Two Degrees Blog

I’m pleased to announce that Two Degrees Strategy & Development has become a Network Partner in Microsoft® BizSpark™, a new global program designed to accelerate the success of early stage Startups.

BizSpark provides fast, easy access to current full-featured Microsoft development tools and production licenses of server products; professional technical support from Microsoft; and connections to a global community of business experts who can help guide you through the hurdles of growing your business.

Participants must be privately held, in business less than three years and have less than $1 million in annual revenue.   Companies that want to participate in BizSpark are required to be sponsored by Network Partners, such as Two Degrees.

For additional details on the program, visit http://www.microsoft.com/BizSpark. Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] if you would like an enrollment invitation.

Related articles

• Microsoft BizSpark: 12,000 Startups and Growing (blogs.msdn.com)
• How Microsoft BizSpark Is Doing With Startups – And How It Can Do Better (xconomy.com)

In case the name 3 Buck Bites doesn’t say it all – give or take 99¢ – the mission of this newly-launched website by IAC/InterActive Corp. operated Citysearch is helping food lovers find cheap eats for $3.99 or less.

“Does the idea of a $3 kobe beef slider send you into culinary bliss? Do you know where to find the best and cheapest duck confit taco in town? If all of the above sounds like an average dining experience, then 3 Buck Bites is the place for you!”

I’m waiting for the iPhone app with Loki integration, so I can dine guilt-free on taquitos, dumplings, pulled-pork sliders, Banh Beo and scrambled-eggs pie wherever the mood strikes.  Well, at least guilt-free as far as the budget is concerned.  Most of the selections wouldn’t make your nutritionist or trainer proud.

You may want to check out MBAvid.com, a free portal featuring video lectures on a variety of business topics, from strategy and finance to leadership and innovation.  You’ll find a collection of informative videos from institutions such as Yale University, Carnegie Mellon, and Davos as well as a forum to share videos and ideas with other members of the community.

I’ve clicked through a few of the videos, most of which were aggregated from YouTube, and found quite a few interesting and thought-provoking presentations.  I’m not sure I’d call it an MBA experience (they describe themselves as a “business video education portal,”) but I think it’s certainly worth exploring.

One video that I hadn’t seen before was the “Bill Gates Unplugged” presentation at Carnegie Mellon which concluded his farewell tour last year and included the self-deprecating “Bill Gate’s Last Day at Microsoft Video” from CES …

VentureBeat is Liveblogging the event here.

Click here for the FriendFeed.

Click here for live conference from CNET.

You can find more CNET iPhone news coverage here.

Here’s a live blog and pics from AppScout.

Click here for a comprehensive view from Macworld.

Click here for a few last minute predictions at PC World.

For those that have been waiting …

If you read the CNET blog (see link above), you’ll see that iPhone 3.0 does includes cut and paste!

Here’s a summary of other features in iPhone 3.0 from Macworld’s iPhone Central …

Landscape orientation is coming to all key applications. Already available in Safari, when you rotate the iPod touch or iPhone sideways, the new functionality will enable you to input using a larger keyboard in Mail, Notes and SMS. It’s also good for viewing widescreen attachments.

Another big win for long-suffering iPhone users: MMS, or Multimedia Messaging Service, support. This enables you to send and receive photos, contact information (using the vCard standard, which will automatically add it to your Contact list), audio files and locations. The new Messages application not only supports MMS, but it can also forward and delete messages, either individually or multiply.

Voice Memos is a new application that enables you to use to record audio files. You can use the built-in microphone or an external microphone, edit the memo and share it by e-mail or MMS.

New calendar format support will be added in iPhone 3.0’s release — CalDAV, the format supported by Yahoo, Google, Oracle, OS X Server and others, as well as .ics, commonly used for sports schedules, national holiday lists, movies and more.

Search capabilities are being added to key applications, starting with Mail. You’ll be able to search messages, From, To and Subject and all other headers, and you can continue your search on the mail server if it’s not on the iPhone — at least for Exchange and most IMAP servers, according to Apple. You can also search in your Calendar and iPod, and search in Notes.

Spotlight search capabilities are also being added to the iPhone, so you can search iPhone-wide for a word or phrase you need to find.

Other new features include Note sync with the Mac (or PC) through iTunes, the ability to shake to shuffle your music (a feature previously seen on the newest iPod nano), Wi-Fi automatic login, stereo Bluetooth support (for devices that support the A2DP profile), YouTube account log-in, enhanced support with better keyboards for different languages, auto-fill, anti-phishing, and extended parental controls.

NOTE: You can find a preview of iPhone OS 3.0 at the Apple iPhone website later today.

All That Twitters May Not Be Gold, Analysts Say
[DealBook Blog - NYTimes.com]

Twitter seems to have gone from obscure to mainstream in about the same time it takes to send a “tweet” over the network.

Despite the fact that the three-year-old microblogging service doesn’t generate revenue — nevermind profits — there is already chatter about who might want to buy it.

However, analysts at Sanford Bernstein believe that potential acquirers for Twitter should think twice.

Whoever buys Twitter, they wrote, “will likely have to operate it at a loss in perpetuity, or until the next cool Web 2.0 social networking concept comes along and Twitter tweets no more.”

Read more here.