SOMEWHAT FRANK

Gary The Vlogging Wine King On Conan

Gary Vaynerchuk, the host of WineLibrary.com's video blog Wine Library TV is a pretty entertaining guy. I got a chance to see Gary's energy in action a few months back when he both demo'ed and sponsored at TECH cocktail DC 1.

Gary's love for wine and charismatic personality has created quite a following on the Web which has resulted in being profiled by the Wall Street Journal and Time Magazine and now he has landed spot on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on Wednesday night (August 1, 2007).

Aside from the Wine Library TV video blog, Gary also commands a family owned wine empire which recently acquired the Corkd wine lovers online community.

Check out Gary in action tonight on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and also watch his latest video blog post (below) where he breaks the news about getting on the popular show. Tune in to cheer Gary on. Good luck Gary! 

TECH cocktail Celebrates One

Last night I was in Chicago with Eric Olson co-hosting TECH cocktail Chicago 5 for an estimated six hundred guests at John Barleycorn near Wrigley Field. Eric and I co-founded TECH cocktail just a year ago looking to help foster a tighter and more amplified technology signal and community in Chicago. We have since looked to other underserved tech scenes to do the same. We are planning on having a second TECH cocktail in DC soon and then our first TECH cocktail in Boston.

TECH cocktail Chicago 5 was filled with green energy as guests were amped to celebrate the one year anniversary of TECH cocktail. In addition, guests who wore green clothing were given a chance to win some spectacular prizes from SingleHop, a sponsor that has been backing TECH cocktail since day one.

The three plus hour free event was sponsored by SingleHop, LinkedIn, Digital Bootcamp, Saper Law Office, Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center, MK Capital, Origin Ventures, Chicago Micro, Fave Media and LiquidTalk.

Demos were performed by myAOL (a product I manage at AOL),  PollEverywhere, My Open Bar, Braintree Financial, Humanized and Fave Media. More to come on some of these soon as I take a closer look.

We are pleased with the aggressive progress in Chicago and look forward to future events in the Windy City. Thank you to all of our sponsors and supporters, we could not have done it without you. Cheers!

Check out the TECH cocktail Chicago 5 photos displayed in the slideshow below.

Company Could Win $50K At TechCrunch20

TechCrunch20, the TechCrunch conference coming up in September, is offering a platform for newly launching companies to present for free in front of an audience of hundreds of press, bloggers venture capitalists and entrepreneurs and potentially win a $50,000 prize. TechCrunch has been assembling an impressive and assorted list of judges which are listed here. Should be a good conference as the winning company/product will walk away a big winner! In addition, there will be other prize announcements and giveaways from conference sponsors. 

Stay tuned to additional updates on the TechCrunch20 blog.

Somewhat Frank Turns 2; TECH cocktail Turning 1

Birthday logo thanks to Orli Yakuel.

Somewhat Frank is embarking on the terrible two's - that's right, today is Somewhat Frank's blog birthday! I have to say the last two years have flown by with thousands of article and comments being generated on Somewhat Frank. Thank you to everyone who has subscribed to the feed and read or interacted with the site. Also, thank you to the special contributors and supporters. It is not easy to work full-time and keep the fresh content flowing everyday - but I my readers keep me motivated and I thank you for it. I hope to continue to bring a somewhat frank perspective in the coming years.

In addition to a blog birthday, TECH cocktail, a social mixer that I co-founded with Eric Olson, will be celebrating it's one year anniversary on July 12, 2007 at TECH cocktail 5 in Chicago. We started with just dream of uniting and amplifying the local tech scene in undeserved areas and feel we have so far exceeded expectations. We really have had a lot of fun doing it too. We have held 4 Chicago large events and 1 in DC, and we have plans to do more...look for one in Boston coming soon.

RSVP HERE for TECH cocktail 5 in Chicago today. If you are interested in sponsoring or demoing at the event please email me at: frank [at] techcocktail dot com. We hope to see you there.

Indaba Music: Jam With A Virtual Band

Do you have dreams of being a rock star but are in need of a band?

This can be a common problem for many talented artists as they can jam like no other but don't have an official band. Indaba Music   makes it possible to create a virtual band to create music. Indaba Music is an online collaboration platform that allows artists to upload tracks, work without concern for location, and have an easy flow of information. Users can connect with others musicians to coordinate the creation of a virtual band by recording and sharing individual parts of a song to then be mixed and turned into a new song. Tracks can then be shared with the rest of the community. The Indaba Music community offers users the ability to create music sessions and then subscribe to watch the sessions as a collaborative effort to create a new mix. Check out a sample session here.

Launched by two Harvard graduates in their early twenties, Dan Zaccagnino and Matt Siegel  have continued to rollout improvements to their free offering. In April 2007, Indaba Music launched a free online production console, which allows its worldwide community of musicians and music professionals to work on tracks, edit, mix and access them from any computer in the world. In May, Indaba Music launched version 2 of the product, which included some substantial site design improvements. In addition, the (remove 'a') new production console has some major improvements, which included waveform graphics in the track views, LED level meters, adjustable volume changes over the timeline, moveable markers, and stereo mix-downs. Finally, the music player randomly plays finished session mixes in an application, which leverages Adobe Apollo.

Bottom-line: Musicians with platinum record dreams or just looking to meet others artists should give Indaba Music   a whirl to upload and mix music.

YouTube Feature Updates, Embed Joost?, Flickr Goes Global, Me.dium $15 Million, Stalker 2.0, Fat Long Tail, RSS Toolbox, Discover via Megite & Blog Or Die

Photo of the Week: Jen Consalvo recently snapped this photo titled backlight. A little sunshine is a beautiful thing and is good for the soul - this little yellow guy appears to agree.

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 06.17.07

YouTube Remixer: Edit Videos Online At YouTube
YouTube has officially launched YouTube Remixer, a new service that allows users to edit their videos from within YouTube itself. Also, YouTube Mobile launched this week.

Discover From Megite
Megite recently launched a discover area which offers users a place to find new things via a tag cloud and other discover links.

Embedded Joost Will Change The Market
Reports that Joost is now talking to hardware vendors about embedding Joost into set-top boxes and televisions will change the market as we know it.

Me.dium Pulls $15 Million in Funding
Boulder, Colorado based Me.dium, the sidebar social network, has received $15 million in second round funding. The round of funding was led by Commonwealth Capital Ventures.

11 web technologies political campaigns should consider
Technology Evangelist points to 11 different technologies political campaign leads should know.

Google Reader losing feeds?
A few people complained this week that Google Reader lost their feeds. I didn't see it, did it happen to you?

CommunityNext July 14th: VIRAL... Catch the Fever!
The Next CommunityNext conference is coming up July 14th - are you signed up?

Stalking 2.0: The Websites that Track Your Every Move (Voluntarily!)
Are you letting people track you online? If so you probably have encountered one of these stalker 2.0 applications.

The Long Tail Is Getting Fatter
It wasn’t that long ago that 100,000 users was considered huge for a Web 2.0 related business. Today a small startup such as SpaceTime can gain those numbers in two weeks. 6 million users three years ago would have seemed an impossible dream, and yet it is very attainable now. This article takes a closer look.

Can You Make A Living Blogging?
Great question and I will have to answer with a resounding 'YES!!!' I have seen bloggers go from nothing to something as little as a six months to a year. It is pretty amazing. However, I have to agree with Nick, we don't all blog for the money...the real benefits of blogging are all the great friendships that come from it.

Schilling's Laws for Perfect Start(up)s
Seth Goldstein talks baseball and startups on Found+READ.

The Ultimate RSS Toolbox - 120+ RSS Resources
Check out this comprehensive post on a number of RSS tools available on the web. You may already know but I think RSS is sexy. ;)

Flickr Goes Global
Flickr opens up its doors to a number of new languages and also there is word this week that Yahoo Photos is going to be closing its doors. I'd say this is a big week for Flickr. I have a feeling Flickr video uploads are coming very soon.

Google Buys FeedBurner -- It's Official!

Congrats to Chicago-based feed management and advertising company FeedBurner for getting acquired by Google. The rumor that started  a few weeks ago has been confirmed by FeedBurner today (June 1, 2007). There are more details on Google/FeedBurner deal here. In addition, they are just a great group of people.

Being from Chicago, and I have the opportunity to get to know FeedBurner and just about all of their 30+ employees through either work or play in the last few years. FeedBurner was a big supporter of TECH cocktail, as Eric Olson works at FeedBurner and co-founded the event with me in 2006. They have been an innovator in both the feed management/metrics and advertising space.

Congrats to all parties involved. Keep those feeds burning - oh and please let me know if the Somewhat Frank feed traffic melts any of Google's servers! :)

What Is Next For The Web?

What's next? This is a question that many may be asking. At the 2007 Next Web conference (June 1, 2007 in Amsterdam) they are hoping to find some answers. In the meantime, check out this video (above) which was posted here. It was recorded via iChat Video as Tim O'Reilly from O'Reilly Media, Steve Rubel from Edelman and Micro Persuasion, Matt Mullenweg the founder of WordPress, Marten Mickos the CEO of MySQL, Eric A. Meyer (CSS and HTML guru) and Jay Adelson, CTO and co-founder of Digg.com share their insights on this exciting subject by tackling 5 basic questions in almost 20 minutes.

Facebook Opens Up, Google Buys FeedBurner, CBS Buys WallStrip, The Blog Search Engine King & What is Web 3.0?

Photo of the Week: This photo was taken by James Yu at Pier 38 in San Francisco on Thursday night (May 24, 2007) as part of the NewTeeVee and MetaCafe Pier Screenings.

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 05.27.07

Facebook Moving to An Open Platform Strategy
Facebook has announced a new strategy to let other companies provide their services on special pages within its site, moving beyond its basic social networking service. Facebook is taking the total opposite approach than its competitor MySpace by making itself an open platform. Will this give personalized homepages a run for the money?

Bebo, Wall Strip, Feedburner - who is getting bought out?
Early in the week Om Malik was wondering which of the three rumored deals - CBS-WallStrip, Bebo-Yahoo or Google-FeedBurner - will come true? By weeks end two out of the three (CBS-WallStrip & Google-FeedBurner) are said to be done deals.

What is Web 3.0?
Dave Winer weighs in on what he believes is web 3.0.

Google Reader vs. NewsGator Online vs. Bloglines
Judi Sohn takes a look at the most popular applications for keeping up with all those RSS feeds in a browser window: Bloglines, NewsGator Online and Google Reader.

RSS in Firefox: A Complete Guide
If reading RSS feeds in Firefox is your thing, check out some of your options in this article.

The Rise of the Nontrepreneur
A new breed of visionaries who are not In It for the money. They want to change the world. This line of thinking reminds me of a little tech mixer event I started with Eric Olson called TECH cocktail - I guess you could say we are nontrepreneurs.

TV Guide Online Video Search
TV Guide now offers an online video guide that distinguishes itself from other online video search by focusing on professionally produced video content such as, movie trailers, TV shows, news clips, previews and programs across all genres and networks.

Every good domain is taken. Here's why.
Have you tried to lock a domain recently? It is not as easy as it might seem. Kevin Ham built a $300 million web company in Vancouver you've probably never heard of collecting domains and selling them for top dollar.

Blog Search is Dead and Google Killed It
A few years ago blog search was an important aspect to every bloggers routine and I always wondered where blog search would go and when Google would come in and become king. Steve Rubel thinks that day has come.

Pageflakes Announces 100,000 Pagecasts
Personalized start page service Pageflakes announced that their "Pagecasts" feature, which allows users to share their Pageflakes pages with the public or a specific group of users, has been used to push out 100,000 Pagecasts.

Google Coop Embeds Gadgets in Search Results
Google Coop has quietly expanded and now can embed data from gadgets (i.e. widgets) as subscribed links.

Movie Review & Start-up Commentary: e-dreams
Eric Olson highlights some movies that document the startup life.

Google Search Goes Universal, Microsoft Buys aQuantive, MyBlogLog Changes Coming, Enterprise RSS and TcDC1

Photo of the Week: This photo was taken by Brian Solis of a video camera recording Sarah Meyers interviewing someone at the May 2007 Girls in Tech in SF.

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 05.20.07

Watch TV Stations From Your Web Browser
More and more services are popping enabling users to watch full screen videos right from a web browser. They kind of all have a similar television look & feel. It even looks like some of them inspired by Joost style.

Google Launches Universal Search
Google announced yesterday its new search system intended to bring together all of Google’s broad assortment of searches into format that should be more convenient for users. Google’s vision is to ultimately search across all of googles content and to

Did Microsoft go lose it head over aQuantive?
Just how wacky was Microsoft’s $6 billion bid for aQuantive? GigaOm tries to illustrate it in this article.

Who Will Be America's First TechPresident?
This challenge to all candidates was made on the TechPresident site earlier this week.

Windows Live Gallery partners program
Companies and brands may partner with Microsoft to highlight their Windows Live Gadget offerings for preferred inclusion in the Live.com personal homepage, Windows Live Spaces sidebar, and the Windows Vista sidebar.

TECH cocktail Takes On the Capitol City
Bub.blicio.us reports on the night that was a TECH cocktail in DC.

Google's Defensible Trump Card?
Google is betting the farm on personalization.

Feed Crier climbs into bed with IMified
By becoming part of IMified, Feed Crier will be able to offer more features to our users. Maybe reblogging alerts directly to your blog from your IM client. Or subscribing to alerts from sources other than feeds (think Google Calendar, To Do list reminder, etc.).

Enterprise RSS - 3 Major Vendors Show The Way
Forrester has just released a new report on Enterprise RSS. Specifically it tackles the issue of information overload in the corporate environment, now that RSS feeds are an important source of information in the workplace.

MyBlogLog to Rebrand and Make Significant Changes
MyBloglog is really only known amongst the first adoptors and blogosphere but it appears Yahoo will soon be positioning it for the mainstream.

Gabe Rivera's Week In Review

Is it just me or is Gabe Rivera turning up everywhere this week? It appears Gabe Rivera, the creator of techmeme and other news aggregator sites, had a very big week. I know Gabe is very modest, but I think the Mims song "This Is Why I'm Hot" might be an appropriate theme song for the past seven days - he has been all over the web.

First, BeetTV captured a rare video interview of Gabe where he reveals some of the details about the news aggregator platform he built and runs with his one man army.

Secondly, Mike Arrington pointed to this riveting video which leverages a Discovery Channel show format to capture a short video of Gabe in its natural habitat.

Finally, Gabe was interviewed for a piece in Wired. One of the great things about Gabe is that he is so down to earth. Though hounded by the media all week he took time out of his busy schedule to attend our first TECH cocktail in DC on Thursday night. Seems like a pretty good week to me. 

TECH cocktail Takes On Washington

A few hours ago, TECH cocktail completed its first event in DC at the popular MCCXXIII bar (1223 Club DC, for the non Roman-numeral types).  The event was packed with hundreds of guests mingling as the place rocked to music, wine, product demos and mingling.  Over 225+ technology enthusiasts, VCs, bloggers and entrepreneurs came and celebrated the evening together. Wine Library TV, AOL, AN Hosting, BuzzXYZ, and Blue Sky Factory helped to sponsor the event - thank you all for your helping getting TECH cocktail going in DC.

It has been over a year since Eric Olson and I secured the TECH cocktail domain name and started firing up for these events. We were pleased to see such a great response in a new city as last night’s event was no different than the Chicago events that have become extremely big in the windy city.  Thank you to local blogger Nick O’Neill who helped plan the event - we couldn't have done it without you.

The event was well attended with a great mix of guests from a number of the local startups. It was great to see Gabe Rivera, techmeme creator, was in town from Silicon Valley and even dropped in. Demos were performed by the following companies:

BuzzXYZ powered by Blogdigger - helps track the buzz online
Clearspring - services for building, deploying and tracking widgets
Sportsvite - online community is bringing sports lovers together for on-the-field fun
PatentMonkey.com - fully search-able US patent text database
Wine Library TV - will be doing wine tasting and showcasing the wine video site

Though I am somewhat biased, TECH cocktail DC 1 went very well and was worth missing the finale of the Office to be there. I look forward to the next TECH Cocktail in DC and wherever else we choose to take it next.

Check out the photos tagged: techcocktaildc1. Special thank you to Raoul Pop for taking this awesome photo set at TcDC1 - this guy can take some pictures!

Wine Library TV Gets Cork'd

Wine Library TV, a popular wine video blog that shares the wine expertise of founder and host Gary Vaynerchuk, has announced it has acquired the wine social network Cork'd. In simple terms, Cork'd is site for a wine lover to share and rate wine. It seems like a great fit as Gary highlights wines that Cork'd enables users a way to suggest and keep track of the wine you would like to try - they have excellent crossover. I briefly highlighted Cork'd while showcasing wine and web 2.0.   

In chatting with Gary today over email, he offered this explanation for acquiring Cork'd:

"From the day I saw Corkd.com I knew they nailed it... to have the honor to take Cork'd to the next level and most importantly to give "THE PEOPLE" what they deserve is not only exciting but an honor!"

Gary also mentioned that there are plans to integrate OpenID and SMS functionality into Cork'd.

Wine Library TV is a sponsor and exhibitor at the upcoming TECH cocktail DC. We are extremely happy to have Gary showcasing Wine Library TV and Cork'd at our event. Cheers.

Twiisted Up in Santa Monica

Twiistup took place last night (May 9, 2007) at Zanzibar in Santa Monica, California to bring together some of the Southern California technology community. Twiistup, previously highlighted on Somewhat Frank, was founded by Mike Macadaan with the help of Ryan Buckholtz. Twiistup attracted a large turnout which filled the bar with loads of Southern California based technology and design enthusiasts. In addition, pulled together a number great giveaways, swag and even some sushi. DJ Anthony Valadez mixed psychedelic beats all evening and the bar offered a drink special on a drink called the Twiistup which was orange and tasted like Tang with a kick.

There were presenters throughout the duration of the evening which gave five minute talks for the crowd. They included:

Buildv1 - Digg-like site for connecting with entrepreneurs
CrazyEgg - heat maps your site traffic patterns
goodreads - social network for avid readers
mint - helps you keep track & save money
ooVoo - consumer facing video chat
Urbaniacs - create an urban hero avatar then go meet others
Verse Studios - gaming meets social networks
yourminis - flashy and sexy widget platform

Twiistup was a very good first event for the area which is often overshadowed by glitz of Hollywood. Congrats to Mike, Stephanie and Ryan for bringing the community together for an evening of tech related entertainment. Here are some photos from Twiistup.

Photo Attribution: Thanks to Mike Macadaan via Flickr.

Middio: Search YouTube Music Videos

Are you looking for music videos on YouTube? You are not alone. Middio launched publicly on Cinco de Mayo (May 5, 2007) to help users find all the music they are looking for on YouTube. Middio indexes YouTube music videos so that you can search by song or artist and returns search results with embedded video thumbnails. Interestingly, Middio was created by Jake Jarvis, the sixteen year web developer, blogger, student and son of popular blogger Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine fame. Nice work Jake!

I performed a few video searches and received pretty good results but I also expect the search algorithm to continue to improve with time. I think the real value in Middio lies in the fact that it removes many of the bogus results you might encounter when performing the same search on YouTube itself.

Additionally, Middio enables users to convert YouTube videos to iPod format to be taken with you which is similar to a product put out by the TechCrunch team that allows for the download of YouTube videos. TechCrunch reported that it is possible that YouTube will try and block this portion of the application. Middio also currently enables users to share videos to Facebook so it could use some additional means for sharing but I figure they will come with time. Videos are played within Middio and you can see a screen-shot below.