MIT Enterprise Forum - Web 2.0

Had a great talk last night at MIT discussing Web 2.0 technologies. I was on a panel with a guy from Allurent Technologies who is also using Adobe Flex. They are building some very interesting e-commerce solutions using the technology and creating an amazing shopping experience for users. We also had a great discussion on Adobe's next project called Apollo which connects local data to RIA's seamlessly. It looks like a very intersecting product and we might end up doing something with it for our card artist system. It's nice to think that one day we will not have to replicate our data everywhere and the versions we have locally will be the same as the ones on the web.

Cardvio Article in Mass High Tech

We got written up this week in Mass High Tech this week, which is read by about 60,000 people in and around Boston. Big thanks to Chris Calnan for interviewing me and writing up the article.

Young Entrepreneur greets online card business with Cardvio


-Carm

New Version Finally Out

For those of you who might have been on the site late Sunday night we did finally push out a new version. We had some issues with conflicting code, but it seems to be working well right now. There are still some minor things that need work, but for the most part this new version is much more stable and has many new features. Enjoy... www.cardvio.com

-Carm

Pause... Launch happening on Friday

Just a quick update, we moved the update to Friday. After one last test through the software we wanted to take out a few more bugs. I'll post as soon as it's out on Friday. Thanks.

-Carm

New Version Of Cardvio Coming out Tonight

Just letting all the people who read my blog, haha that we are about to deploy a new version of our software tonight. Couple new features:

- Lots of bug fixes that were causing the application to hang or crash. Hopefully, it's the last time we will see them.
- Improved user session management
- Mail Merge with recipient validation and easy ability to add and remove contacts
- Better login and logging out features
- Easier checkout features
- Pricing by vendor or user

Maybe I can detail these a little more in my next post. Also, we'll be updating the main website in the next few days. Thanks again for all of you who have been supporting us over the last few months.

-Carm

Cardvio Featured on go2web20.net

Just found out we got featured in the Go 2 Web 2.0 Directory. Very nice of them and it is also driving a ton of traffic to our site. Check it out: www.go2web20.net

Back At Northeastern

On Monday of this week I got the opportunity to go and speak to a group of entrepreneur students at Northeastern about Cardvio. It was great to be back at NU and see all the progress the school has made. However, I was somewhat surprised by the students, they lacked the enthusiasm or genuine interest in starting a business. I love the idea of being and entrepreneur and wouldn't trade it for anything. The idea of working for a large corporation doesn't interest me at all and I don't think it ever will. I also spoke with a guy from my class who runs a dry cleaning business called Husky Express, http://www.huskyexpress.com/, interesting business but he has been running it for 5 years and looked really exhausted. However, he still seemed to have some passion for the business and wanted to see it grow much bigger than it already is. I wish him the best of luck.

Cardvio Current Status

Ok, so it's been a while since I put up my last post and lots has happened at Cardvio. We have added a bunch of new features and have continued to work out lots of bugs. The best new feature is the mail merge which allows you to upload a csv file and send a card to a bunch of people. We also let you save and load previously designed cards.

I really hope we continue to grow our artist side of the business. I imagine will eventually have a system where anyone can become and artist, design and share cards, even make money off them. I keep thinking how cool it would be to have thousands of free lance artists submitting content and maybe even a whole community where people can ask for specific types of cards and get artists to design them for them.

We are also starting fund raising next month, which is not one of my favorite activities, I enjoy much more running the business than trying to convince people that your worth investing. But we will see how it goes. Well, if you haven't done it already check out the latest version of the site at www.cardvio.com.

Thoughts On Flock - Can a browser really define Web 2.0

Today Flock was released to the general public, in a beta release. I find the entire concept of flock rather interesting. It's goal is to be the web 2.0 browser we have all be looking for. While I applaud there ability to make it easier for me manage my photos, blogs and bookmarks, I don't think its heading in the right direction.

The reason I say this is because I think Web 2.0 is all about pushing the browser to the background. It's about unlocking the door between our local stored information and make it transparent to the web. The browser has always been the door to the outside world and I think it's time we start looking at it differently. Web 2.0 also expressed goals of emulating desktop application through the web. Flock, in my mind accomplishes neither of these goals.

If you look at Flock, its a dowloadable program that you have to install and then it opens like a normal browser. There are some simple setup steps to gain access to your flick/photobucket, blog and del.icio.us accounts and it does make the process simpler yet it doesn't really make the way in which I do things any easier.

Let me put it another way, what I would really like is a system that just does away with the browser completely. Basically the easiest way I can see doing this is by enhancing the right click options. For instance, I should just be able to go to My Pictures, right click on one and go sent to flick/photobucket. Or maybe I just open MS word or Notepad write a few lines of text and then right click and select "send to blog". Lastly, why not just link my favorites to del.icio.us directly, or anytime I come across a link, whether online, in a pdf or .doc and right click and go "send to my del.icio.us".

Maybe we could just call the company RiteClick and get rid of the browser completely. Lastly, if you really want to re-invent the browser, make a system for people to more easily develop rich applications though the web. I think it would be great to have a shopping application that I could run from my desktop, maybe something that looks at dozens of shopping sites and makes it easily for me to review, compare, sort and buy and do it dynamically so you don't have to refresh and you can easily drag and drop items into your cart or favorites.

Web 2.0 Crazy - Value Anyone

I have been doing lots of research on Web 2.0 lately and continue to be confused on the massive amount of companies attempting to make some value proposition out of products that just don't seem to carry any revenue model. Yes, advertising can get you somewhere but that should never be the entire equation. If you look at the trends surrounding web 2.0 it seems to be focused on social networking, information aggregators or some sort of porting of desktop application to the web. I have yet to see a creative player taking these trends and trying to make a model in which users will actually pay for the service. More importantly, look at how much investment is going into these areas and we already know at best there will only be one or two winners in each marketplace. Here are some examples that confuse me:

Digg.com - ok, awesome service, News, bookmarking and social networking all tied into one. I learn something new on that site every day, but I have never clicked on an ad and probably never will. I know there has been some talk about using the technology to create a review service for different types of products, but there are many dominating services already out there that let you get users participate in this way, i.e Amazon reviewing . And more importantly, nobody really wants to pay for this because they will just find it for free somewhere else.

Meebo - allows people to sign into different chat services directly through the web. Nice interface and it works pretty well, but how do they generate revenue. This seems to be a nice to have and I have yet to figure out what pain they are solving?

I guess my point is that when are we going to get away from "look another cool Web 2.0 application" and start talking about how we can solve people's pain. When we started Cardvio, we were looking for a way to change the way people send greeting cards because it's a pain to go to the card store and find a card, deal with addresses and getting it to the mail. I would really like to see more companies take 2.0 technologies and make applications that help solve a real need in the marketplace and porting desktop applications to the web doesn't count. It's about asking what the new level of functionality allows us to do that hasn't been done before. It's also about finding the pain, so here are some pain points that stand out for me:

Data management - I hate the fact that I have 5 to 10 versions of every document I ever make and I wish there was a better way to track, store and share these document in an easy way. I think about sending a document out to 5 people to review and having to manage edits from all of them.

Sharing - I have so much stuff on my computer from pictures, movies, music that just sits on my computer gaining dust. I would love a way to easily share all this stuff with people I know. I saw a demo of the IWeb product from Apple and thought it was a great tool, but what about the rest of us that live in the PC world.

Ok, enough ranting for tonight, back to work. And just in case, if you haven't already, use www.cardvio.com.

Web 2.0 - Cardvio Greeting Cards

Thought I would start by sharing our first press release, enjoy!!

Cardvio™ Provides Mother’s Day Solution for the Next Generation
Now you can design and send high quality greeting cards from your PC

April 21, 2006, Malden, MA – Cardvio, the leading innovator in “Net-to-Mail” greetings solutions has announces Version 2.0 of its online greeting card design studio at www.cardvio.com. Just in time for Mother’s Day, Cardvio has stocked its supply of themed cards and upgraded it’s capabilities to include features for design such as:

• Enhanced drag and drop positioning for text and photo
• An expanded font list to include most fonts found on standard PC’s or Mac
• The addition of thousands of cards to search through, including an extensive set of blank backgrounds

Whether sons and daughters want to go the extra mile and design a personal card with their own photos and art, or if they simply do not have the energy to drive to the card store, Cardvio will make this holiday and others, more special. Cardvio takes advantage of new capabilities available to Web 2.0 applications to bring WYSIWYG editing simplicity and design to a new level for creating personalized greeting cards. Cardvio couples that with next day, in the mail, convenience for users who don’t have the time or ability to get to a card store and the post office.

Says CTO Bill Spencer “AJAX, Rich Internet Applications, and Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Flex are the rage nowadays, but few companies have been able to capitalize on the promise of these powerful new interfaces. Cardvio™ 2.0 is a convincing demonstration that the promise is already here.”

Launched in January of 2006, Cardvio has captured the imagination and the attention of individual consumers and business alike. Cardvio’s client list includes WorldWise Education, Inc., Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation, Norkom Technologies, Inc., among others. Cardvio draws its themed-card content from Paramount Cards Holding Corporation, America’s oldest and third largest greeting card company, with a library of more than 20,000 beautifully designed greeting cards.

About Cardvio

Cardvio™ is an Internet software and services company that provides online Constituent Relationship Management solutions for nonprofit organizations and original equipment manufacturers. The Cardvio™ web resource combines on-line text, picture and photo design tools with on-demand printing, and just-in-time mailing to deliver personalized business marketing information, greeting cards, certificates, flyers and other artwork with next-day, in-the-mail, convenience, and low cost to consumers and businesses. Cardvio™ markets this “net-to-mail” solution to consumers, professional service businesses, non-profits, on-line portals, and e-Merchants where delivery of a personalized message is a key factor to success.

Forward-Looking Statements
In addition to historical information, this press release contains forward-looking statements (including, without limitation, express or implied statements regarding the adoption of software solutions by nonprofit organizations) that involve risks and uncertainties. These forward-looking statements represent our estimates and assumptions only as of the date hereof. These statements reflect our current views with respect to future events and are based on assumptions and subject to risks and uncertainties. These statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performances or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, without limitation: our limited operating history; our history of losses; our dependence on increased acceptance by nonprofit organizations of online fundraising; lengthy sales cycles for major customers; our need to manage growth; risks associated with accounting for and processing large amounts of donations; the rapidly changing technologies and market demands; and other risks identified in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Given these uncertainties, you should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements.