When we reported on the importance of great design to the success of tech startups recently, the lack of many designers co-founding startups was seen as a problem. The Designer Fund is looking to help support that philosophy.
The Designer Fund is a network of angel investors, offering seed investment in startups with designer-founders. The idea is that design needs to be at the core of tech products. As a release from the fund today says, “No longer can design just be an outsourced add on, limited to occasionally putting ‘lipstick on a pig,’ tech moves so fast that it’s a continuous process of iteration for designers to prioritize solving the right strategic problems, contexts and use cases for their company to prosper.”
Beyond financial backing, the fund offers mentorship and access to the network of experienced designers with backgrounds in companies such as YouTube, Facebook, Google and Twitter.
Today the Designer Fund has announced investments in ten startups with products that range from an augmented reality toy, to a tool that allows campaigners to harness online content about their cause.
The full ten are:
- Tiny Review, an image and review sharing app for iOS from Melissa Miranda, a former IDEO designer.
- Launchpad Toys, a Ycombinator graduate startup offering Toontastic, an iPad app that lets children create animated stories.
- The work of Khoi Vinh, a former New York Times designer who has created collaborative collage app, Mixel.
- From designer-founder Aaron Perry Zucker, The Creative Action Network is due for launch in January. This is a tool to help organizations and campaigns harness cause-based content more effectively.
- Superflux, from Anab Jain, is developing a prototype toy for augmenting reality in digital and physical spaces using sensors.
- 500 Startups participant WeddingLovely, from designer Tracy Osborn, is working on making weddings easier to organize.
- Social blogging tool Teethie comes from Standford Product Design graduate Nina Khosla.
- Designer and former basketball player Maurice Woods is launching Convozine, a social magazine service.
- Cooking-focused startup CultureKitchenSF is founded by Stanford Product Design graduates and 500 Startups participants Jennifer Lopez and Abby Sturges.
- Storytree, from IDEO designer and alumni of the Stanford Graduate Design Program Matt Sullivan, is a service that lets families capture stories about their histories.
There’s a strange thing brewing in them there Interwebs right now. It’s the story of Mozilla and Google, a partnership made in heaven, and the burning question of whether or not that partnership will continue. In case you’ve not been following along, the search partnership means that a default installation of Firefox will have Google as the search box provider. In return, Mozilla gets money. A lot of money.
But the deal is up, at least in its current form. It expired in November, leaving Mozilla with the potential loss of over 80% of its revenue unless a new contract could be reached.
In a case of interesting timing, Mozilla has recently introduced a version of “Firefox with Bing“, with the stated aim of “making it easier” to use Bing as the default provider for the browser.
Are feathers ruffled at Google? Well, nobody seems to be talking. Or, more clearly, both Mozilla and Google are talking but neither of them is really saying anything. At present, the word from Mozilla is this:
“Our search relationship with Google remains positive for both of us. We are in active negotiations and have nothing further to announce at this time. We have every confidence that search partnerships will continue to be a strong and growing generator of revenue for the foreseeable future.”
Let’s break this down from PR-speak into what’s really being said — “If we (Mozilla) can keep a partnership, we keep getting money. But you’ll notice that we said “search partnerships”, not “Google partnerships” and that leaves a pretty open door to inking deals with other providers, too.”
In short, it’s entirely possible that Mozilla is exercising (or at least investigating) a funded partnership with Microsoft to have Bing as the default search client in Firefox. As Bing continues to grow in popularity, nipping at the #2 spot that’s presently held by Yahoo, there’s no doubt that the engine could put to good use a traffic injection provided by Firefox.
But Firefox’s numbers are starting to wane somewhat. Mozilla today released a reminder video, of sorts, to jog your memory on the subject of why you should care about Firefox. It comes just days after we learned that Google’s Chrome browser has overtaken Firefox in the worldwide rankings. So if feathers are ruffled, it’s likely that they’re not only in Google’s camp.
So where does this leave Google? The readily-available answer is that Google no longer needs Firefox, because it has its own source of search traffic in Chrome. Back in 2006 when this deal was first inked, Chrome didn’t exist. In fact, Chrome wasn’t around until 2008, and the latest deal was extended in 2008 to run into 2011, giving Google plenty of runway to ramp up its own browser’s usage before cutting off ties.
The end result? Unfortunately, nobody outside of the two camps knows just yet. But it’s an interesting twist to what could be considered an “old” partnership by Internet standards. Is now the time for Mozilla to move away from Google, and into a relationship with Bing? Bing could use the boost, Mozilla could use the cash and Google doesn’t necessarily need either of those. The times they are a’changin’.
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