SOMEWHAT FRANK

Talking Start-ups, Bootstrapping & Lifestreaming

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.

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).

Aggregated Weblogs For the Topics You Love.com

What do you love? I love breakfast. I love beaches. I love guitar. I love the Chicago Cubs and I am a fan of Dave Matthews. Love.com launched recently, somewhat under the radar, as a lightly branded AOL product, to help connect you with the topics you love. Love.com is not a dating site but a search engine with aggregated result pages looking to get you a snap-shot about any given topic.

Grant Cerny, VP, MediaGlow Entertainment Products with AOL's MediaGlow, had this to say about Love.com:

"Love.com topic blogs celebrate the diverse passions of all people with hundreds of thousands of profiled blogs and the capability to create new blog topics on the fly.  It organizes topics based on topical heat or velocity so that love.com can provide a central view into what the world is loving now."

Looking to create the perfect page for whatever you love, Love.com aggregates items from a few different sources. In performing a search for Chicago Cubs and love.com pulled in basic news stories, YouTube videos, images, relates websites, Twitter messages and related items for sale. The news stories are pulled real-time via Relegence, a company that AOL acquired in November 2006. Love.com is built on top of the blogging platform Blogsmith, the same platform that powers a number of popular weblogs, with the ability to spin off infinite sub-domains based on the popularity of a topic. Since MediaGlow has a number of popular content properties, Love.com can help recirculate their content through these infinite topical blog pages via search engines.

Love.com also offered recommendations for related topics things I might like which included baseball, Cincinnati Reds and New York Yankees. This makes sense since the Chicago Cubs are a baseball team. I assume it pulled in the Cincinnati Reds because the Cubs are currently playing the Reds and there are news stories that relate them. I am not sure why New York Yankees was also offered as a recommendation other than that they are another the baseball team.

IsraelWebTour 2009: This Week in Silicon Valley

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 (listed in alphabetical order) below:

Conduit
Conduit provides website syndication solutions for web publishers by creating a direct, always-on connection between publishers and subscribers. More than 180,000 publishers have joined the Conduit network worldwide, including Fox News, Lufthansa, Major League Baseball, Greenpeace, TechCrunch, Softonic and organizations in 180 countries around the globe.

ContextIn
ContextIn's proven proprietary multi-lingual semantic algorithms significantly increase relevancy and targeting to deliver the most valuable, targeted advertising inventory and traffic quality. Our algorithms have been proven to maximize both relevancy and monetization for Ad Networks, Advertisers and Publishers alike for increased ROI.

EyeView Digital,
EyeView is transforming online conversion through the use of rich-media content combining compelling rich-media content with a world-first rich-media conversion platform. The result is a proven and significant increase your website’s conversion rates. EyeView’s solution is ideal for a wide variety of websites and online industries such as: Gaming, Online Forex, Travel, Credit Cards, community, Software and eCommerce

Footbo
Footbo is the place for football/soccer lovers world-wide. Headquartered in London, UK, Footbo is the leading international social media platform with an exclusive focus on soccer. It combines the concept of social networking with the world of soccer to provide fans with a one-stop platform for all their soccer needs.

SemantiNet
Semantinet is pioneering the development of “Top Down” Semantic Web technologies. SemantiNet’s Headup Semantic Web plugin, currently available as an addon for Mozilla's Firefox browser, presents you with textual and rich media content related to the objects and terms it identifies on the pages you browse. Headup not only identifies these objects but has a basic understanding of the relationships between them.

SundaySky
SundaySky enables publishers to quickly, easily and cost-effectively infuse their website with video clips. SundaySky’s DynamicVideo™ Platform allows mass generation of always up-to-date video content, while leveraging existing content repositories. Videos are personalized for each user, interactive, and are intricately linked the site the user is viewing, even if that site is totally dynamic.

Superfish
Superfish has developed a unique, first of it’s kind, 3D object recognition engine to bring high-accuracy visual matching, browsing, and comparison into the world of search engines. The company’s unique IP puts together machine vision, machine learning and advanced search algorithms to allow for users to intuitively find similar objects visually.

SweetIM
SweetIM is focused on delivering fun content and self-expression tools. SweetIM products are intended to allow users to upgrade their social engagement, by offering fun content and an add-on for IM, webmail, and social networks that is easy to use. Through these tools users are sending daily over 6M flash animations, games and video to each other.

Triond
Triond offers a new approach for user generated content. Triond publishes, distributes and monetizes users' content over a network of niche websites. This way users get to focus on the content creating process, while leveraging the service in order to get more readership, recognition and revenue than they would if they were to publish individually.

WorkLight
WorkLight enables businesses to reach customers, employees and partners securely in the places they frequent. The flagship product, WorkLight Application Platform, securely syndicates enterprise applications in a multitude of consumer online channels, such as widgets, social networks, personalized homepages, iPhone applications, blogs and RSS feeds.

This year I will not be in attendance but it looks like another great set of startups. Good luck, safe travels and enjoy the tour!

Visiting Intel Portland Today

Today as part of the Intel Insider program, a social media brand ambassador program, I am visiting Intel's Portland, Oregon microchip manufacturing facilities. I am excited to be in Portland for the first time and look forward to learning how they make chips. I will most likely be streaming some videos today and tomorrow via Qik and UStream.TV on my iPhone so be sure to check back (videos streams shown below). I will be using Brightkite, Flickr, Tumblr, Facebook and Twitter to keep you updated on how things are going.

SOMEWHAT FRANK on Qik:

Headed to find Intel HQ in Portland

Outside Intel FAB 20 with Intel Insiders

Clear WiMax Ride in Portland

Segway With WiMax

Intel Health Gadget

Intel My Wifi Demo Lab

Hopefully my iPhone will have enough juice to keep the content flowing all day long. Our day concludes at the Social Media Club Portland Tweetup event tonight with the rest of my Intel Insider pals, so if you are in the area come by and say hello!!!

Web 2.0 Expo This Week In SF

Web 2.0 Expo is this week in San Francisco from March 31st - April 3rd. This year at the Web 2.0 Expo there are 3 new components which include:

1. A new Government 2.0 Joins the Web 2.0 House track for anyone looking to explore how technology is being integrated into the government.
2. Sunlight Labs Hackathon where attendees build an application that promotes transparency
   in government. You can vote now for the application you want to build (or think needs to be built).
3. Revion3 Tekzilla LIVE at Web 2.0 Expo as Patrick Norton and Veronica Belmont bring you hands on reviews of the latest gear, tips and tricks that improve the tech you already own, and conversations with the most informative experts around.

Use code websf09trt5 at online registration for 30% off any registration package.

Finally, I will be giving away my extra ticket this week to the lucky reader. Hope to see you there!

Exploring Tsavo Media

Exploring Tsavo Media from Frank Gruber on Vimeo.

I was in Santa Monica last month so I decided to stop by new startup called Tsavo Media. Tsavo Media was founded by former AOL colleague and Userplane founder and CEO, Mike Jones. He assembled a super team including Mike Macadaan (Twiistup founder and former AOL colleague), Sean Percival, Ryan Sit and Steve Schepke, among others. Tsavo Media has been funded by American Capital and has been gobbling up a number of niche content sites including NibbleDish along with creating niche sites like KidGlue, Manolith and Twirlit. With the launch of Daymix, a search experience which creates the "perfect page" for any given search term, we may be seeing the beginning of a relevancy engine. So what are they trying to do? According to Tsavo:

"These are blogs that get to know you.  Entertain, inform and serve you. They’re good for consumers, and great for advertisers."

Curious to find out more details about these blog that appear to learn from your actions to better entertain you, I recently talked to Mike Jones and Mike Macadaan as I toured the Tsavo Media office space in Santa Monica, California. Check out SOMEWHAT FRANK video episode 68 (above) as go behind the scenes at Tsavo Media. 

Web 2.0 Expo San Francisco Is Coming Soon

Web 2.0 Expo is at it again and this time they are back on the West coast in San Francisco on March 31st - April 3rd. I was invited to attend the semi-annual conference and expo targeting all those involved with the development of the next generation web: designers, developers, entrepreneurs, marketers, business strategists, and venture capitalists from around the globe. Some of the most innovative and successful industry people and companies attend Web 2.0 Expo. This year at the Web 2.0 Expo there are 3 new components which include:

1. A new Government 2.0 Joins the Web 2.0 House track for anyone looking to explore how technology is being integrated into the government.
2. Sunlight Labs Hackathon where attendees build an application that promotes transparency
   in government. You can vote now for the application you want to build (or think needs to be built).
3. Revion3 Tekzilla LIVE at Web 2.0 Expo as Patrick Norton and Veronica Belmont bring you hands on reviews of the latest gear, tips and tricks that improve the tech you already own, and conversations with the most informative experts around.

I last attended Web 2.0 Expo in 2007 and you can check out the photos to prove it. Read up on past SOMEWHAT FRANK Web 2.0 Expo coverage here, here, here and here.

Use code websf09trt5 at online registration for 30% off any registration package.

Finally, I have an extra ticket to give away so reach out to me on twitter @FrankGruber if you’re interested. Hope to see you there!

AllFacebook Launches Facebook Page Stats Tool

It appears that people will no longer be in the dark as to how well fan pages are doing on Facebook as AllFacebook has launched Facebook stat pages. Nick O'Neill, a DC blogger, friend and closet programmer, has been working furiously the last month or so to roll out the page tracker system that keeps track of over 620,000 Facebook Fan pages. The tracking pages offer charts like the one to the left that upon hover offers users to pinpoint specific cross sections on the chart.

Plinky Through Those Personal Blogging Lulls

Plinky launched this past week to offer a microblogging platform for your personal blog. Plinky was founded by Jason Shellen, a former engineer of blog platform Blogger, to help "cure writer's block" Plinky prompts its users to answer a question a day to keep the personal blog content flowing.

NYC Breakfast: Social Web Tech Discussions

I was in the Big Apple today so I decided to do a little breakfast meetup/tweetup event this morning. The event was open to anyone and we had a handful of folks brave the blizzard-like snow storm this morning to meetup. Aside from Comfort Diner in Chelsea having some very sturdy coffee mugs and solid waffles, bacon and eggs the breakfast discussions were very thoughtful and 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 streamed videos (via Flixwagon) about 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 (below).

NYC Breakfast Intros & Shoutouts

NYC Breakfast Lifestreaming, Backup & Chat Discussion

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!

My CES 2009 Experience Recap

Last week, I previewed my trip to the Consumer Electronics Show as I had just touched down and was getting ready to experience my first CES. Well, I am back from CES and to be totally frank, all I can say is "Wow, that was a good time!" Unfortunately, it took me until today to decompress and get enough sleep to be able to spill details about all that I experienced last week at CES. First things first, a big thank you Intel for sponsoring my trip out to CES as an Intel Insider. It was an unbelievable experience.

So how did the party I co-hosted at CES on Thursday night go? I would have to say it was a success but you can see for yourself by checking out some of the photos taken by Brian Solis (this set of photos & photo below)

Wm. Marc Salsberry also took some super pictures (this set of photos & photo below).

We had the entire Sportsbook Bar & Grill at the Palazzo which was formerly the 40/40 Club owned by hip hop star Jay Z, so as you can imagine we felt like kings in the palace of a hip hop legend. It was pretty amazing and the attendees were top-notch. I never thought as a corn-fed Northern Illinois sixth grader attending a junior high sock hop wearing what I equated to MC Hammer "hammer pants" (which are rather baggy pants) that I would years later host a CES kickoff party in Vegas that MC Hammer would attend. I guess you just don't think about stuff like that as a 6th grader growing up in a small town. Oh and we both wore regular pants to the event.

 

2009 Social Media & Web/Tech Conference Cal

The past few years I have posted a comprehensive list (here and here) 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 them all. 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 and bookmark it 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 event or to submit a conference or event please contact us.

Happy Conferencing in 2009!

SOMEWHAT FRANK in 2008 ... Onward to 2009!

SOMEWHAT FRANK 2008 In Review from Frank Gruber on Vimeo.

I just wanted to take one more moment to look back at 2008 in pictures (above) as we look forward to more adventures in 2009. From DEMO08 to FOWA Miami to rockin' SXSW to TechCrunch50 and more, 2008 was super. Thanks to everyone that made 2008 so great (you know who you are). Happy New Year!

SOMEWHAT FRANK 2008 In Review

It has been a rather eventful 2008, with a number of great memories. I just wanted to take a second to thank everyone that made it such a great year. Check out some of the most popular items of 2008 (below). Thanks for another great year. I look forward to bringing you more SOMEWHAT FRANK adventures in personal technology in 2009.

15 Most Popular Items of 2008 (according to Google Analytics):

1.) 2008 Web 2.0 & Tech Conference Calendar
2.) My Bolt Bus Travel Experience to NYC
3.) Rocking SXSW: An Epic Wine Event
4.) skinnyCorp Threadless Office Visit
5.) Sharing the JoyEngine Community
6.) Cool Globes & Ideas For A Cooler Planet
7.) A Look Inside Lijit Networks
8.) Sarah Lacy Book Tour Hits DC
9.) GeoEye Office Visit & Tour
10.) CrowdSpring Offers Lots Of Design Options
11.) Social Media & My Somewhat Obsession With The Shiny Objects Of The Web
12.) The TECH cocktail Song
13.) Snapily 3D Animated Business Cards
14.) Somewhat Frank Meets NonSociety
15.) Taking the MBT Anti-Shoe Challenge

Happy New Year!

Setting Up Roku for On-Demand Netflix To Your TV

Roku For Netflix To Your TV On-Demand from Frank Gruber on Vimeo.

For a holiday gift this year, I gave out a couple of Roku gift packages which included the Roku Netflix Player. The Roku Netflix Player enables a Netflix user with unlimited videos (currently $8.99 a month subscription) to watch videos on-demand to the TV. Users can choose from the selection of over 12,000 videos that currently are released to watch instantly on the Web. Roku even has new firmware to handle HD videos. To help with the adoption of the new gadget I decided to set it up and documented it in episode 60 on SOMEWHAT FRANK (wow-wooh-eee, can you believe I did 61 SOMEWHAT FRANK video adventure episodes this year!?!). Tune in as I share in the adventure of setting up the Roku for the first time in the video (above).If you have setup a Roku share your experiences in the comments section, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the device and the easy of use.