Last week I traveled to the Midwest to Champaign, Illinois to speak to a group of entrepreneurs about building brands and social media as covered by the Champaign News Gazette and to host another TECH cocktail. The event was sponsored by Wolfram Research which is based in Champaign and has been creating products like Mathematica for over 20 years. Wolfram Research recently received quite a bit of buzz on TechCrunch, GigaOm Network, ReadWriteWeb and Mashable among others for the launch of the consumer facing product called Wolfram Alpha. Wolfram Alpha is a the computational research engine that helps to find anwsers to questions that don't exist on the Web. I got a chance to visit with Co-founder, scientist and author, Theodore Gray and discussed the lastest from Wolfram Research. Check out the video interview with Theodore Gray (above). It is episode 82 on the SOMEWHAT FRANK Video Adventures Podcast which is available on iTunes.

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Today, l’m traveling to Computex Taipei, the world’s largest computer exhibition in Asia and second largest in the world just behind CeBit in Germany. I’m traveling 18 hours to Taipei from Washington, D.C. stopping just once in Tokyo, Japan before heading on to the island of Taiwan as part of the Intel Insider program (a brand ambassador program) that I have been a part of for a year now. I will be attending a number of the Intel events in Taipei as well as meeting the Asia Pacific Intel representatives as I look to assist them as they get their own version of the Intel Insiders program started in Asia. I am honored to be attending such an important global industry event, as it offers a super opportunity to see lots of new shiny gadgets and devices. It also affords me an opportunity to dust off my somewhat virgin passport, getting some International ink along with cultural growth. Since I have a lot of time in transit, I decided to use some of it reviewing two new Mobile Internet Devices, or MIDs, which I recently received: the Yukyung Viliv S5 and the BenQ S6.

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I am happy to share that I will be co-hosting another TECH cocktail in DC. In case you missed the last DC event it was well covered by the Washington Post and other media outlets. Check out photos from TECH cocktail DC 4. This is our 5th event in the Nation’s Capital and I hope you can make it out to the fine venue, LeftBank digital bistro in the Adam’s Morgan neighborhood of DC. TECH cocktail will offer a handful of start-ups an opportunity to show off in an expo-style to the rest of the community. If you are interested in supporting TECH cocktail please sponsor our events as we cannot put them on without your support. If you are interested in demoing a product or service please comment on this article or reach out to us at TECH cocktail. Look forward to seeing you there.

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Intel launched an new video campaign yesterday (above) that celebrates what makes Intel different than a lot of other companies. Intel supports culture, personality, heroes and this new video titled "Sponsors of Tomorrow," exemplifies this point. As an Intel Insider, I am pleased to say that Intel has helped support my geekdom, curiosity and general pursuit of happiness. Intel has helped change the world for over 40 years and knowing what Intel is working on in the areas of health, environment and science I am sure that it will continue.

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I got a chance to talk with Peter LaMotte of Washington, DC based startup GeniusRocket this past March right after the much debated "Is Spec Work Is Evil?" panel session at SXSW Interactive in Austin, Texas. We discussed GeniusRocket's mission and take on crowdsourcing. GeniusRocket also has an interesting crowdsourcing story about the creative video that SXSW used this year which Peter will also share. This video interview with Peter LaMotte got lost in the SOMEWHAT FRANK video queue but I just found it and wanted to share the video as episode 76 on SOMEWHAT FRANK. I hope you enjoy our pre-coffee talk at the Crepery in Austin, Texas about crowdsourcing.

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It was a pleasure as always to get a chance to sync up with Greg "The Trend Junkie" Cangialosi the CEO of Baltimore-based Blue Sky Factory in San Francisco today. I had him swing by to do his Thursday afternoon live show BlueSkyFactory.tv from the Bebo office. Frank Gruber & Greg Cangialosi at Bebo in San Francisco We discussed a number of topics including start-ups, shiny objects of the Web, bootstrapping, entrepreneurship, building community anywhere, TECH cocktail, SOMEWHAT FRANK and my recent work at AOL as part of the People Network group which includes AIM,Bebo, ICQ and Socialthing and life-streaming products. We are also were joined by Jean-Paul Cozzatti the Development / Product Engineering Lead at Bebo to talk about the updates for Bebo that went live this past December and February as well as a hint as to what is to come in the coming months. Tune into the video above to watch episode #7 of Blue Sky Factory TV (above).

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It's true, SOMEWHAT FRANK was once named a "must know" blog for any Israeli startup as I have covered a number of them in the past. Every year a dozen or so, of these startups tour Silicon Valley as part of the IsraelWebTour, an event organized by the California Israel Chamber of Commerce. Last year, I was able to attend the demo day and I was impressed with a number of the Israeli companies and shared this video. It's that time of the year again and I wanted to highlight the 10 Israeli Web startups participating in the 2009 tour.

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Diner in Chelsea having some very sturdy coffee mugs and solid waffles, bacon and eggs the breakfast discussions were pretty interesting. The breakfast was made up of the following @innonate, @ceonyc, @noreaster, @msg, Ian Costello and myself (@somewhatfrank) and we did a couple of live video discussions about our favorite products as well as lifestreaming, backup, chat and other products and services. Oh we also explained how awesome Mom's are! If you were unable to attend please check out the two videos. Thank you to everyone that came out to have some breakfast and give their somewhat frank opinions about social media and technology while I was in NYC!

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The past few years I have posted a comprehensive list of all the social media, web/tech, design and marketing conferences in an effort to help my readers better determine just which events to attend. I have decided that due to all the events that a single blog post is not the ideal format for displaying all these events. So I have been keeping track of upcoming events and adding them as I find out about them to this event calendar (in the top navigation). You can view the upcoming conference schedule by going here: Web/Tech, Social Media & Marketing Conference Calendar If you have any specific questions about a conference please let me know by sending me an @ reply on twitter: @somewhatfrank Finally, if you are interested in having SOMEWHAT FRANK cover your conference or to submit an event please contact us. Happy Conferencing in 2009!

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You may not realize it but your desktop computer is probably a energy hog. Laptops usually are more energy efficient due to their small size and need to save battery power while on the go but desktop computers do not have these same interests. I recently met the founders of a computer startup looking to address the energy saving desktop niche by creating a couple of different computers that save a considerable amount of energy lessening it footprint on the environment. I recently got a chance to talk with a startup from Raliegh, North Caroline called Burr Technologies. Co-founder Aaron Milano tells the Burr Technologies story and shows off its line of energy saving computers on episode 60 on SOMEWHAT FRANK in the video above.

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What if you could get embed video into a printed product like a business card? This is exactly what Snapily, an Israeli based startup, looks to do with its recent launch. Snapily uses depth illusion digital imaging to create printed experiences that appear to be moving like a video. I got a chance to chat with Snapily CEO, Duby Hodd a few months ago at a conference and gave me a preview of some of their products that launched this past week. So I would like to share my video conversation Snapily CEO with Duby Hodd as episode 57 on SOMEWHAT FRANK.

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The Green Festival came to Washington, D.C. this past weekend and I decided to check it out in search of innovative new eco-friendly personal technology gadgets and gizmos. There were a number of products and services at the event and I decided to capture a few of them and stream them live to the Web via Flixwagon and have posted them in this article. I also took some photos at the event.

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Last Thursday night I co-hosted our last TECH cocktail of 2008. This wrapped up a 2008 TECH cocktail season that included 8 mixer events spread across Chicago, DC, Boston, Boulder and Champaign and one full day conference. We were pleased at the consistent growth of TECH cocktail and TECH cocktail Chicago 9 pulled in our largest crowd of the year with over 700 attendees. The event showcased six startups.

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With the NFL football season just getting underway there are lots of fantasy football junkies placing their bets that they have the best team on the Web this year. Keeping track of a fantasy football team can be difficult sometimes due to the distributed nature of the information and tools related to managing your players and teams. Ultimate Football Network, a fantasy football social aggregator product, just launched this week and I got a chance to chat with founder Jonathan Joseph at TechCrunch50 conference. Check out video episode 45 on SOMEWHAT FRANK (below) as we talk fantasy football.

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So I have sat through two days of startup launches demoing at TechCrunch50 for a number of different verticals from mobile to youth and entertainment, I am have to say my brain is a little numb right now. But I wanted to put out a quick post highlighting a few products that caught my attention. OpenTrace - Trace products back through the supply chain OtherInbox - takes a new approach to helping combat email inbox overload Popego - social aggregator with sliders to determine most interesting items Fitbit - sensor product for tracking your personal health stats Tonchidot - location based mobile tagging application me-trics - health stat aggregator Emerginvest - finance news meets emerging markets. iCharts - searchable easy create web charts Swype - innovative data entry tool for mobile devices Postbox - inbox reorganization tool Overall, the question for many of the startups launching is: Are these really products - or just features that could be added to existing products? Tomorrow is the final day of startup demos and I hope to chat with a few more startups in the demo pit and in the hallways of the conference.

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