silverlight to design gorgeous and highly functional user interfaces
How a real-world application is built and the best practices associated with it
The suite of Expression tools that revolutionize the way designers work with developers

This event is organized by Microsoft and Dealmaker Media

IDEES Program in France: Support Innovation and Development of the French Digital Economy

2007-06-14T06:47:00Z

In October 2005, my colleagues from the Emerging Business Team of Microsoft France introduced IDEES, an initiative aimed at helping emerging software startups in France develop and grow. The IDEES program relies on partnerships with VCs to identify innovative companies and help them grow by providing direct technical, commercial and marketing support (see the article from the Herald Tribune)

To date, the program includes 43 startups, including Aliantiz, Apach Network, Boonty, Excentive, Lexifi, Prim'X Technologies, Reportive, Robosoft, Soorce, Sinequa, Skyrecon, Total Immersion and Voluntis, Miyowa, Sinequa, Keeneo, Idylis and others.

This effort for supporting innovation and development of France’s software/digital economy is part of an international effort that began in Silicon Valley six years ago with the creation of the Emerging Business Team (my team).

The companies that are member of the IDEES program in France have been growing at an average rate of 300%/year. Some of them even grew at 1000%/year (Miyowa, Excentive). I think that their success clearly validates what research studies have already shown: ISVs building on the Microsoft platform see greater revenue growth because it is a market with more (potential) customers than any other.

Congratulations to all the startups of the IDEES program in France and to my colleagues who have done a great job at helping these companies in France (blog from Julien Codorniou, Emerging Business Team, Microsoft France)

Take your photos, videos & music into 3D with iBloks

2007-06-14T06:12:00Z

Americans like expressing themselves and communicating. This is the reason why many Web-based user generated content sites (photo, video) and social networking sites have been so successful in the US. But most of these sites are built on old 2D graphical technologies and do not use the advanced graphical capabilities of the new generation of computers and operating systems like Vista.

However, iBloks has taken a different approach and decided from the beginning to provide advanced 3D graphical capabilities. Users can instantly build compelling rich 3D media self expressions with their own photos, video, and music and share them with others via IM, cell phone, email or via any website. The videos created by iBloks are portable across platforms. People can post these videos on any social networking site like Live Spaces, email to a friend, or send to a mobile device. iBloks claims to have the broadest output options available on the market today.

But iBloks does not only target consumers: it also empowers developers and designers to easily build fun 3D iBloks creations in hours versus days/weeks with old technology. This provides brands with a revolutionary new way to connect with their customers. Examples: Simpson’s and Dreyers/Amercian Idol.

As a business focused on bringing 3D experiences to everyone, iBloks needed next-generation 3D graphics software to innovate and envision what’s possible with self-expression and software as service. The combination of Microsoft Vista WPF technology and iBloks software as service (based on .Net technologies, including .Net 3.0 Windows Communication Foundation) delivered a seamless integration of a 3D platform with user generated content.

iBloks has closely worked with Emerging Business Team since the company started. It is a great showcase of an innovative product taking full advantage of the latest Microsoft technologies. iBloks has recently showcased its latest product at the Microsoft Mix 07 conference. A quote from Julia Miller, CEO of iBloks: “The Emerging Business Team and Windows Vista’s next generation graphics technologies have enabled iBloks to develop premium 3D self expression software as service by creating true innovation for people and brands throughout the world.”

My advice is… you should try it! iBloks is very powerful and really easy to use.

Spot Runner Wants to Change the Game in TV Advertising For Small Businesses

2007-06-13T17:52:00Z

The TV advertising arena is worth an estimated $54 Billion a year (U.S figures), which is still much larger than the $20 billion/year of online advertising ads. Even with the fast growth of the online ad market, TV ads – and more generally offline advertising (TV, radio, Newspaper) - will remain a huge market. Large Internet Ad players like Google have actually started to enter this market (Google acquired dMarc Broadcasting last year and signed a deal with Dish Network earlier this year).

Spot Runner is an interesting company to watch. It is an Internet-based ad agency that makes it easy and affordable for local businesses to advertise on TV.

Spot Runner’s strategy is to help small businesses reach their target customers with high quality commercials, and change the way agencies interact with clients by using the Internet to help customers create their own ads, plan and buy media, and launch a television campaign. Advertisers can choose from a comprehensive library of professionally produced ad templates that can be viewed, purchased and personalized in a simple process online (Spot Runner can also produce a custom ad from scratch). With its proprietary media planning engine, Spot Runner also creates customized media plans by using some basic information entered by the advertiser, such as their industry, target demographics, and budget. Spot Runner then places the commercial on television. After the campaign runs customers can view details of their campaign, including times the ads ran, viewership, and demographic information.

Spot Runner’s co-founders, Nick Grouf and David Waxman, are both very successful serial entrepreneurs. They first joined forces in 1995 to create Firefly Network, which was acquired by Microsoft in 1998 (its core product became the foundation for Microsoft's .Net Passport). Next, the founders launched PeoplePC, which went public in 2000 and was acquired by EarthLink in 2002.

Spot Runner decided from the ground up to build on the latest Microsoft technologies to deliver best-of-breed software, in order to meet the demanding needs of the business. ASP.NET AJAX allows Spot Runner to create a rich user-centered web experience very easily. WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) and SQL Server 2005 are invaluable in that they provide Spot Runner with powerful tools to solve difficult business issues surrounding systems integration and data processing.

Spot Runner received the Web Marketing Association “WebAward” for “Best Advertising Website,” the “Red Herring 100 North America” award, made it on Alwayson.com’s power list of the top 100 digital media and entertainment companies two years in a row, and recently won seven Telly awards, honoring the best local, regional, and cable commercials.

Keep watching Spot Runner. I am impatient to see what is coming next…