TechCrunch
Net Power & Light Launches Spin, A Fun, Tactile Video Chat App For iOS
I don’t think I’ve ever had a great video chat experience on my smartphone or tablet. Until now, I assumed that’s just because I’m super-awkward, but the team behind a startup called Net Power & Light seems to think there’s a broader problem here, one that it’s trying to solve with the launch of a new app called Spin.
Obviously, there are plenty of other chat services out there, including Apple’s own FaceTime. But when Net Power & Light co-founder and CEO Tara Lemmey gave me a demo, I had to admit that it feels pretty different. There’s no single feature that makes Spin stand out, but as whole it has clearly been optimized around the touch experience of an iPad (and to a lesser extent the iPhone and iPod Touch). When you’re chatting with someone, it’s easy to use the screen to zoom in and out of the video, and also to share and swipe through photos and videos (which can be imported from Facebook, Flickr, or their iOS camera roll).
Other features include the ability to invite people for a scheduled call (you can have up to 10 people on a call), adjust the audio mix of the call (you just increase the size of someone’s image to make them louder and decrease it to make them softer), and introduce fun, random elements to the call by doodling or adding “FXPs” like paper airplanes or hearts.
“We really wanted people emotionally be together and to be entangled in each other’s lives,” Lemmey said. “We want to deliver emotion at the scale of the Internet.”
For example, Lemmey said she uses Spin to stay in touch with her children when she’s traveling, and to have shared sessions with her extended family when they want to watch football games together. Again, people already do that kind of thing with Skype and FaceTime, but Lemmey’s goal is to make that a more natural experience, where “the technology is in the background.”
The video and audio are also pretty high-quality. To illustrate that, Lemmey brought multiple people from multiple locations onto the demo chat, some of them in the Net Power & Light office, others out-and-about in San Francisco, without WiFi, and everything ran smoothly.
Although Spin feels like a consumer product, the company says it has been tested out by organizations such as Harvard University, TED, and DC United — this could be used for business video conferencing, or for larger webinars and virtual classrooms. In fact, it sounds like Net Power & Light sees a bigger business opportunity by selling the technology to enterprises.
It’s a good thing the app looks as nice as it does, by the way, since the company has apparently been developing the technology since 2009. Net Power & Light has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from investors that include Alsop Louie, John Seely Brown, BSkyB, and Singtel Innov8.
You can download the app here.
Three Top Microsoft Investors Allegedly Want Bill Gates To Step Down As Chairman
According to Reuters, three of Microsoft’s top 20 investors are making noise that Microsoft remove its founder and former CEO Bill Gates as chairman of its board, his current role.
The information is almost odd, and points at a potential blank slate for Microsoft. In the midst of a massive reorganization, current CEO Steve Ballmer is stepping down. If Gates were to transition away from the company as well, it would leave Microsoft with new top leadership and serve as a pivotal moment in its history.
Microsoft is more than working to better align its internal teams and revamp its larger business model by moving away from selling software and towards vending both “devices” and “services.” Its early services efforts, such as Office 365 and Azure, have performed well, while its Surface project (the devices side of things) has flagged.
Why shift Gates? According to Reuters, the grumpy few feel that he might hold the company back from finding new direction.
Don’t think for a minute that Gates is about to let go of the reins gently. He’s been a fixture at Microsoft since its soul was first formed, and even though he has no intention of returning to the CEO position, there is little to indicate that he be willing to relinquish the role.
Also, if you are a Gates fan – and so very, very many of you are, as I’ve learned from your polite tweets – it doesn’t make sense to change Gates’ board role precisely when his guidance could be key to helping the company pick its next leader. People that won’t be: Steve Ballmer, Bill Gates, Steven Sinofsky, You, Me. Everyone else is pretty much up for speculation.
I’ll just say that with the calming of ValueAct, I don’t see who could cause enough ruckus to manage a Gates role change, especially at this time of intentional turmoil. A final point: ValueAct controls around 0.8 percent of Microsoft. Gates: 4.5 percent. Ballmer has around 4 percent. That combined is a hefty chunk of the equity. Gates won’t have to step down if he doesn’t want to.
Update: I misread the initial Reuters report as indicating that the investors wanted Gates to step down from his chairmanship, not exit its board entirely. My overall analysis holds, that Gates doesn’t have to do a damn thing given his position and popularity, but I have updated the headline and post to reflect the correct source report. I apologize for the error in interpretation.
Top Image Credit: Robert Scoble
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