SOMEWHAT FRANK

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.

Ztail Simplifying Selling Stuff Online

Have you ever looked around your place and noticed you tend to save things, lots of things, that you no longer need, want or care about? If so, you might want to sell something on Ztail, an eBay compatible Alpha application. Through a partnership with Compete.com, Ztail surveyed 2,500 registered eBay users about what stopped them from selling online. Eighty-five percent (or 2125 people surveyed) said online selling was too hard and time consuming.

Ztail is focused on simplifying selling by searching product and transaction data for millions of items and automating the listing process, creating the basis for the simple, intuitive and effective Click Once, Sell Everywhere model. Ztail aimed to bypass a complicated and lengthy process, and simplified it into three easy steps:

Find your product, Publish your listing, Share your listing.

Once the listing is created, Ztail plugs the user into his or her own social media and instantly distributes the listing to selected friends via blogs, email and social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Finally, Ztail offers tools to help users track and adjust activity in their personal MyZtail pages. 

Bill Hudak and Dave Keefer founded Ztail in 2006, with a combined 20 years in online experience at companies like Google, Netscape, ePinions and Shopping.com. Bill and Dave have watched online commerce develop from its infancy and created Ztail to make selling online quick and easy for everyone.

I set up an account, followed the directions and personalized my ad within a few minutes on eBay, edgeio, Google Base, oodle and vast. GigaOm offers additional perspective on Ztail as well.

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!

TECH cocktail 4: Wow, that was fun!

With April flurries plaguing the Midwest the past few days, TECH cocktail 4 offered the Chicago technology and entrepreneurial community a place to get out of the cold spring weather to enjoy an evening of fun. With a number of activities and another excellent turnout which included an appearance by the AudioSnacks mascot a 6 plus foot llama, I think this might have been our best TECH cocktail yet. I think this might have been our best TECH cocktail yet. The venue, John Barleycorn Wrigleyville, was ideal, the demos were great, the sponsors rocked and the guests were wonderful. Unlike the other events, I had more time at this event to mingle with everyone. It was a lot of fun. I think Frank "the Tank" in the movie Old School played by Will Ferrell expresses how I feel about last night's TECH cocktail 4 the best with this quote:

Frank: I had an awesome time!
Beanie: I know that you had an awesome time. I think the entire town knows you had an awesome time.
[to Mitch]
Beanie: And wouldn't you want those times to keep on going?

Of course we will continue to have additional TECH cocktail events. There will be some interesting news coming on the TECH cocktail site in the next few days. Stay tuned by subscribing to updates via RSS or email.

Thank you to everyone that sponsored (shown in the video above). Also thanks to all the great startups that demo'ed their products last night. They included:

Interactive Mediums - Offers innovative text message voting and social interactivity.
Menuism - Rate not only the restaurant but also the specific dish or dishes.
Parkwhiz - Innovative parking search and parking spot marketplace.
Text2Store - Get great deals from local stores via text message.
TimeXchange - Manage your consulting time in a social setting.
Zaplee - VOIP call center software built around skype.

Menuism was the crowd favorite but they all have some wonderful offerings - congrats to all!

Thank you to all our sponsors (see video below) for making TECH cocktail possible. Thanks to everyone that attended. I hope you had a pleasant evening. Obviously, thank you to co-founder Eric Olson. Also I would like to thank my family and friends who they have been extremely helpful and supportive. Finally, thank you to both Eric's (FeedBurner) and my (AOL) employers as they have been extremely supportive of our TECH cocktail creation.

Photos from the event can be found here tagged: techcocktail4.

Check out some of these other reviews of TECH cocktail 4 on The Hot Iron, Olson's Observations and Networking Insight.

Sportsvite: Find Local Sports and Players

Looking to play a team sport like baseball or football but unable to field a full team? You are not alone. With Sportsvite you may be able to scream - GAME ON! Sportsvite, a New York and Northern Virginia based startup, offers a place on the web to organize active sports and connect with other players for league teams, pick-up games and activity groups.

Sportsvite offers a unique opportunity to connect with local athletically inclined people. With Sportvite, users post sporting interests, photos and other information to enable community members to connect to play a sport. Sportsvite offers users the ability to create games, teams and find players and post listings. Sportsvite users can also manage their sports schedule on the site. Sportsvite is a free service looking generate revenue from advertising and listings.

Sportsvite offers a unique opportunity to connect with local athletically inclined people. I did a few searches for Sportsvite users that were interested in baseball in my local area and was pleasantly surprised by the number of results. I also liked the added touch that the rotating sports quotes that appear along the top left edge of the site. Check out this humorous video about how Sportsvite might be able to help you - stop playing with yourself.

Bottom-line: Sportsvite offers a social network to help connect users with sports lovers looking to play team sports.

Topix Lets The Community Edit the News

Topix, a local news aggregator, has launched a substantial redesign and domain change (from Topix.net to Topix.com). The new design also offers an updated citizen journalistic direction which empowers users to be the editors of the news site. This is the second redesign in the last two years for Topix.
In first visiting the new Topix, users will immediately encounter three options to select from, which include read (news), talk (in forums) and edit (the news). Selecting the read option sends users directly to the news, but the news layout has been tweaked to resemble a blog layout (see screenshots below) which many users have become comfortable with. Users can comment on every story just like a blog. The talk option takes users to the Topix forums which have been increasingly popular since their launch as they generate about 40,000 posts a day on the average. The edit option is a new option which allows users to sign up to be an editor of the site. Once an approved editor in a specific area or topic, a user can create and edit the news site. Vented editors can add content in five different ways which include promoting stories by URL, from the newswire, forums, creating stories from scratch or by emailing tips and photos from your mobile device (just text <zipcode>@topix.net). Taking a page out of the Wikipedia playbook the new Topix tries to keep its editors honest by displaying their editor history.
In talking with Blake Williams from Topix, he expressed that:

"We (Topix) are adding humanity to the site by giving users powerful tools to create and manage the news." 

I would have to agree as the new Topix.net uses a blog-like platform which has proven to be a powerful tool over the course of the last few years as blogs have risen to near the level of mainstream media in reach and exposure. Overall, I was impressed by the bold move by Topix, a total citizen powered site. It will be fascinating to see if mainstream users gravitate towards the opportunity to sculpt the news pages of their local area.

Unthirsty Quenches Happy Hour Thirst

I know it is just the start of a new week but if you are looking to ease into it with a happy hour, you might want to check out Unthirsty. Unthirsty is a local happy hour search engine and directory. Unthirsty's mission is simply to connect users with the closest happy hour possible. With Unthirsty you enter your address and the site presents you with local happy hour drink and food specials on an Ajax Google map. Upon interacting with the plotted locations, drink specials and happy hour schedules appear in a bubble above the venue. For example, I searched for a happy hour in Mountain View, California and found a couple which are plotted in the screen-shot below.

If interactive maps are not your thing, Unthirsty also offers a list view of the happy hour directory. Additionally, Unthirsty offers a mobile version of the site that offers a single text box to enter a location and receive a list of the closest happy hours. This could come in handy on the road so just remember this URL: unthirsty.com/mobile. Finally, you can help Unthirsty by submitting a happy hour location.   

Hopefully, Unthirsty makes handling the start of another week a little easier - cheers!

Google Sued, Microsoft Buys TellMe, AOL Local, Last.fm Video, Attention Economy Overload & TECH cocktail 4 Coming Soon

Photo of the Week: This is a photo I took in my old neighborhood in Lincoln Park in Chicago prior to moving on to AOL in Virginia. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Somewhat Frank Weekly Tidbits: 03.18.07

Viacom Drops a $1 Billion Nuke on Google
Remember when Napster was a lawsuit target for helping to foster pirated music? When Google acquired YouTube everyone wondered who would be the first company to try and collect on video copyright infringement in a similar fashion. We now know, as Viacom was the first to step to the plate with a one billion dollar lawsuit against Google. Complete.com offers some interesting analysis on the situation.

AOL moves AOL Local Search into Beta - it's very slick
CenterNetworks reviewed the latest beta to come out of AOL. AOL Local refreshes the local options as a user moves around a map. So start in 10036 (Times Square) and move to 11235 (Brooklyn) and the options move.

Microsoft to Acquire Tellme Networks
Tellme Networks, Inc., a leading provider of voice services for everyday life, including nationwide directory assistance, enterprise customer service and voice-enabled mobile search. Microsoft and Tellme share a vision around the potential of speech as a way to enable access to information, locate other people and enhance business processes, any time and from any device.

Last.fm Adds Video Tracking
The Register reported earlier this week that social music play, Last.fm has added the ability to not only track the music you play on iTunes and other services but now is going to start doing the same with video.

Report: New Bloggers Flatlined in 2005, Reading Climbs
Steve Rubel reports that according to the latest State of the News Media report, the share of the online population that tried blogging peaked back in January 2005 at 10% and has hovered since at 8%. Blog readership, on the other hand is climbing.

The Attention Economy is Killing My Attention
Nick O'Neill explains how the attention economy may be producing information overload. He wonders how product like twitter along with blogs will be able to co-exisit as people piling on attention commitments.

Del.icio.us Adds Tag Descriptions
Del.icio.us, the popular social bookmarking site owned by Yahoo, has added a new feature which enables users to for the first time not only tag items but also add meta-data to title and describe each tag.

Goplan launches!
Webreakstuff has launched a new product called Goplan which offers a suite of online project management and collaboration tools that could draw comparisons to 37signals' product line.

TECH cocktail 4: Going, Going, Gone
TECH cocktail 4, the forth event in the event series I co-founded with Eric Olson back in July 2006, is now on its fourth event and we filled a 500 person guest list in 23 hours. Wowsers! TECH cocktail 4 will be on April 12, 2007 at John Barleycorn Wrigleyville in Chicago but due to the overwhelming response we have started a TECH cocktail 4 wait-list for anyone still interested in going. I hope to see you there.
 

Find Cheap Gas Prices With MapQuest

Gasoline prices in the United States have been creeping up for a number years now. With little doubt that the prices will ever be under a dollar again, hybrid vehicles have become increasingly popular, with the Toyota Prius being a leading vehicle sold in the United States. If buying a new hybrid ride is not your thing, then you may want to find cheaper fuel. MapQuest, the online mapping service owned by AOL, recently launched a new mashup service called MapQuest Gas Prices aimed at helping users find the cheapest gasoline around.

MapQuest Gas Prices uses pricing data from Oil Pricing Information Service which is updated up to seven times per day to plot all of the gas prices in your area. Mashing up gas prices with a map is not a new concept as other sites like Map Gas Prices, GasBuddy.com and Record Gas Watch have been around for awhile now but MapQuest takes the idea a step further by also incorporating gas stations that sell diesel and alternative fuels in addition to links and information about alternative fueled vehicles. MapQuest also provides driving directions to any of the sites, which is also a key differentiator from other similar gas mapping sites. Below is a screen-shot showing a simple gas price mapping.

Interestingly, MapQuest has plans to ensure the site will be accessible on cell phones via MapQuest Mobile with a link to directions in the coming months, so users should always have the lowest gas prices at your fingertips whether on a computer or on a mobile device.

ParkWhiz: Find Parking Before You Go

Finding a parking spot can be a major drag. You can circle an area and  minutes can easily turn into hours as you look for an open crevice to park your set of wheels. Wouldn't it be great if you could find out about potential parking spots before you leave the comfort and warm glow of your television or computer monitor?

ParkWhiz, a Chicago-based startup, might be able to assist with this problem, as it offers users the ability to quickly search for parking near a location. Currently in beta, ParkWhiz offers parking search only in Chicago and Philadelphia.  If you are looking to check out the Sears Tower in Chicago then you simply type in "Sears Tower" and ParkWhiz should present search results and a map of all the parking locations within up to a 10 mile radius, so you have instant visibility into the parking situation before you leave your door. The site fields user ratings for each parking venue. ParkWhiz currently does not appear to offer a mobile component but might have one in the works as it could be an extremely helpful feature.

ParkWhiz has made its plans for 2007 pretty clear as it looks to create a parking marketplace and essentially empower users to buy and sell parking in a real-time environment. According to a recent article on the ParkWhiz blog the ParkWhiz Marketplace will be:

• A place to buy parking.
• A place to sell parking.
• A place to find parking information.
• Free for buyers and inexpensive for sellers.
• Environmental friendly.

Though it appears to still be in the early phases of development, CarHarbor (link to blog since site does not yet exist), a startup advised by Craig Newmark, Scott Rafer and James Lazarus, could give ParkWhiz some friendly competition;  though it appears ParkWhiz is currently ahead of the game. 

Shameless promo disclosure: ParkWhiz is helping guests find parking for the upcoming TECH cocktail 3 event in Chicago - don't forget to RSVP for TECH cocktail 3.

Photo Attribution:  sourabhj via Flickr

Freshwater Venture: Exposes Chicago's Rich Entrepreneurial History

Freshwater Venture is an effort devoted to restating the rich Chicago entrepreneurial history by profiling the startups that have been developed in the Chicagoland area. Freshwater Venture was created by Keith Schacht and Eric Antonow as they looked to raise the profile of entrepreneurs and their ventures in Chicagoland. The Freshwater Venture offers an index of startup profiles, industry roundups and a few video profiles. One of the most interesting features thus far is a Google Map mashup called Chicago Map 2.0 which plots 165 of the Chicago startup company office locations (shown below). This site is a great resource for anyone looking to better understand the history of Chicago startups.

The Freshwater LIVE event took place tonight (October 26, 2006) at the Gleacher Center in Chicago bringing together a number of the CEO's that are profiled on the site in addition to other notables in the Chicago entrepreneurial community. The event was slated to have several of the founders of local startups reading their original business plans in addition to offering some very, very early stage funding. Unfortunately, I was not able to attend so I cannot say if any of that really happened but Eric Olson, co-founder of TECH cocktail was at the event so I am sure to be filled in. TECH cocktail made a donation to support the event as it is very much in line with our mission.

Google Seeks Growth Via Custom Search

Google has launched a custom search engine today (October 24, 2006) called Google Co-op. Co-op enables  a user to create and launch a customized search engine which includes just a few specific websites. This should make for an interesting competition between a crowd of other products which includes Rollyo, Eurekster Swicki and Yahoo Search Builder. According to the Financial Time report:

"Users of Google Custom Search Engine will be able to select the websites they want to be included in their searches, and add to this list in future by “tagging” websites they visit. Any searches will then return results just from that slice of the Google search index."

This launch does not surprise me as Google has been missing out on search growth in the hot vertical search market.

Related Articles: 

Rollyo Personalized Search Launched
What is Swicki?
Swicki & Rollyo Here Comes Yahoo! Search

Second TECH cocktail Smoothly Downed

Last night (October 12, 2006), Eric Olson and I hosted our second TECH cocktail in Chicago at the Gramercy. As we first envisioned nearly 8 months ago, TECH cocktail 2 brought together the technology enthusiasts, entrepreneurs, bloggers, podcasters and corporate masterminds in the area. With the list of rsvp'ed guests at 400+ for the evening by the events start time, I was a little leary as to if we could keep every guest smiling. I feel like that if the 350+ guests that did attend even had a quarter the fun I had I would consider it a great success. Judging by the feedback I have gotten, I think we can rest assured we pulled it off smoothly.

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You...
I am extremely thankful to a number of people and companies that made TECH cocktail even happen. First of all, a quick thank you to Eric Olson for being great partner in TECH cocktail crime and more importantly a great friend. Secondly, thank to all of our sponsors which included  midPhase, mk Capital, Coastr, Liquid Talk, Chicago.com, Digital Bootcamp and Chicago Enterpreneurial Center.  Thanks to all the companies that were willing to go under the hood and showcase their products. This includes eSigma, GrubHub, Pawky.com, Planypus and Time59 - thank you. Thanks to our three film crews which include Liquid Talk, Stone Cliff Productions and TechnologyEvangelist.com. Thanks to Jonathan Wolter for working registration and spreading some TechSocial love. Thanks to guys from Freshwater Venture who brought some pretty sweet company baseball cards. Of course, thank you to my family and friends for coming out and supporting the movement. Don Loeb was even in from San Francisco to attend - thanks for coming Don! Finally, special thanks to Jeff Pulver for coming over from New York to attend and pick up a tab on several hundred rounds of drinks.

Event Photos & Reactions...
Here are the photos tagged techcocktail2. 
Here is some of the buzz from the blogosphere:

• TECH cocktail 2: Wrap & Thank you - TECH cocktail (Official Tc2 thank you)
• About Last Night… (David gives his perspective)
• TechCocktail - a great party - tins ::: Rick Klau’s weblog (Glad Rick made it to this one!)
• I even wore a tie! (Dan from midPhase wore a tie)
• Tech Cocktail 2: What a Party: Technology Evangelist (Thanks for coming down!)
• About Last Night: TECH Cocktail 2 in Chicago - The Jeff Pulver Blog (Black AMEX, enough said - thank you!)
• TECH cocktail 2: Good Times, Lessons Learned - Chicagoist (Thanks for covering the limo situation so well)
• Chicago Beta (This is exactly what we wanted to see happen - more events!)
• TechCocktail tonight in Chicago « Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger (Thanks for the plug Robert, wish you could have made it)

TECH cocktail Specials...

We also took the opportunity to introduce a new TECH cocktail product called TECH cocktail Specials (techcocktail.com/jobs) a job listing board that we hopes helps to connect employers with jobseekers surrounding TECH cocktail events. Not to mention, proceeds will help to support future TECH cocktail events. If you are interested in giving it a free trial please feel free to email and I will hook you up. The site was developed by Phraction.

With two TECH cocktails downed smoothly - we will see you at TECH cocktail 3!

Tagged: techcocktail2

Realtors Turning To Blogs & Web Services

Listing my Chicago condo for sale last week coincided with a Classified Intelligence report (sorry no direct link available) which examined the latest marketing and advertising patterns of real estate agents. The report concluded many interesting trends about Realtors. Most notably the report showed a reduction of print ad spending while increases in online spending. An article by Kate Kaye highlighted the same report and explained that while overall advertising spending by real estate agents is increasing the bulk of the spending is on their own Web sites. Andy Beal believes the online spending is going to the creation of blogs.  

What does this all mean? There is huge opportunity for a company looking to offer tools for real estate agents, buyers and sellers. A prime example of this is the recent explosive rise in popularity of Zillow and its Zestimates which have already almost become a household term. Furthermore, there is a HUGE opportunity for a blog platform for real estate listings. Wait, isn't there a product already doing this? YES, thats right, edgeio!  

Edgeio is an online listing aggregator which enables a user to create a listing online. I highlighted edgeio before here, here, here and here. Keith Teare of Edgeio recently explained:

"Edgeio is an excellent tool for syndicating out listings. Edgeio is an aggregation of listings for real estate and other categories. With the influx real estate agents getting into blogging for the sole purpose of posting listings Edgeio can also act as a blog platform for agents."

Edgeio currently displays over 227,000 real estate listings. Edgeio fits perfectly with the trend of web site development spending being made by Realtors since edgeio can crawl and aggregate listings from regular web sites and blogs at no cost to the Realtors.

Google Base also is positioned perfectly for the online web site trends of Realtors. Sam Sebastian of Google recently conveyed that his team is going out to educate Realtors about Google Base. They are explaining how to get listed on Google Base by just creating and submitting a simple feed of Web site contents to Google Base which places items accessible as results directly via Google search results.

Bottom-line: Real estate hunting is solidifying itself as an "online" activity as Realtors have been spending more  on online ads and their Web sites so there is a huge opportunity for real estate related sites and online services. Ultimately, products like edgeio and Google Base could threaten paid inclusion sites like Move.com and Homescape among others. 

Sam Sebastian Speaks About Google Local

Sam Sebastian, director of Classifieds & Local at Google, spoke at a lunch engagement today (August 15, 2006) at his former employer Classified Ventures in Chicago, Illinois. Sam heads a sales team that focuses on developing working relationships with real estate companies and other local advertisers to advocate the use of Google Adwords and other products.

Sam talked about the growth of Google which included his arrival in April. Sam left Classified Ventures in April 2006 after leading Homescape for seven years. Sam expressed his feeling on his new role and Google Local by saying:

"Google Local is the least sexy of the verticals which is perfect for me."

He went on to say that Google currently has 8,000 employees and is hiring 12 new employees a day. So obviously, the company is growing quickly to handle all the different directions that Google is going.

Sam is not a product engineer and is slightly removed from the Googleplex brain-trust (Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Eric Schmidt and Marissa Mayer), so he did not too many "nitty gritty" product details to report. Though, he did express the importance that Google puts on staying on top in search. He explained the 70/20/10 rule that engineers are to follow at Google. The rule has engineers working on search 70% of their time, working on other Google products 20% and working on whatever projects they want 10% of the time (not necessarily Google related). Sam highlighted Google's focus and attention on video and mobile space. He also pointed to the release of a new Google Local product, Google Local Coupons, which was reportedly launched today.

During the Q & A session the audience most notably asked about the Google Base strategy which includes an integrated search widget which could pose as a potential threat to the online classified business. Sam explained how Google is not looking to get into the business of selling the job, car and real estate listings but instead wants to aggregate the listings into its search results. Google would then be able to return more granular listings that send traffic back to the original listing web site. Google is trying to push the adoption of Google Base to build up its result sets in local markets by both educating local businesses and making it free to anyone with a listings feed. Both initiatives could be a threat to the online classified business since most business models in the space are built around the premise that someone pays to place a listing online. However, Sam specifically explained Google is not looking to attack the online classified business but instead help them generate more search traffic via Google search so it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.