SOMEWHAT FRANK

Infectious Art Styles Your Laptop, Wall or Car

Rather than go with a number of stickers on your laptop which has become very popular with the Web 2.0 movement, you might want to check out a site called Infectious. Infectious offers community designed adhesive art for your laptop, wall or car.

Infectious offers artists an outlet for creativity very similar to Threadless, the t-shirt design community hub and JPG Magazine the user-generated photography magazine. Infectious enables artists to submit artwork and the community then votes on the artwork they like the best. The winners are then turned into Infectious designs to be sold in the online store.

Pricing start at $24 for laptop art, $79 for wall art and $329 for car art. Check out some of the artwork and personalize your possessions today.

21 Hour TECH cocktail Day

21 Hour TECH cocktail Day from Frank Gruber on Vimeo.

I have been co-hosting TECH cocktail events in local technology communities for over two and a half years now. In that time I have hosted events in Boulder, Boston, D.C. and Chicago. Recently, we hosted our first event on a college campus by hitting the road and heading down to the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana for a "Big Ten Conference" style event which I mentioned previously. It was a lot of fun but it was a LONG day.

I captured our 21 hour day on video and you can follow us along as we woke up at 3:30 a.m. in the morning in Chicago and returned some 21 hours later. Follow along as episode 54 on SOMEWHAT FRANK shares our adventures in the video (above).

Gary Vaynerchuk Woodstock Wine Event

Gary Vaynerchuk's Woodstock Wine Event from Frank Gruber on Vimeo.

I recently visited my hometown of Woodstock, Illinois where I lived from birth till about age twenty as I welcomed wine expert Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV. It was a super wine event sponsored by the Woodstock Fine Arts Association as part of the Creative Living After Dark series. I was happy to introduce him to the crowd at the historic Woodstock Opera House which has been around since 1886 and housed a number of popular acts including the movie Groundhog Day, Orson Welles and Paul Newman. Follow along as I captured the days festivities as episode 52 on SOMEWHAT FRANK.

Video: Bolt Bus Travel Experience To NYC

Traveling from Washington, DC to New York City this week I decided to give a new bus service a try called the Bolt Bus. The Bolt Bus offer a relatively inexpensive way to travel as it was about $40 roundtrip. The service caters to the Internet savvy (and personal technology adventures like myself) as tickets are sold in advance online at BoltBus.com and the bus has wifi and electricity at available to every passenger. This itself makes that four hour drive fly by!

Come along as I venture from DC to NYC about the blazing red Bolt Bus for episode 49 on SOMEWHAT FRANK and offer up some perspective and tips on making your Bolt Bus experience a good one.

Riding The Bolt Bus Roundtrip DC to NYC from Frank Gruber on Vimeo.

TECH cocktail DC 3 Is Coming: Sign Up Now!

I am excited to announce TECH cocktail DC 3! We hosted our last TECH cocktail DC in the spring and since then have hosted a conference in Chicago, as well as mixer events in Chicago, Boulder and Boston. In case you missed these events you can check out the TECH cocktail photos.

Here are the important upcoming event details:

___

Date: Thursday, October 2, 2008

Time: 6:30pm - 9pm

Venue: MCCXXIII: 1223 Connecticut Avenue, NW - Washington, DC 20036  (Map)

RSVP: tech-cocktail-dc-3.eventbrite.com

____

If you are interested in sponsoring TECH cocktail DC 3 you can purchase a sponsorship online. Also if you are interested in demoing your startup product or service please contact me. See you there!

At TechCrunch50 Searching For Adventures

I am currently at TechCrunch50 sitting in the second row behind the panel judges which has included the likes of Marisa Mayer, Chad Hurley, Marc Andreesen, Yossi Vardi and Ron Conway among others.  It has been a rather busy day I am taking photos and tweeting out every so often.

I am on the lookout for some awesome new products, gadgets and such to showcase in a video episode of SOMEWHAT FRANK which covers adventures in a personal technology lifestyle.

If you have a product that fits the mission I just explained and you think I might like, please comment on this post with a tip.

AngelSoft: Aggregates 400 Angel Investors

If you are an entrepreneur looking for a little funding to get your startup going there are a number of incubator programs that I have covered previously like Y Combinator, TechStars and LaunchBox Digital that could help get you started. But if you have already participated in an incubator or you are looking for a little more than what an incubator can offer you might want to look for an angel investor. If you do not know an angel investor you might be out of luck but there is a new company looking to help connect angel investors with startups and visa versa. Angelsoft, a New York-based company, looks to aggregate angel investors into one site that can then browsed by entreprenuers in need. With Angelsoft entrepreneurs are able to browse over 400 angel investment groups and early-stage venture capital funds and apply for financing using a single common application.

Video: JamLegend Offers An Online Guitar Hero

It seems like just yesterday that I talked to Andrew Lee at the Lijit breakfast that followed the last TECH cocktail DC event. Andrew explained how he was looking to create a free online alternative to the popular music video games Rock Band and Guitar Hero as part of the 2008 LaunchBox Digital incubator program. I have to admit I was a little skeptical of that becoming reality in just a summer. But Andrew and his team made me eat my words a few weeks ago when they demonstrated JamLegend at LaunchBox Digital.

I was able to capture a few video clips with JamLegend and have compiled them into an episode 39 of SOMEWHAT FRANK TV. Check out the video (below) which shows off JamLegend and stars myself, Andrew Lee and the JamLegend team of Ryan Wilson and Arjun Lall, as well as well as cameos from Jimmy Gardner and Nick O'Neill.

JamLegend LaunchBox Digital Preview from Frank Gruber on Vimeo.

hi5 Gets A New Communications Director

hi5, a fast growing social networking site, has just landed a new director of communications in Adriana Gascoigne. hi5 is a social networking site for Tweens, users in their teens and 30's, and is among the top-10 global social networks. Based on the June comScore Media Metrix worldwide figures released in June, hi5 grew 79% in the first half of 2008. Adriana made her plans to move to hi5 public via her blog yesterday as she decided she wanted to:

"to build castles in, make new playmates, dig to discover new treasures – most importantly, as Frank Gruber has stated several times, “Have fun!”

You are exactly right Adriana. You have to have fun in life because life is too short, because we die. I am happy you realize that and are taking action. Congrats to Adriana on the new gig with hi5. The social networking space is definitely an interesting and exploding territory and I am sure Adriana's expertise will make a positive impact on hi5's direction which already appears to be up.

AIM BuddyUpdates Web-based Lifestream

For the last month or so I have been working on a little project at AOL as part of the AIM group called the BuddyUpdates. BuddyUpdates, offers a way for AIM users to share their actions with the rest of their buddy list. This product has been available since 2005 within the AIM client. Note this was well before the Facebook news feed was unveiled and Twitter or number of other lifestreaming services existed. The web-based BuddyUpdates interface launched publicly on July 9th and we have been sharing it with a small group as we continue to update it.

So if you use AIM you can pull in all you favorite services like Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Viddler, Digg, Mixx, StumbleUpon and so on and share them with the rest of the folks that have you on your buddy list. If you are on the AIM client you will see a little orange icon next to a buddy screen name that has BuddyUpdates. Upon clicking the orange icon you can view their updates. BuddyUpdates offers a Web interface for setting up and viewing these updates.

12Seconds Twitters Short Videos

Do you have 12 seconds? 12seconds, a Santa Cruz, California based startup, launched recently to offer users the ability to record short format video messages (12 seconds to be exact) and distributes them directly to a Twitter account. The site functions as a community destination as it also offers users the ability to follow others users on the site itself in a video stream format similar to twitter stream.

The site offers a simple layout and appears to be built on a drupal content management system framework. It also offers users simple recording and email video uploading features to enable users to input content. Videos can be embedded in other sites though a custom 12seconds player. Currently the player does not offer snaggable code.

What will computers empower us to do?

Intel recently unveiled the World Mural Project to coincide with its 40th Anniversary celebration. This unique collaborative Web artwork offers content from the Intel Computer Clubhouse Network, a worldwide after-school community-based technology learning program for kids in under-served communities. The project offers an interact display as you can navigate the globe looking at the various pieces of user contributed artwork around the theme "what computers will empower us to do" over the next 40 years.

Drop your SOMEWHAT FRANK perspective on that very question:

What will computers empower us to do in the next 40 years?

In the comments section.

Six Boston Startups Demo at TECH cocktail

I headed to Boston yesterday and after a long day of hectic travel due to some nasty summer storms I co-hosted TECH cocktail Boston 2. The event attracted a couple hundred dedicated Boston TECH cocktailers. Thank you to everyone that made their way out through the rain. Six Boston area startups demoed at TECH cocktail Boston 2 and they are highlighted in this article.

Video: Web 2.0 Startups & the Valley Discussed

Last week, I sat on a panel with Sarah Lacy and we discussed an array of topics from Web 2.0 startups to AOL acquisitions. We also discussed starting a company in Silicon Valley vs. everywhere else. This is something we actually debated about towards the end of the panel. Though I love the Valley, I don't think you need to be in Silicon Valley to start and run a successful business. I think it can help to be in the Valley but we have been proving through our TECH cocktail efforts that there are strong technology communities in a number of places and you can startup in any one of them. Sarah has since posted about it here and even challenges a smart DC company to prove her wrong.

Video: Sarah Lacy Book Tour Hits DC

Yesterday I spent some time with Sarah Lacy, a Silicon Valley BusinessWeek reporter, Yahoo Tech Ticker host and author of the new book Once You're Lucky, Twice You're Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0. She was visiting Washington, DC as part of her user generated book tour.

Sarah spent time on the AOL Dulles campus in the morning. I sat on a panel with her discussing Web 2.0 Startups to a crowd of AOL Commerce and Shopping employees moderated by Michael Tolosa of DC Tech TV. It was a lot fun as we talked about her book and exchanged various startup stories. In the evening we headed to DC for her user-generated book tour which visited the DC Twin Tech Party hosted by iStrategyLabs and SOMEWHAT FRANK and TECH cocktail were sponsors.

I captured a few photos and video clips which make-up episode 34 of SOMEWHAT FRANK TV. You can check out episode 34 of SOMEWHAT FRANK TV featuring Sarah Lacy (below).