May 16, 2008
Saturday... Saturday ... Saturday! Start your engines as Threadless.com, a Chicago-based skinnyCorp operated company, will be hosting a Pine Wood Derby race called the THREADLEMANSS. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to get SOMEWHAT FRANK car ready for the race but I did get my friend Carlos Pero, whose son was undefeated this year in the Cub Scouts Pine Wood Derby, to lead the TECH cocktail RACING effort which is powered by coloring.com.
Carlos is featured this week on episode 25 of SOMEWHAT FRANK TV as he previews the TECH cocktail car and shares some Pine Wood Derby knowledge. Thank you Carlos for your help. You can cheer on the TECH cocktail car this Saturday, May 17, 2008 as Threadless will be streaming the derby live.
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May 11, 2008
Breakfast is by far my favorite meal of the day as it acts as the foundation of your day. A few weeks ago Lijit Networks hosted a breakfast the morning after TECH cocktail DC 2. It at Busboys & Poets in Washington, D.C. and was a lot of fun. I got a chance to capture episode 24 of SOMEWHAT FRANK TV.
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May 7, 2008
Now here is an interesting and innovative way to explore videos! Leveraging the CoolIris 3D browsing technology, PicLens is able to explore videos and photos via a wall of videos. PicLens allows users to search Flickr, Photobucket, Facebook and recently added the ability to search YouTube in this same 3D fashion - among others.
So next time you get bored with traditional search metaphors for videos or images you might want to install PicLens and search in 3D.
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May 3, 2008
The United States is ultimately a startup so I thought that is might be fun to take advantage of living near the nations capitol and show off the main office of the executive branch - the White House. I was able to capture some of the sites and sounds of the White House as part of the spring tour which I found out about through their own use of technology via the White House RSS feeds and podcasts.
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April 19, 2008
You have probably seen the Lijit search widget on a number of sites around the Web. It has been the search option for SOMEWHAT FRANK and TECH cocktail for sometime as it offers some great site search analytics in a manageable and easy to digest format. I even get a weekly statistics email from Lijit keeping me updated as to how search is performing every week and what people are searching for.
Frank Gruber as a lijit search widget When I visited Boulder, Colorado back in March 2008 for our first TECH cocktail Boulder I got a chance to visit the Lijit Networks headquarters and I captured it on video. Thanks to Tara "Tarable" Anderson for the impromptu guided tour and for turning me into a Lijit search widget (shown to the right).
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April 15, 2008
Do you have a particular home video showing off a skill that you think you might be better than anyone at? Strutta, a Vancouver-based startup, has launched into beta to allow you to prove you are the best. Whether your skill is break dancing, playing the harmonica or doing fast food rapping - Strutta creates an avenue for competing on the Web via online video contests.
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April 14, 2008
Childhood obesity is a serious medical condition that affects children above the normal weight for his or her age and height. Most computer games, mobile devices and other online activities these days contribute to a sedentary lifestyle. How can kids keep on top of the obesity? GoTrybe, a Tennessee based startup, offers a interactive online approach aimed at attacking the problem. GoTrybe is an interactive community for kids based on health and wellness.
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April 8, 2008
Flickr, the photo community which we have all grown to love, after months of rumors and specutation has launched Flickr Video today. With almost six thousand photos on Flickr I was interested to see just how video was integrated. I was concerned adding videos might mess with the simplicity of the lovable photo sharing site that I have grown so accustom to. Flickr implemented short videos based on the idea of “long photos” setting the limit to 90 seconds maximum time limit on videos. This makes it clear Flickr is not the platform for video podcasts or other stuff but more for short photo-like blurbs of life.
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April 5, 2008
The Illinois I.T. Association CityLIGHTS 2008 Awards Gala took place in Chicago, Illinois on Thursday, April 3, 2008. The event was held at Union Station which you might recognize from the epic scene from the movie The Untouchables where Kevin Costner saves a baby carriage while also shooting up the Al Capone gangsters on its marble steps. While did not save any babies TECH cocktail, the community building startup that I co-founded with Eric Olson, was nominated for the CityLIGHTS Award for its positive impact in connecting the Illinois technology community. I am please to report, that TECH cocktail took home the hardware. I was deeply humbled by winning the award as it serves as validation that all the long hours and hard work is truly helping to sculpt a better connected local technology community while helping to amplify that same community to the world.
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March 27, 2008
Looking for free licensed content to be able to use on your own blog or website? Voxant Newsroom looks to help by distributing and promoting content from licensed content sources for free. Voxant offers publishers a place to find and embed licensed video, text, and photos from over two hundred news sources from a variety of providers. Voxant places advertising in the its embeddable content to monetize the content making it possible to keep the content available for free to users.
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March 26, 2008
Is email broken? I have been struggling to manage email for a long time as I attempted to liberate my inbox back in 2005 only to once again stare email bankruptcy in the eyes. Email is such a double-edged sword since I need email to communicate but get so much of it becomes difficult to use effectively. I am not alone, I have heard the same things from a number of colleagues and recently TechCrunch editor and founder Mike Arrington even called the communication crisis produced by email a opportunity for an entrepreneur.
I recently met Jared Goralnick who is a bit of a productivity guru. Jared joined me on quick SOMEWHAT FRANK TV episode number 17 (below). He recently founded AwayFind.com. AwayFind, a DC-based startup, looking to help ease some of the email burden so you can focus on your day-to-day tasks without constant interruptions. With AwayFind, which is currently in private beta, users can setup a page (like this one I created) to include in auto-response messages to anyone that emails them. The auto-response offers a little explanation as to when you might get to the mail and a form which can contact the user directly via SMS text messaging and email if the item being sent was an emergency or needs to be handled immediately.
Watch the latest SOMEWHAT FRANK TV episode with Jared Goralnick now.
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March 25, 2008
With the melting of the polar ice caps a lot more focus has been placed on the environment lately. Going green has been a popular topic, one that I have written about before as I compiled a list of green Web 2.0 sites. Well, I just found another worth taking a look at in emPivot. emPivot, a Washinton, DC based startup, is like YouTube for "Green" videos as it offers a video sharing site specifically for "Green" media.
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March 22, 2008
I was walking down the street in Boulder, Colorado earlier this month and was intrigued by a storefront symbol. I looked into the storefront windows and my eyes were met with colorful graffiti-like artwork, handmade toys and lots of tees. I had bumped into JoyEngine.
JoyEngine is a brand created by the boutique design firm cypher13 and offers a place for artists and designers to unite and share their work. The JoyEngine store doubles as an art gallery for local artists and toymakers. JoyEngine also has its own line of apparel. At JoyEngine, cypher13 promotes and sells artwork created by the cypher13 team, other local artists, and provides access to ultra-limited designer art toys, offers apparel by independent designers, and supplies the local street art scene with spraypaint, paint markers, and other art supplies. Online JoyEngine offers an blogging community for designers and artists where they can exchange ideas and showcase their work. They also offers some cool artist desktop backgrounds for download.
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March 20, 2008
Diigo Diigo, a Reno-based startup I previously covered when it launched Web Slides, has just launched version 3.0 which is offers an integration of a number of social bookmarking and research services that create a powerful set of community tools.
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March 16, 2008
SOMEWHAT FRANK Weekly Tidbits from around the Web gathered by Frank Gruber for the week ending March 16, 2008.
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March 15, 2008
Brica Brica What? BricaBox, the social content platform which I covered previously here and here, that launched a few weeks ago offers users the ability to display structured content with social features. After many attempts I finally got a chance to sit down with BricaBox founder and CEO Nate Westheimer while attending FOWA Miami 2008 which is the latest SOMEWHAT FRANK TV episode.
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March 8, 2008
On a clear, crisp evening in Boulder, Colorado over two hundred technology enthusiasts piled into The Foundry Billiards Club to better connect and amplify the technology signal of the region. The event, TECH cocktail Boulder in partnership with DEMO, showcased five startups from the local area. The event was sponsored by Boulder-based Lijit and Chicago and soon to be also Boulder-based skinnyCorp - thank you both!
Since TECH cocktail is one of my own creations with co-founder Eric Olson, we were really enjoyed the evening getting to hangout with some of the technology "movers and shakers" in the Denver/Boulder area. For more details check out the official TECH cocktail Boulder 1 photos and event wrap-up article. Read on for more on the startups that demoed at TECH cocktail Boulder.
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March 4, 2008
YourTrumanShow, the personal video diaries startup, that launched, VideoMap, a video discovery widget at the DEMO Fall 2007 Conference has now released it to the Facebook world. VideoMap lets users see who links to them and who they link to as well as the video content they have collected. As user watch videos, a graphically rich visual map tracks the path of discovery, relationships, and content. VideoMaps also leverages YourTrumanShow's recommendation algorithms to help cultivate social interactions.
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February 23, 2008
If you are a hip t-shirt junkie you probably have found something on community driven t-shirt site threadless. skinnyCorp is a Chicago-based startup that offers some great community driven websites. Some of the sites that they are responsible for include:
threadless a popular t-shirt design community driven e-commerce site.
Naked & Angry a high quality clothing from fabric patterns submitted and chosen by the brand’s audience.
Extra Tasty a community driven drink recipe site.
Yay Hooray a forum that we made to help us learn how to make community-driven sites on the Web.
They have also have a few others as well. Read on to find out how they this creative shop works as I visit their Chicago-based headquarters.
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February 22, 2008
Eyespot, the online video editing site that I previously reviewed with very high marks, has released a new set of tools to make personalization and syndication of videos. The tools include the ability to share to a mobile device or to a number of other video platforms with just one click.
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February 16, 2008
Have you ever taken a photo or seen a video and wanted to immediately share it with your friends while on the go? Obviously you could upload it to Flickr or Facebook or a number of other sites but more than likely times you probably would fire off an email to your friends to share it with them. Your friends would then get your message at various times depending upon when they actually go to check their email which means you are not instantly communicating with your friends.
Movial is looking to help make sharing easier with the recent launch of Movial Social Communicator. Social Communicator offers a desktop client and mobile application that syncs all your mobile phone contacts and empowers users to send videos, photos and news directly to their friends at their current location.
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February 11, 2008
Getting your online video distributed on multiple sites on the Web can be a bit of a time consuming task but TubeMogul looks to make your life a lot easier. With Berkeley-based startup TubeMogul, you can simply upload your video once and then configure it to be sent to a number of video platforms at one time (i.e. YouTube, Blip.tv, MySpace Video, etc). TubeMogul, founded by a handful of Berkeley graduate students, also offers video metrics for all the videos that you upload through the service to help paint a more clear picture of exactly how your video is performing online. This could come in pretty handy when it comes to selling advertisements around online video.TubeMogul recently announced a series A round of funding from Knights Bridge Capital.
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February 9, 2008
SOMEWHAT FRANK TV: Thanks to the California Israel Chamber of Commerce, Silicon Valley played host to 15 Israeli companies February 4-7 2008 as part of a week long road show called the IsraelWeb Tour.
I was able to catch a few hours of the tour at a couple different points throughout the week. I also capture some of it on video.
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February 8, 2008
WooMe, the online speed dating site that launched at TechCrunch40 and I previously reviewed, announced yesterday that they recieved another $3 million funding. The round was led by Mangrove Capital and included previous investor Atomico and a few others as well.
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February 7, 2008
If you are looking for something funny to watch online you now have another place to look, thanks to launch this week of Independent Comedy Network TV. ICN.TV, a Santa Monica, California based startup, looks to offer unique comedy programming with 5 original scripted series.
ICN.TV is comedy but different than the Will Ferrell project, Funny or Die, as ICN.TV offers actual comedy series rather than just random shorts, skits and improvisations.
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February 7, 2008
If you are a regular SOMEWHAT FRANK reader you probably noticed the recent redesign which included a color palette change, logo update and slight tweaks to the navigation. Along with that change SOMEWHAT FRANK also now has a video podcast called SOMEWHAT FRANK TV. It will offer in-the-field reports and video interviews with startup founders, authors and other social media and web technology related experts. You can subscribe on iTunes or favorite feed reader. Or you could just watch it on SOMEWHAT FRANK. I hope you enjoy it.
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February 6, 2008
BlogTV, the personalized TV platform which I use for streaming live split-screen video interviews, has just made it possible to watch all those videos from your mobile phone while on the go. Now with BlogTV offers all its live streams for free, without any installation of software for all major mobile carriers. But they are still waiting on the iPhone to be able to play these types of videos.
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February 2, 2008
This past week at DEMO, I bumped into social media expert, blogger and co-author of the business blogging book Naked Conversation, Shel Israel. He had just announced his new video gig working with Robert Scoble to build up a video network called FastCompany TV. Shel was testing out some HD camera equipment and I was actually wearing a head cam so I sat down to chat with him on camera for five minutes about his new show GlobalNeighbourhoods TV (GNTV) which he recently explained on his blog.
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February 1, 2008
Mapping mashups have become almost a dime a dozen these days as the release of open APIs by just about every major online mapping site and and development tools has lowered the barriers of entry. That was not always the case though and as recently as 2005 trailblazing mashup like HousingMaps.com (a cross between Google Maps and Craigslist housing listings) and ChicagoCrime.org (a crossed Google Maps and Chicago Crime data to display crimes on a map) developers actually had to reverse engineer JavaScript code to create mashup. This all changed with the release of Google Maps API and most of the major mapping sites on the Web have since followed suit.
It was recently announced that due to some server issues and overlaps with another new mashup the 2005 Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism award winning early mashup ChicagoCrime.org will be redirect to - EveryBlock. EveryBlock, launched recently, is also mashup of sorts created by Chicago-based Adrian Holovaty the developer that produced ChicagoCrime.org. Everyblock is a news aggregator site for Chicago, New York and San Francisco that looks to help you answer the question:
“What’s happening in my neighborhood?”
The site compiles all the openly available public records and then slices and dices them so that they are easily accessible by zip code, address or neighborhood.
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January 30, 2008
After another eventful evening, this time at the traditional DEMO Jam Session event, day 2 of DEMO08 was another intense day of product launches. Once again, rather than reviewing every single company that launched a product I will offer some tidbits and analysis from day 2.
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January 29, 2008
After an evening mixer last night which helped to get everyone together DEMO08, as its name implies, was filled with lots of demos. Rather than review every single company that launched a product today I will give you a brief overview of each one. Overall, I was impressed by a couple of pen-like gadgets, a few enabling technology sites, a couple video sites and of course mobile products.
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January 26, 2008
Now is Gone so you had better get ready to embrace a new media. I previously chatted with Brian Solis about, Now Is Gone, a book he helped Geoff Livingston author. I sat on a panel discussing social media with Geoff at the New New Internet conference this past November, when he announced his book. So I was happy to finally be able to chat with him about it.
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January 25, 2008
Seesmic, a startup founded by European entrepreneur and blogger Loic Le Meur, has been in closed alpha since October 2007 has hopes of creating a video conversation platform online. Seesmic creates an dashboard for anyone with a web cam to quickly create a video. Videos can then be published to a website or social network page as well as responded to within the Seesmic community.
My first impression of Seesmic was that is reminded me of slimmed down version of BlogTV which I use regularly for video interviews. But it appears that Seesmic is aimed at creating more a short form or Twitter-like video communitywhere people can interact around both user generated and professional content.
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January 21, 2008
Magnify.net, a New York-based startup previously covered on Somewhat Frank, recently unveiled the ability for any member of the community to create, share, and use design elements that have been "open-sourced" by other members of the community. For example, more complex template sets that use custom color themes, graphic backgrounds, icons, and CSS can now be used as a starting point and re-mixed by other community members. These design related updates should make it easier to customize the look and feel of a Magnify.net video channel. Additionally, Magnify.net has released a new set of templates and graphics elements that include a series of themed graphics for niche sites.
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January 21, 2008
ffwd, a video content discovery engine previously covered on Somewhat Frank, has announced the release of an early beta version of its API tools. The APIs will provide developers with the ability to connect to and access data from a ffwd profile. If you are a developer interested in giving the new tools a whirl and request a Developer API key or view the documentation visit: ffwd.com/developer
Happy coding! :)
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January 19, 2008
Somewhat Frank Weekly Video: This week I got a chance to sit down with AOL's Kevin Lawver who is very well respected at AOL and in the web development community. He has worked at AOL for 13 years and worked on everything from AOL search to conceptualizing and developing Ficlets.
We sat down and discussed a new book Adapting to Web Standards : CSS and Ajax for Big Sites which he helped Christopher Schmitt, Robert Cherny, Meryl K. Evans, Mark Trammell and Kimberly Blessing author. The book is devoted to helping experienced developers to better understand the changing web standards landscape and somewhat frankly, adapt. Kevin wrote chapter 7 which focuses on AOL's move into the online space with the relaunch the new AOL.com in 2005. The chapter discusses managing "corporate swirl" and "combating the waterfall" methodology. It even explains how web development is an art and craft (not witchcraft though).
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January 16, 2008
Are you twiisting up in southern California tonight? Unfortunately, I was not able to get out to southern California like I was for Twiistup 1. But I just got a chance to video chat over BlogTV with Mike Macadaan who is hosting his third Twiistup event in Venice, California tonight at the Air Conditioned Supper Club. The event will feature 9 showoff companies and an appearance by celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton.
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January 12, 2008
Somewhat Frank Weekly Video: Tantek Çelik recently discussed open Web standards and data portability at an Open Media Web Meetup. Tantek believes writing on the Web is like "writing in sand" since it all could be wiped out when the next wave of technology comes through. Tantek also speaks about data formats and how content data formats expires content over time. It is an interesting perspective from an innovation leader and long time advocate of open standards efforts like microformats.
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January 10, 2008
CES, the largest consumer electronic trade show, is wrapping in Las Vegas and it was reported by an NBC affiliate that CES may be leaving Las Vegas! PC World also echoed this news. We thought it would be great if we could help bring CES to Chicago. Why not? Chicago is a world class city with the facilitates to host a huge event like the World Fair or Olympic games. Not to mention Chicago has lots of tech companies. So TECH cocktail co-founder Eric Olson and I have decided to help initiate the ‘Bring CES to Chicago’ movement. If you are interested in supporting the cause let us know in the comments below or email us directly. Also join the Bring CES to Chicago group on Facebook.
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January 9, 2008
Music makes the world go round. OUTSHOUTS, a Palo Alto, California based three employee startup, takes music going 'round seriously as it enables anyone to create and send their own mixes of music over email and text message directly to your mobile phone. OUTSHOUTS lets anyone become DJ to mix music tracks with your recorded voice and pre-recorded music or other content.
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January 8, 2008
With the Hollywood writers on strike many of my favorite television programs have either stopped production or have had to improvise. One of my shows affected was 30 Rock where Alec Baldwin portrays a NBC executive. A video surfaced before the holidays of another role that Alec Baldwin has recently taken on as AOL's Extra Senior Vice President of Special Excellence.
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January 7, 2008