Jeff Widman
Jeff Widman has successfully started and sold two companies: [PageLever](http://pagelever.com/) & [BrandGlue](http://brandglue.com/).
Before that, Jeff interned at [TechCrunch](https://techcrunch.com/), [TechStars](http://techstars.org), and for [Seth Godin](http://sethgodin.com).
Crunchbase profile →Latest from Jeff Widman
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The Static Document Model Is Dying–RIP .doc, .xls, and .ppt
My TechCrunch internship has ended, and for my final TechCrunchIT post, I wanted to connect the dots I see within the enterprise space. Thanks for the wonderful time. When Writely and Zoho Writer launched three years ago, some quickly predicted the end for Microsoft Office. It seemed so obvious: free beats paid, ubiquitous access beats the device-centric, thick-client model. But IT… Read More
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Techrigy Hits 1 Billion Conversations–Think Google Alerts On Steroids
Last month, I e-mailed my entire family and suggested they setup Google Alerts on their name. When a week later someone created a malicious Facebook group slandering my sister (very uncool), I was reminded of the importance of knowing what people are publicly saying about you and your products. When I first began working on TechCrunch, I immediately looked for a tool to alert me whenever… Read More
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SEO At the Enterprise Level–A Major Flop
When I hear SEO, I think of brilliant quantitative guys shut-up in an apartment somewhere running A/B split tests and writing link-bait. Search Engine Optimization is the way companies make it easy for customers to find their website using Google. Because search engines don’t publish their algorithms, SEO is mostly reverse-engineering. Despite the guessing game, SEO produces… Read More
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CrunchBoard Jobs: TechCrunch Remote Intern, Director of Marketing, VP Mobile Ad Sales, CTO
Update: TechCrunch is looking for 4 remote interns–5+ hours per week. While this week saw fewer new jobs on CrunchBoard, companies are still adding jobs in New York, Silicon Valley, Boston, Philadelphia, and telecommute. (Here at TechCrunch, we’re looking for a Rails Developer.) New jobs on CrunchBoard: Software Engineer
Yelp – San Francisco, CA Vice President Online… Read More -
When IBM Beats Facebook And Twitter: Discover Relevant People Within Your Network
When twitter recently added a “Suggested Friends” feature, I was more than a little disappointed. Unlike Facebook’s “People You May Know” feature, no explanation is provided for why these people were suggested. In an enterprise setting, the most valuable people are the connectors: “The people who know which people know what”, according to Alan Lepofsky… Read More
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Intacct Innovates Boring Accounting Using The SaaS Paradigm
Intacct just launched the Winter 2009 edition of their SaaS based financial accounting system. Major highlights include a Global Consolidations product for real-time financial reports across international boundaries, integration with QuickArrow for managing professional services teams, and a plethora of partnerships with other SaaS providers. In some ways, this isn’t big news–just… Read More
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Sync Your Gmail Contacts, Calendar With iPhone & Windows Mobile
Last August, I upgraded from a simple flip phone to a HTC Touch. Immediately I began looking for a way to avoid manually entering my Gmail contacts into the phone. After several hours of fruitless searching, I stumbled on NuevaSync–a free service that sync’d both my Gmail contacts and my Google Calendar. Thankfully, they also support Google Apps accounts. When I got an iPod Touch… Read More -
New Napera Beta Integrates Software Into Network Switches–Get A Free 24-port Gigabit Network Switch
Napera, a recent Seattle-based startup, is looking for 100 IT and Network Managers for a closed beta test of their new 24-port gigabit network switch. Details below. Napera is testing a relatively new concept–targeted security software subscriptions installed onto the network hardware. These security subscriptions recognize that different industries face different threat… Read More
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CrunchBoard Jobs: Widget Developer, SEO Specialist, Python Developer, More…
Despite the continuous stream of layoffs, CrunchBoard this week has the most diverse job listings I’ve seen yet. There’s both a range of job types–from marketing to technical–and a wide variety of job locations, from New York to Dallas to San Francisco to Portland, OR. Want to work as a social media planner in Philadelphia?
Or a product manager at Newsweek Digital in… Read More -
Browser-Based File Manager Bypasses Downloading–Create, Edit & Save Microsoft Office Files Directly To The Server
IT Hit just launched the Beta version of their web-based file manager. Certainly the ability to create, edit, and save Microsoft Office Documents on the server–without downloading the file or any plugins–is the most immediately useful feature. Unfortuntely, the Microsoft Office integration requires Internet Explorer; however, I successfully used the IE-Tab Firefox extension to edit… Read More
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Zoho Seeks To Capitalize On Closure Of Google Notebook With Easy Import
Tomorrow morning Zoho will announce new import functionality for migrating Google Notebooks into Zoho Notebook. This comes on the heels of Google’s decision to stop Google Notebook development and quit adding new accounts. Also updated is a the Firefox Extension for Zoho Notebook. Much like Delicious, the Zoho extension provides Notebook access via a pop-up menu. Handy functionality… Read More
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IBM Announces Lotus Notes ActiveSync Support For iPhone
IBM just announced Lotus Notes ActiveSync support will be released later this year. The code is already live, and was demonstrated in a seminar earlier today at Lotusphere. This is native integration with the iPhone–within the native mail, calendar, and contacts. Previously, iPhone users were forced to use the mobile Safari browser to access the Notes Web Access interface. Lotus is… Read More
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Genius Inside Releases SaaS Version Of Enterprise Grade Project Management Software
Genius Inside just released a fully-featured SaaS version of their project management software. And by fully featured, I mean more than just advanced task tracking–like 37 Signals’ Basecamp product. Genius Project includes Gantt charts, project portfolio analysis, and tracking contractor progress in both relative and absolute terms. I just watched a demo here at Lotusphere, and… Read More
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Lotusphere 2009: IBM Attempts The Tightrope Of Open Collaboration Within Large Enterprise
I’m at Lotusphere 2009 today through Thursday. Main announcements this morning: IBM highlighted partnerships with LinkedIn, TripIt, Skype, and Salesforce.com. On the internal side, the Notes crew demo’d very functional Blackberry integration, voice chat integrated within Notes, and a very nice browser-based UI. The emphasis was clearly on social computing and… Read More
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CrunchBoard Jobs: Bed & Breakfast Software Engineer, CTO, Program Manager, Web Architect
Want to work as the software engineer for BedandBreakfast.com? Or a healthcare CTO? Or as a Software Development Engineer for the Windows Live Social Network? Jobs are available in Seattle, New York, Austin, San Francisco, or Mountain View, CA. (Here at TechCrunch, we’re looking for a Rails Developer.) Some other jobs currently on CrunchBoard: Read More
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Is Enterprise RSS Dead? Newsgator CEO: "Who cares?"
Enterprise RSS promised to be far more than just Google Reader on steroids. It allows groups to keep abreast of private updates using push technology without cluttering up e-mail. Similarly, I use SM2 everyday to monitor news about CrunchBase. Currently I get a daily e-mail, but it’d be nice if I could subscribe to a password-protected RSS feed. On Monday, Marshall Kirkpatrick… Read More
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Salesforce.com Launches The Service Cloud, A Customer Service SaaS Application
These days, when I have technical question, I reach for Google long before customer service. What if customer service could reach for Google? Salesforce.com just launched a new customer service application called Service Cloud. The new application, built on a SaaS model, tries to capture the crowdsourced pools of knowledge floating across the internet and use them for commercial customer… Read More
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70,000% Increase In Beta Testing For Upcoming Microsoft Exchange Release
A little over three years ago, Ray Ozzie wrote his famous memo re-focusing Microsoft from software to services. We started seeing results of that memo last October, when Microsoft announced Windows Azure. The SaaS emphasis is also hitting mainstream products like Microsoft Exchange. This morning Steve Gillmor and I talked with Rajesh Jha, the VP of Development overseeing Microsoft Exchange… Read More
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Another Enterprise Administrative Tool Shifts to the Cloud: Pirelli Broadband Group adopts SaaS Capacity Management System
Pirelli Broadband Solutions, the broadband arm of the Pirelli Group, announced they adopted Neptuny’s Caplan SaaS. Capacity management has long been the domain of large enterprises; it wasn’t cost effective for smaller companies. The cost to implement a capacity management system was higher than the cost savings from optimizing capacity. Neptuny claims the new SaaS version of… Read More
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LogRhythm Joins Effort to Secure Online Payments–Increases Focus On Log Security
LogRhythm just joined the Payment Card Industry Security Council (PCI) with the goal of making log info more secure. IT departments typically use logs to monitor security breaches, whether malicious employees or outside hackers. While it can indicate unsuccessful attacks, the data is particularly valuable for identifying actual intrusions. Just this week, the IRS put out a report saying… Read More
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