I ran across the first known use of the Big in Japan tools released as open source projects earlier this month.  Called Weloo, it is a private label version of FeedVault.  The original tool, FeedVault was built to provide an easy way to backup and/or share your OPML file (the file that is inside of [...]

According to Auren Hoffman “…big high tech companies are losing the talent war.”  He suggests, Big companies are losing their “A” players and they’re struggling to attract “B” players. In an industry where everything is about people, large tech companies are in trouble because they are losing the talent war. And keep in mind, an [...]

Austin based uShip is an online marketplace for shipping services. The company was founded in 2003 by U.T. MBA grads Matt Chasen, Jay Manickam and Mickey Millsap. We need to do a full profile on the company, but Silicon Valley’s gossip rag pointed out a “painful” viral video produced by the company. We must agree, [...]

This morning Mike announced that he was moving Shadows, the bookmarking service, into the TechCrunch DeadPool. Ouch. Shadows is a product of Pluck based in Austin and funded by Austin Ventures. Last year we kept running into the Pluck CEO, David Panos, and by all accounts the company is now focusing on its Blogburst platform. [...]

By all accounts, Texas Hold’em was invented in Texas and popularized in Dallas starting in 1925. The game has been played throughout the city for more than 80 years without notice from State, Local or National authorities. That all changed this year when A&E’s SWAT began filming here in Dallas this June. According to the [...]

Remember the 1996 Tom Cruise flick Jerry Maguire? Jerry had a crisis of faith that caused him to write a new “mission statement” for his company. Soon after he distributes it he is fired. Brad Garlinghouse, a Yahoo SVP, released what is being called the “Peanut Butter Manifesto” according to the Wall Street Journal. The [...]

In a move that reflects the current direction of the Big in Japan business, the company is launching its first true tool set ~ an API to allow web applications to build in robust voice features (built, managed and hosted by Big in Japan). Big in Japan doesn’t want to build the applications you use, [...]

It took me a more than a year to finally sit down and have lunch with William Moore, founder and CEO of RadioTime.  The RadioTime folks, including Candy Bernhardt who I knew from her work at Travelocity priot to joining the company, are located in Dallas at the intersection of 635 and 75. What do [...]

Update: WOW!  The Democrats denied Nancy Pelosi her choice, John Murtha, as majority leader.  Instead her foe, Steny Hoyer, won the position.  The vote was not that close, 149-86.  I stand corrected, maybe things are going to change…  Exit polls indicate that the number one issue on the minds of voters was ethics in Congress. [...]

Earlier today I announced that Big in Japan would release the source code to several web applications built and hosted by the company. TechCrunch even picked up on the idea. The source code is being released using the GPL.* Each tool was written using Ruby on Rails. If you review the code you will note [...]