Hey All, Kurt Here.  Long time, no write.

Anyway, I was just reading on CNN’s SciTechBlog how Apple might be shopping around for a location for a new $1 billion server farm and thought to myself ‘Why Not in Houston?’  We are already home to the Number 1 dedicated server hosting provider in the world.  Why not Apple’s server farm as well?  Does anyone know whether the Greater Houston Partnership, the Houston Technology Center’s Emerging Technology Council, or the Mayor’s Office is pursuing this?  If not, they should.  It is moves like this that help to build solid technology foundations for a city.

Apple plans $1 billion ’server farm’

Apple appears to be planning a major upgrade to its online capabilities. Reports indicate the company is shopping around for a location to build a $1 billion server farm. This cluster of networked computers would power Apple’s future Web operations.

The iTunes and the iPhone app store are certainly growing, but this massive project suggests Apple may have something new up its sleeve — or is the $1 billion price tag expected given the Apple gear that will likely be used?

Data Center Knowledge writes:

The size of the project raises interesting questions about Apple’s ambitions for its online operations. The $1 billion price tag is nearly twice the $500 to $600 million that Microsoft and Google typically invest in the enormous data centers that power their cloud computing platforms.

While the location of the data center is not yet decided, the Associated Press reports North Carolina lawmakers are salivating at the prospect of of bringing a billion dollars to their state. Legislators have proposed tax breaks for Apple that could amount to $46 million in the next decade, assuming the company reaches its $1 billion investment target within nine years:

Though the Apple site is initially expected to employ fewer than 100 full-time workers, legislators said the potential prize was so juicy it justified changing the state’s corporate tax formula to benefit a single company.

Come on Houston!  Don’t let North Carolina walk away with this!  Let’s bring Apple to Houston!!

Just a reminder that we’ll be having our monthly Houston Startup Happy Hour tonight, May 7, from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. at Saute Bistro at 2303 Richmond Avenue.

Hope to see y’all there!

This neat widget just published in Nano Letters, in a paper published by Ambarish Ghosh and Peer Fischer from Harvard, “Controlled Propulsion of Artificial Magnetic Nanostructured Propellers.”

From "Controlled Propulsion of Artificial Magnetic Nanostructured Propellers," by Ambarish Ghosh and Peer Fischer

It’s a new kind of nano-swimmer, functionally similar to the rotating flagella found on bacteria.  This caught my eye because at the Advanced Energy Consortium, we’ve been looking for nano-thingies that can propel themselves to explore oil reservoirs.  The authors are more oriented towards biological applications, of course.  I think we’re going to see a number of new flavors of self-propelled nanoswimmers appear (at least I hope so).  The first one came from Ayusman Sen and Tom Mallouk at Penn State a couple of years ago; the videos on Sen’s website are great.  They also just published a great article on their catalytic nanomotors in Scientific American.  I think it’s still on the newstand.

Check out the full interview here and be sure to make an effort to attend one of the BioWeekend events, BioCamp Houston ’09 in particular.

Suzanne Tormollen of Atingo is a 13 year public relations veteran of the tech scene who has worked with many venture-backed companies in the Austin area as well as companies such as Dell. Suzanne is a new contributor to Startup Houston.

In my last posting, I wrote about how in a down economy companies should be executing focused and tactical PR campaigns to maintain industry awareness.  This time I am going to focus on one aspect of every PR campaign, the press release, and how companies can use this key PR activity to their fullest advantage.

The press release is one of the most used PR tools.  It’s a quick article written in the news style that promotes a recent accomplishment for a company such as a new customer, partnership or product, a new executive hire, or it can tout something as simple as a move to new office space.  While some companies look at advertising as way to promote some of these same accomplishments, a press release can be just as persuasive, and more cost-effective, if written and distributed in the correct way.

Unfortunately I see too many companies that view the press release as just that, a document with words to post to the company web site.  Many companies are missing a huge opportunity to leverage a simple, yet effective, means of communication.  Every press release should be viewed as a strategic announcement and a set of predefined objectives and strategies should be created to achieve your desired results.  The end game for all press releases is to increase industry awareness by having the news accepted and published in a variety of forms such as newspapers, magazines and Internet sites.  Frankly, this can only be accomplished if a clear strategy is created.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself to help create a strategy that will result in success for your next announcement:

• What are your goals for doing this press release?
  Maybe you want coverage in a vertical trade magazine for your new product, or a TV interview to raise awareness for an event you’re hosting or coverage in local newspapers to help with recruiting.  The purpose of most press releases is to connect with the media and gain some kind of coverage that will be viewed by your customer, investors and partners.  Determining what kind of coverage you want and from what media outlet will help create a focused announcement strategy with desired results.

• Who is the intended audience for this news?
  Most companies view the audience of a press release to be potential and current customers, investors and partners, for example.  But, there is also another primary recipient of a press release – the reporter.  When thinking about this question, it’s important to keep in mind what publications and news outlets you would like to influence with your news.  Which outlets would your customers, partners, investors be most likely to read.  And, which stake holder within your audience will be most influenced by the news.

• What message do you want to communicate?
  You may have an idea for a press release such as a new product or customer win but you also need to determine what key messages you want to communicate about that particular accomplishment.  For example, if you are announcing a new product, you’ll want to focus on the benefits that product brings to your customers as well as the features of the new product.  Remember to keep the messaging clean and concise and remember your audience.

• Is there anything unique about the news you want to communicate?
  With thousands of news releases being issued every day it’s important to think about what might be unique to your announcement. What will catch your audience’s eye when they see the headline of your release; what will make them read the copy; what message are you communicating that will make a reporter what to write about it.

• Is there a third party that can support your claims?
  It’s always a good idea to include supporting quotes in your news releases if you can.  If it’s a product release, find an industry analyst and/or a customer to validate your claims.  If it’s a customer release, see if that customer would be willing to be included in the announcement.

• What strategies do you want to utilize to communicate this news?
  Once your audience, goals and messages are defined you can begin to develop a distribution strategy.  This can include news wire distribution, posting to your web site, sending directly to key reporters and analysts including phone call follow ups, etc.  It may also be valuable to create a communications plan for distributing to your customers, partners, and investors if appropriate.  With each audience comes a new key message that you’ll want to highlight so they see the relevance to their business.

You may be thinking this seems like a lot of work for just a press release.  BUT, remember.  It’s not JUST a press release. To work through this process, you can create a “strategy document” that specifically outlines goals, audience, strategies and results.  I also recommend including a time-line to ensure everyone deadlines are made and the announcement is issued at the right time.

When you combine a well written press release with a focused distribution strategy, you will gain a tremendous amount of return.  Just posting your press release to your web site or distributing it over a news wire will only cost you money and leave your targeted audience untouched.

Startup Company Lawyer has a great post that breaks down the various elements of determining what kind of entity your startup should operate within. Great read from a great blog.