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‘Appy’ Hour @ WWDC

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"Appy Hour" on the balcony

"Appy Hour" on the balcony

Last night we gathered lots of press, clients and other mobile-y friends who were around for the sold-out Apple WWDC.

We chose Water Bar as the venue, which is close to our offices. It has a really nice private bar and balcony so you can enjoy the view of the Bay Bridge and catch the sun and breezes.

About 45 folks made it over. EA Mobile and Shortcovers demo’d apps on the Pre, and everyone came over to check out the phone and fondle the keyboard. It is a sexy device, that’s for sure.

We were surprised to learn from some of the press who attended the keynote that their press badges were revoked upon exiting, but others had VIP access and had their new iPhone 3Gs issued for full reviews on the spot.

Bart Decrem from Tapulous offered an impromptu press conference about his newest iPhone game with Lady Gaga Revenge. It’s in the app store now and really sweet!

Ewan McLeod, who is splitting his time between the UK & out here, was there with his trusty camera capturing commentary on the news of the day from people. He is busy getting great episodes in the can for his new Mobile Developer TV site.

We have such a good time throwing these fun little gigs. I fully believe that the more flesh-based events we can have, the better for everyone in our crazy always-on world. Of course, fantastic wines & champagne and delectable treats in a gorgeous setting helps, too.

Thanks to clients EA Mobile, GetJar, Playfish, Shortcovers, Tapulous, Tiny Pictures & Zos Communications for making it all possible!

Sparkpr: On the radar Week ending 8/8/09

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What tongues are wagging about now:

Ø Rupert Murdoch to begin charging for content “The internet days as we know it are over”

Ø Kindle DX getting panned over the $495 sticker price

VC Gossip:

Ø Firms are waiting for cap calls based on the fiscal year of LPs. They are also basing fundraising cycles on the LPs fiscal years.

Ø In other news Bill Tai’s Mai Tai Maui entrepreneur offsite is this coming week and they’ll all be getting kite surfing lessons in addition to talking about the new, new things/entrepreneurial bonding.

Upcoming Events

Ø May 12, 2009: Technologizer’s Tweetup

Burlingame, CA

This Tweetup is also a good place to learn more about TWTRCON, the Twitter for business conference conceived by Technologizer founder Harry McCracken and organized by Modern Media.

Several Sparksters will be attending.

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/338554626

Ø May 12, 2009: Clean Tech Breakfast #2: ‘The Future Size of the Carbon Footprint’ Nixon Peabody - San Francisco, One Embarcadero Center, San Francisco

In a country where over $59 billion was spent in the first half of 2008 alone on carbon credits, the push to decrease carbon usage is growing. What are the up and coming technologies for tracking carbon footprints and carbon credit trading? Where’s the growth and how will legislation impact this burgeoning sector?

http://www.sdforum.org

Ø May 12, 2009: Mergers and Acquisitions in China

WilmerHale, 1117 S.California Ave | Palo Alto

Mergers and Acquisitions in China: Legal and Communications Strategies to Navigate a Changing Landscap

This event, presented by WilmerHale and the Brunswick Group, will provide attendees with the opportunity to discuss the changing landscape for acquirers of Chinese companies in light of the new China Anti-Monopoly Law. Attendees will engage in an illuminating and practical analysis on the regulatory issues that foreign acquirers face as they invest in China as well as learn how individuals can anticipate these risks as they plan for and negotiate the acquisition of targets active in China.

http://www.wilmerhale.com/events/whEventsDetail.aspx?firmEvent=2956

Ø May 13, 2009: Women who Tech meetups in Atlanta, SF, DC and London

Ø May 13, 2009: Emerging Technology Forum: Up Close and Digital: The Rise of Electronic Medical Records

Universal, portable and interoperable digital health records have been a prized objective for more than two decades. And lately, Washington’s stimulus package has brought more attention to the goal with its plan to spend $20B to spur the adoption of electronic health records.

Trouble is the technology has been too expensive, cumbersome and difficult to maintain. To date, only a few of the largest healthcare providers have managed to make inroads with electronic healthcare records (EHR) among the 80% of physicians who are in smaller practices. Portable heath records (PHR) owned by the patient, has also been championed as a way to improve patient care, but haven’t lived up to expectations.

New approaches to PHR/EHR systems from innovative Silicon Valley startups are beginning to break down the traditional barriers to adoption. And new data infrastructure designs, provided by Google, Microsoft and industry consortium-founded Dossia are offering a viable alternative to data silos that have previously plagued healthcare information systems.

Join the Emerging Technology Forum (ETF) for a lively discussion with experts who will examine the new landscape of institutional and personal digital health records and probe many questions. Are new approaches creative enough to remove the economic and institutional barriers to adoption? Is Health IT on the verge of a new wave of companies and solutions? What’s the outlook for investors and entrepreneurs seeking to realize the vision of a universal health record providing patients with a lifetime of critical information?

Moderator:

Ken Rosen, Principal, Theory and Practice Consulting

Panelists:

Megan Mok, CEO, Peoplechart

Ryan Howard, CEO, Practice Fusion

Commentator:

Dr. Wally Buch, Venture Partner, Medventures and Member, Band of Angels

www.vctaskforce.com

Ø May 14, 2009: Invite-only DEMO VC Breakfast

San Francisco, CA

Matt Marshall and Chris Shipley are inviting a very small group of market influencers and investors for a private breakfast.

DEMO is reshifting focus of their shows to become a more effective launch platform with regard to today’s economic environment and social media culture, and they’ve been pulling insiders from the Valley for a private breakfast.

Ø May 14, 2009: Venture Connection Roundtable: Capitol Hill and Wall Street Come to the Valley: How to Grab a Piece of the Stimulus Bill’s $50 Billion Cleantech Pie

The Venture Connection Roundtable brings together premier venture capital firms, investment banks, strategic investors, companies and universities to discuss trends and hot issues. Featured speakers include Tom Jensen, Partner, Public Law & Policy Strategies, Washington D.C., Sonnenschein , David Ethridge, Managing Director, Head of Alternative Energy Group, Cowen & Company , Shez Bandukwala, Co-Chair, Greentech Investment Banking, ThinkEquity Partners, John Bergwell, Director of Project Finance, Chevron Energy Solutions and Sam Gabbita, Principal, Element Partners. The session is moderated by Victor Boyajian, National Chair, Sonnenschein Venture Technology Group.

www.sonnenschein.com

Ø May 14, 2009: T-mobile Sidekick Launch party

Ø May 14, 2009: The Connected Home

Microsoft, Mountain View, CA

For those who made it to CES this year, you will have noticed this powerful trend: the PC, the TV, the Internet and the home are converging in a very real way. Real products launched into the market don’t just blur the lines between TV and PC, but in fact make it increasingly clear that any screen is just a screen, and the content will come from both broadcast, unicast, and from within the home.

Of course, screens and media are just a part of the Connected Home. Media sharing, photo display, home security, cameras, HVAC control, entry control, family organization and communication, are all becoming inextricably entwined. What does the Digitally Connected Home mean to your business, and where are the opportunities and threats? Our meeting will dive into the products, the ideas, the complicated web of service providers, and the great things we’ll see in the home of the future…a future which isn’t that far away.

Join us for a look at:

· Internet services and web content throughout the home

· Home Control

· Communications

· Devices, hardware, hubs, servers, terminals, frames, storage, screens…

· Security

· Networking solutions: Wi-Fi, HomePlug, Phoneline, etc.

· 3 screens, virtualization, and unified communications…

http://guest.cvent.com/EVENTS/Info/Summary.aspx?e=d027df7b-2546-49c7-a896-ff2fabf0d0da

Ø May 14, 2009: Social Media Marketing Panel w/ Charlene Li

Palo Alto, C

The social media groundswell is here, whether we like it or not, and it’s transforming the marketing profession. As marketers, we need a deep understanding of how these trends will change the way we interact with our customers and clients, and how to best leverage the change. Unlike many other experts in social media, Charlene Li is concerned with the big picture, what does this mean for business and marketing strategy and what objectives and strategies should be developed in order to take advantage of this transformation?

http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=182524

Ø May 14: Paidcontent EconSM: Social Meets Mobile

Twitter. MySpace. Bebo. Yahoo! Verizon. Nokia. Nielsen Mobile. comScore. And more.  They’ll all be at EconSM: Social Meets Mobile on May 14th in San Francisco.

For those who know it’s not enough to be social anymore—that you’ve to be mobile—join us for lively discussion on the business opportunities in the evolving mobile social space.

And be there as our keynoters and panelists answer the tough questions:

- What does social media mean in a mobile world?

- What mobile social tools and applications are gaining the most traction with users?

- Where are the success stories and revenue models?

- What types of mobile social firms are venture capitalists looking to invest in this year?

- What will it take for mobile advertising to hit its stride?

Ø May 15-16, 2009: TiEcon2009

Santa Clara, CA

TiE, is a premier organization for Entrepreneurs, Professionals, and VCs with the mission of fostering entrepreneurship (www.tiesv.org).

TiEcon (www.tiecon.org) is TiE’s flagship event and is considered the World’s largest conference of Entrepreneurs.

This year, TiEcon 2009’s theme is celebrating the BOLD Entrepreneur - the extraordinary person who thinks Big and Out of the box, Learns to adapt to changing conditions, and Dares to create his or her own future.

Keynote speakers include:

Reid Hoffman, CEO LinkedIn

Paul Maritz, CEO VMware

Brad Smith, CEO Intuit

Hans Morris, CEO Visa

Vivek Ranadive, CEO Tibco

New to TiEcon 2009 are

· Tie50: a showcase of the 50 hottest startups

· PowerConnect: an exclusive limited seating lunchtime networking event with VCs, speakers, sponsors, and industry luminaries

· Business Bootcamp: a series of business workshops tailored to the needs of entrepreneurs

www.tiecon.org

Ø May 19-21, 2009: Where 2.0

San Jose, CA

Where 2.0 brings you the future of the geospatial industry. Now in its fifth year, the O’Reilly Where 2.0 Conference claims the space where developers building location-aware technology intersect with the businesses and entrepreneurs looking for location apps, platforms, and hardware to give them a competitive edge. The importance and functionality of the geospatial web have matured—it’s not just maps anymore!

http://en.oreilly.com/where2009/

Ø May 19, 2009: Leadership in a Downturn Economy

Palo Alto, CA

We are living in a US economy where more than two million jobs were lost and where consumer spending has fallen more than 3% annually. Even worse, according to some CEOs, the economy has not been this badly off in the last 43 years.

· What steps are business leaders in the Silicon Valley taking to make sure that their enterprises not only don’t go under, but also thrive in these harsh times?

· Do they encourage worst-case scenario thinking or suggest a continued feeling of optimism - after all, every recession has an end?

· Is there a new reality that companies have to face and do they have to reset their priorities accordingly?

· Is it time to invent new products or technologies, or do you improve what worked in the past?

Panelists:

· Jean-Louis Gassee, Partner, Allegis Capital

· Victoria Livschitz, CEO, Grid Dynamics

· Vish Mishra, Venture Director, Clearstone Venture Partners

· Bettina Jetter, Founder, Mindjet

Moderator:

Tom Chaffin, Partner, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP

www.gaba-network.org

Ø May 21, 2009: When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Change their Business Model

Menlo Park, CA

In this Strategy Series, we’ll discuss: Timing is Everything, dissecting the risks and trigger points for staying the course vs. switching business models.

Change is Good, the entrepreneur’s playbook for switching strategy without losing your customers…and your focus.  Talking to the People, communicating the change to your peeps - from press to investors and board members to customers.

Ø May 21, 2009: What’s New and Exciting in Clean and Green?

Mountain View, CA

Do you know what clean tech companies need from consultants? Do you understand how to position your business for this market segment? Are you wondering how to get clients in this important and fast-growing industry?

The explosive growth in clean tech has created abundant opportunities for companies and consultants. In this roundtable discussion, WIC members will hear directly from a panel of clean tech companies about their product offerings and their approach to the market, and gain an understanding of how they can engage in this exciting new market sector.

Consultant Kathleen Gilligan of EcoStrategy Group will moderate a panel of executives from clean tech companies discussing their product offerings and their approach to the market.

Key Learning Points

This moderated panel will give you insight into:

· What constitutes a “green” company

· Which segments of the market are growing fastest

· What clean tech companies need to be successful

· The issues that emerging clean tech companies face

www.womeninconsulting.org

Ø May 21, 2009: BIGs Life Science – Financing and Exit strategies for Medical Device Startups in an Uncertain

Palo Alto, CA 94304

Internet start-ups and medical device companies have something in common. They often begin the same way—with a great idea and venture funding. The biggest challenge now seem seems to be how to develop practical financing and exit strategies that will enable capable entrepreneurs to attract the venture capital required for rapid growth.

www.svase.org

Ø May 21, 2009: Morgenthaler Venture Partners,

Menlo Park, CA

Whether we’re in a recession or not, making dough ‘aint easy.

A startup with any hopes of long-term survival needs continuous evolution in their market focus, and a strategic plan for discovering new opportunities to grow revenue.

While undying commitment to a single market may be wise for seed-stage companies, eventually all startups with hopes of long-term survival need to modify or broaden their focus.

In this Strategy Series we’ll hear from some of tech’s most interesting startups on how they found the golden ticket in new markets – from leveraging existing assets to market entry via acquisition.

At what stage in a company’s lifecycle should it consider new markets?

What’s the trigger point that your company is ready to expand? What’s the quickest way to expand into new markets? What can backfire? What does new market expansion mean for your employees, investors, and board members? How can you keep everyone motivated and focused?

Speakers:

Karl Mehta, Founder & CEO, Playspan

Rebecca Lynn, Principal, Morgenthaler Ventures

Ro Choy, Chief Revenue Officer, RockYou

Munjal Shah, CEO, Like.com

Moderator:

Manish Chandra, CEO, Kaboodle

Ø May 28, 2009: Global Venture Investments- Opportunities and Challenges

Palo Alto, CA

The global picture of financial power and centricity has fundamentally changed. Capital markets have become increasingly global and interdependent, with the world’s foreign direct investment (FDI) ?ows running at over US$1.8 trillion in 2007 (over three times the level in 2003) and foreign investors owning over 25% of global equities. And climate change concerns challenge how businesses operate and how investors perceive business opportunities.

Recent McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) research highlights several trends that look set to continue during the years ahead, long after the present bout of market turbulence has ended:

• the continued growth and deepening of global capital markets as investors pour more money into equities, debt securities, bank deposits, and other assets around the world

• the soaring growth of financial markets in emerging economies and the growing ties between financial markets in developed and developing countries

• the growing financial clout of the eurozone countries and the significance of the euro

www.gaba-network.org

Ø May 28, 2009: Global Venture Investments- Opportunities and Challenges

Palo Alto, CA

The global picture of financial power and centricity has fundamentally changed. Capital markets have become increasingly global and interdependent, with the world’s foreign direct investment (FDI) ?ows running at over US$1.8 trillion in 2007 (over three times the level in 2003) and foreign investors owning over 25% of global equities. And climate change concerns challenge how businesses operate and how investors perceive business opportunities.

Recent McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) research highlights several trends that look set to

continue during the years ahead, long after the present bout of market turbulence has ended:

• the continued growth and deepening of global capital markets as investors pour more money into equities, debt securities, bank deposits, and other assets around the world

• the soaring growth of financial markets in emerging economies and the growing ties between financial markets in developed and developing countries

• the growing financial clout of the eurozone countries and the significance of the euro

www.gaba-network.org

Ø May 31, 2009: Grid Alternatives: Plug In to Grid!

Mountain View, CA

An exclusive afternoon party to learn about plug-in vehicles, checkout high-end sports cars like Tesla, futuristic prototypes displayed by Stanford and PG&E, hybrid conversions, motorcycles, scooters, neighborhood electric vehicles and much more.

http://www.gridalternatives.org/plugin

Ø May 31, 2009: TWTRCON SF

San Francisco, C

TWTRCON SF 09 is the first conference entirely focused on Twitter as a business platform: how to use Twitter to reach and engage customers, influence opinions and activate markets.

http://twtrcon.com/

Ø June 3, 2009: Hands On Bay Area: Venture Out

Venture Out, is a half-day of volunteering with 300+ participants including leading social media entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and investors organized by Hands On Bay Area.  As you know this downturn in the economy is one of the worst we’ve seen in our lifetimes.  We as entrepreneurs, investors and leaders in our community are in a unique position to make a difference.  This event will provide a opportunity for you and your company to give back to the community in a time when our community needs it most, network with technology entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and angel investors, and start or continue building a philanthropic corporate culture.  For more information, check out http://www.handsonbayarea.org.  (A $75 donation for each participant will cover the cost of supplies and logistics and also support addition volunteer programs.)

Ø June 7-16, 2009: Geeks on a Plane

Dave McClure hosted event in which all tech innovators and investors are flying from Silicon Valley/SF to Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai for a week.
Organizers are looking for sponsors.

www.geeksonaplane.com

Ø June 9, 2009: SFbeta 3.4: Summer Flings

San Francisco, CA

So summer’s back and that means SFbeta is ready to bust the doors open and flow into the streets; or we will if we get another rocking turn out like last time.  We’re bringing together hundreds of people from every rung of the tech and startup world - founders and executives, investors and advertisers, marketers and developers - and creating innumerable connections along the way.  We’re still looking for a few folks to demo at the event, too.

http://sfbeta3p4.eventbrite.com

Ø June 14-18, 2009: Semantic Technology Conference 2009

Fairmont Hotel, San Jose, CA

SemTech 2009 represents virtually the entire spectrum of business, government and consumer activity taking place within the emerging field of semantic technologies.  It is the most extensive event ever assembled on the topic, featuring:

170 Speakers from all corners of the Semantic community

Over 220 Hours of Instructional Content

135 Sessions spanning 20 Subject Tracks

30 Use Cases

In-Depth Technical and Product Tutorials

Major Industry Announcements

Late Breaking Vendor and Start-Up News

User Groups Meetings

Industry Tracks Devoted to:

Advertising & Marketing

Healthcare & Life Sciences

Government & Military

Publishing & Media

The current program is available here: http://semtech2009.com/ataglance/.

Ø June 16-17, 2009: 140 Characters Conference.

New York City, NY

This is an event that started out with the core focus of exploring “the effects of twitter on: Celebrity, The Media, Advertising and Politics” and has evolved into a worldwide gathering which will be covering the emerging twitter ecosystem. This is shaping up into a landmark event and if you are interested in the effects of twitter on your business now and in the future, please consider registering and joining me at the 140 Characters Conference.

http://140conf.com

Ø June 23, 2009: Social Gaming Summit

San Jose, CA

Social Gaming Summit is a one day event focused on the intersection of games and the social web. This year we’ll focus on helping developers build, monetize, and grow their social games. We’re bringing together the leaders in free-to-play games, social networking, and payments infrastructure for a full day of panels and talks. We’ll have executives from Zynga, Playdom, Playfish, Serious Business, Offerpal, Super Rewards, PayPal, Zong, Challenge Games, Kongregate, Xiaonei, hi5, MySpace, Facebook, and other leading companies in the social gaming space.

Sparkpr Week ending May 1

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What tongues are wagging about now:

§ The good: 2.2% rise in consumer spending; consumer confidence surged 12 points. Americans feel brighter about the outlook and AP is writing about “Frugal Fatigue”. Sentiment is more positive from the anecdotal conversations we have had

§ The bad: US GDP declines 6.1%, Sun loses $201M in Q1; Interpublic posts $73m loss and 11% dip in revenue, Moto burns $1.3B in cash in Q1

§ The ugly: National freakout about Swine Flu – flights cancelled, gov’t monitoring passengers getting off int’l flights, national state emergency funds triggered

The rest:

  • IAC in talks to buy Yahoo! Personals
  • MSFT/Verizon planning iPhone competitor
  • AOL spinoff
  • Iphone Microtractions enabled within apps at 3.0 launch
  • Disney and ABC content headed to Hulu decline 30% yet Apple is going to start creating its own.

VC:

Press:

  • Entrepreneur Mag’s Entrepreneur of the Year award submission due 6/15.
  • CTIA Call for papers due in May

Parties and Events:

Weekly Musings: Week ending April 24

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What Tongues are wagging about now

  • 1b iPhone apps & AT&T negotiating to keep exclusive.
  • T-mobile has sold 1M Android phones in 6mo, setting the bar for Palm’s upcoming launch
  • Nokia profits plunge 90%
  • Yahoo layoffs/earnings
  • MySpace picks Owen Van Natta

VC news

· Yet another group of entrepreneurs launching their own VC fund to “fill the gap” in early stage financing:

http://www.paidcontent.co.uk/entry/419-birch-hoberman-co.-launch-new-euro-tech-startup-fund/

Seedcamp

·         The consensus was that the quality of the companies was way better than ever before

·         However, there is still a lot of discussion about the validity of the model, which requires so much equity in exchange for a relatively small amount of money. People understand the “you get more than the money” argument don’t believe this makes sense for a lot of companies

·         People felt the quality of the pitches themselves had definitely improved

·         But there are still a handful of companies there that just have no hope of ever being legitimate businesses

TechCrunch Geek N Rolla

·         One of the better tech events I’ve been to recently – Mike tried a new format which worked really well. Instead of doing lots of panels, he did quick fire speeches by individual people

·         The presentations were all very specific, execution focused and fill with practical information – he didn’t do much of the “where is the industry headed” kind of thing, which was refreshing

·         He had 350 people sign up for the conference and another 100 sign up for the after party

·         Best presos were from: (1) Putplace guy who talked about starting a company entirely in the cloud, provided list of what he used and why, talked about pricing, risks, etc (2) Guy from GymFu (also Seedcamp company) who talked about building an iPhone app and gave the real story about how difficult it is, how hard it is to stand out, and therefore how hard it is to make money, shared lessons learned and (3) William Reeve who did a fascinating comparison between Video Island and ScreenSelect in the early days, looking at a VC backed company vs a bootstrapped one

·         The whole thing was video cast online which people really loved

·         The Twitter tag #gknr was trending by mid-afternoon

Huddle Drink Tank

·         Relatively small, but good group at this month’s Drink Tank

·         Most impressed by how proactively Ali and Andy (Huddle co-founders) were actually helping people who were there

·         Ali and Andy are really stepping up as the next generation of tech industry leaders in London.


AdTech

· Show activity is quite good; Rooms are packed and the show floor is pretty busy; reg line was more than 45 minutes this morning

o Seems stronger than the RSA conference that is going on across the street

· What’s new: much more mobile, SEM solutions rather than just display alone

· Key themes from today’s sessions was about shifting branding to “engagement” an dhow social media is now part of the branding mix

· Banners are not dead but they cannot do the job alone

· Publishers are banding together; looking for revenue from ad exchanges/networks no one is standing on ceremony

AdTech Gossip

· Wenda Millard Brown was floating around the Chairman’s reception last evening  (Dave Mcclure was also there) looking quite smug and then today’s news came out that she stepped down. Sr. executives are trying to figure if she was kicked out.  Everyone is courting her to be on boards

· Carol Krause of Coca Cola said on panel that she’s no longer shit on the shoe in house; digital is the hot commodity not TV but it needs to be more visual.

· Tom Bedecarre, CEO of AKQA mentioned during the Chairman’s Reception panel on branding. He said that if a company makes a decision to spend $2 million on TV ads, there’s no discussion or proof point. But if you want to spend $2 million in digital, then you’ve got a lot of explaining to do. “With online media there’s a higher expectation that you’re going to supply data for any buy recommendation” but no one wants to see data

Crosslink 20 Anniversary Roast

· Crosslink was hatched out of RobbieStephens as the first late stage VC firm within the walls of an i-bank 20 years ago.  Plenty of OLD time investment bankers from Robbie Stephens days all reminiscing of days past.  It was amusing  study between the raucousness of investment bankers and the white shoe VCs who are trying to build companies…

Upcoming Events on our radar

· http://www.gluecon.com/

· New UK Cloud conference currently accepting speakers http://www.businesscloud9.com/news_analysis/business-cloud-and-bottom-line-major-new-conference-event-2009

· Next Burning Man Treasure Island Music Festival http://www.treasureislandfestival.com/home.php

· Next SF Beta is June 9
Inbound Marketing Summit, April 28-29, 2009

· pixelSessions, May 12th, 6:00 - 10:30pm, from GeekSessions founders
SanFran MusicTech Summit, May 18th, 9am - 6pm

Press

· IDC’s Innovative Top 10 awards due April 30

Weekly Musings: Week ending April 17

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Week ending April 17

What tongues are wagging about right now:

  • FTC may regulate mommy bloggers’ product reviews
  • WashPost saying Twitter followers should not be displayed publicly on profile, citing CNN/Ashton Kutcher EA race to a million followers game as an example
  • More Twitter: @Oprah launching tomorrow; another big Twitter news announcement tomorrow, who’ll win ad deal, will they get acquired this year?

VC/Banking:

  • TechFellow Awards with Founders Fund: New fund backed by Founders Fund and Techcrunch with open nominations for entrepreneurs in 4 categories. Grants are for $50K and FF will invest up to $3.6. Most impressive is the elite line up Valley digerati as judges
  • US banks’ funny accounting to make balance sheets seem healthier, abetted by the US government. Bloggers focus on BofA
  • Silicon Alley Insider Launching Startup Conference Contest Silicon Alley Insider is launching the first annual “Startup” conference, a one-day event and competition aimed at recognizing the best early-stage internet company. Enter your startup this week for the opportunity to win buzz, bragging rights, and $50,000 in cash and prizes.

Parties, Events, Conferences:

Media:

Trends

• Telepresence – integrate wifi or LBS with cameras, use them to make ads more interactive, allowing people to staff jobs from miles away

• Ambient computing – mapping cellular GPS data. Where people are and what they’re doing with their cell phones, aggregate it all together

• Foursquare – location based game. Login, get points for how far you go. Like Loopt but with built in encouragement system. Location based networking

• Digital Reef – solving the problem that distributed data has created: the inability to find the files you’re looking for and helping to manage all of that unstructured data

If You’re Still Reading… Wrong on So Many Levels:

Dominos Pizza Viral Video Spirals Out of Control – opens up convo about how to monitor your brands reputation in the age of oversharing:

- The Domino’s effect: The potential danger of ignoring social media: Hoax or not, a vile viral video has sullied the pizza maker’s name. Is Twitter the way to reverse the damage? Or is it too little too late?

- Domino’s blames ‘idiot’ for viral video nightmare: Pizza chain responds to nauseating employee video by not launching a full-scale blitz.

- Dominos Pizza employees record themselves defiling your food—and then post it to YouTube

“He just farted on the salami that goes on the sandwiches.” You’ve got to see this to believe it.

United Airlines gets stung for unhappy consumer who writes email to CEO and copies Gawker’s The Consumerist:

United Airlines Won’t Help Rush You To Your Dying Mother’s Bedside Because “It’s Time For The Ticketing Agent’s Break”

Sparkpr Client Roster: April 2009

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In case you’ve been wondering what Spark is working on or rather, who we’re working with, to put it simply, we’re lucky enough to work with the most innovative organizations in fast-growing market segments including: advertising & media, consumer, consumer electronics, embedded technologies, enterprise & open source, entertainment, gaming, green tech, mobile & wireless, social media & networking and venture capital & financial.  To break it down even further, here’s our current Sparkpr client roster.

 

Sparkpr Client List: April 2009

 

Consumer Technology

 

Social Networks:

 

MyHeritage - My Heritage provides a solution for families trying to keep in touch throughout the US and throughout the world.  The site has quickly become a leading online destination that helps families discover, connect and communicate with their extended family network.  Families can easily research their family history and family tree, as well as share photos, update each other on recent news, and organize family reunions and events.  With its facial recognition technology, My Heritage has revolutionized how people interact with and share photos with their family. The innovative technology is used to automatically tag photos on My Heritage or on other photo sharing websites, and can also match family trees and suggest people who may be related based on connections and facts like names, dates and locations.  My Heritage is available in 25 languages and boasts a network of more than 25 million family members, more than 260 million profiles, and 230 million photos.

 

Stardoll - Is the largest online community for young woman interested in fashion, fame and friends with more than 22 million members in 200+ countries. Stardoll empowers users to express their creativity within a unique “social play” environment that blends childlike play with social networking to deliver a playful, fun-filled approach to fashion, celebrity and dress-up.Drawing a core worldwide audience of girls aged 9-17, the site enables kids to build stunning likenesses of themselves while offering them an extensive collection of thousands of garments, accessories and other virtual goods from a variety of real world brands

 

Online Printing/Personalized Greetings with Photos and Designs:

 

MOO – Moo is a unique printing company, offering different ways for people to bring their digital photos to life with unique, personalized print products perfect for gifting family and friends and adding flair to entertaining, decorating, wrapping and greetings (www.moo.com).  MOO cards are a global cult phenomenon in 120 countries as people have bastardized the traditional business card as non-representative of all their online and offline identities.

 

Predictive Technologies:

 

Farecast – Farecast is the smart travel search site that helps consumers buy travel with confidence. In addition to providing flight and hotel search, Farecast helps consumers know when to buy with airfare predictions and know where to stay with Hotel Rate Keys. Farecast has been recognized as the 2008 Webby Award Travel winner, named Condé Nast Traveler’s “Best Site for Knowing When to Book” in 2008, named one of Travel + Leisure’s Top 25 Travel Websites in 2007, awarded Budget Travel’s 2007 Extra Mile Award, named one of PC World’s 20 Most Innovative Products for 2006, listed in “Best of What’s New 2006” by Popular Science, named one of TIME Magazine’s “50 Coolest Websites” in 2006, and named one of the “Best Trip Planning Tools” by BusinessWeek readers in 2006. Farecast was acquired by Microsoft in 2008.

 

Gaming:

 

Conduit Labs is a social entertainment company headquartered in Boston. Conduit Labs is the company behind Loudcrowd, a music and gaming community that gives users a fun place to actively engage with and discover new music through social interaction and online gaming with friends and the community.  In partnership with music labels including DFA, Downtown Records and Modular, Loudcrowd offers a new channel for artists and labels to monetize their music.  Conduit Labs has received funding from Charles River Ventures and Prism VentureWorks.

 

EA Mobile – EA Mobile is the worldwide leader in mobile gaming, selling more than one billion units to date which far surpasses console deployments. The company has about 30% market share and allows gamers to play popular franchises like The Sims, SPORE, Madden NFL, The Simpsons, Monopoly and Scrabble on their phones for less that $10. EA Mobile launched games for the iPhone and iPod touch in summer 2008, and by December six out of seven EA Mobile games available were featured in the Top 25 Paid Apps chart in the Apple App Store.

 

IGN - IGN Entertainment, a unit of Fox Interactive Media, Inc., is a leading Internet media and services provider focused on the videogame and entertainment enthusiast markets. IGN’s properties collectively attract more than 31 million unique monthly users worldwide. Our network of videogame-related properties (IGN.com, GameSpy, FilePlanet, TeamXbox, 3D Gamers, Direct2Drive and others) comprises the web’s number one videogame information destination and attracts one of the largest concentrated audiences of young males on the Internet. We also own and operate the popular movie-related website, Rotten Tomatoes, and one of the leading male lifestyle websites, AskMen.com. In addition, we provide technology for online game play in videogames.

 

InstantAction – InstantAction, a new IAC property, is an online gaming innovator that brings 3D multi-player console-quality games to the web, playable through a browser. It brings together the best of gaming with the best of web combining the web’s accessibility and social interaction with high end graphics and competitive game play. InstantAction.com, the online gaming destination, has more than 1.4 million registrations, with users spending on average over 30 minutes a day on the site. InstantAction.com is powered by InstantAction Technology, a newly available suite of tools and services that enables developers to deploy any game, made with any technology, to any destination on the web.

 

Playfish - Playfish, one of the world’s largest and fastest growing social games companies, creates games for people to play together using social networks and platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Yahoo!, iPhone and iPod touch.  The company’s mission is to change the way people play games by creating more social and connected experiences.  With 5 of the ten most popular social games on Facebook, based on monthly activity, Playfish titles are enjoyed by more than 25 million people every month and 4.5 million every day.  Since 2007, over 60 million people have installed Playfish games to compete against their friends.  Playfish is backed by Accel Partners and Index Ventures, and has offices in London, San Francisco, Beijing and Tromso, Norway. 

 

Devices:

 

Sony PSP (PlayStation Portable) – Consumers know it as the ultimate handheld gaming system—the place to play the very best in portable games. They may even know that the PSP system can do a bunch of other things as well, including:

o        Gaming – Over 350 titles

o        Video – More than 460 feature films, TV programs and music videos available on UMD™ disc (each sold seperately)

o        Music – It plays MP3s, WAVs, WMAs, ATRAC3+ and MP4s and you can also access thousands of Internet Radio stations

o        Photo – Create a slide show of your photos or beam them to friends via Wi-Fi

o        Network – Communicate with other PSP® systems, play games online, browse the Web and more

o        RSS – Stay up-to-the-minute with your fave blogs, podcasts and news feeds

o        Skype – Stay in touch through Skype on your PSP

 

Services:

 

Skydeck – Skydeck is an online service that helps people to take control of their cell phones and their cell phone bills.  Skydeck unlocks the valuable information hidden in your cell phone bill by turning that boring list of numbers into a rich history of your conversations with friends, colleagues, customers, and other contacts. The downloadable Skydeck toolbar includes a meter that checks your minutes and text messages once a day so that you’ll avoid overage fees and never get a surprise bill again. 

 

Driverside – DriverSide is the first and only website dedicated to the car owner. Founded in fall 2007 by Internet entrepreneurs Trevor Traina, Adam Jackson, and Jad Dunning, DriverSide allows consumers to save time and money on every aspect of auto ownership.  From information on servicing and maintenance costs, to alerts on recalls, to free advice from a panel of expert mechanics, DriverSide offers every tool imaginable.  With an in-house editorial staff, DriverSide also offers useful advice on how to own and operate a vehicle as well as reviews on new and used cars. DriverSide’s community allow consumers to participate in forums, meet other owners of a particular vehicle, share knowledge, and post reviews on mechanics and dealers.

 

Shortcovers — Shortcovers is a new digital destination developed by Indigo Books & Music Inc., offering both an online and mobile service. Shortcovers allows users to find their next great read, sample and purchase for immediate download. The service will provide instant access to the newest books, hottest authors and most popular articles and blogs. Not just for avid readers, Shortcovers is for consumers who want the convenience of accessing and reading their favorite content, anytime, anywhere, on the mobile devices they already own.

 

YouMail provides a free, cell phone voicemail service that allows every consumer to completely customize their voicemail experience, significantly increasing their productivity.  YouMail users can retrieve their voicemail online, in e-mail, on their mobile phones, or by calling in, and choose to listen or read their messages.   YouMail users can also determine which callers get which greetings and when, how they are notified about voicemail, which callers can leave voicemail and even how voicemails are picked up – in e-mail, online, or over the phone.   The service is being adopted rapidly by consumers, and the company has a growing set of distribution partnerships with wireless carriers. YouMail, Inc., headquartered in Aliso Viejo, CA, was founded in January, 2007. The company is backed by Vantage Point Venture Partners and Tech Coast Angels.

 

People’s Music Store – is the first music store entirely powered by music fans. With People’s Music Store, fans can set up their own record stores, design the storefronts, choose music from the catalogue of more than 250,000 songs, write their own reviews, and market their store online. Storekeepers earn points for everything they sell, which can be used to buy more music. People’s Music Store has already more than 650 stores online and hundreds of fans.

 

Search:

 

blinkx – blinkx plc (LSE AIM: BLNX) is the world’s largest and most advanced video search engine. Today, blinkx has indexed more than 35 million hours of audio, video, viral and TV content, and made it fully searchable and available on demand. blinkx’s founders set out to solve a significant challenge – as TV and user-generated content on the Web explode, keyword-based search technologies only scratch the surface. blinkx’s patented search technologies listen to – and even see – the Web, helping users enjoy a breadth and accuracy of search results not available elsewhere. In addition, blinkx powers the video search for many of the world’s most frequented sites. blinkx is based in San Francisco and London.

True Knowledge – Based in Cambridge, U.K. True Knowledge wants users to be able to ask any question at all, phrased in any manner and get the correct answer immediately. Founder and CEO William Tunstall-Pedoe, a serial entrepreneur with a string of highly successful Artificial Intelligence based projects under his belt, has been working on the technology behind True Knowledge since 1998. True Knowledge is backed by Octopus Ventures and angel investors. For more information about True Knowledge, please visit http://www.trueknowledge.com.

 

Food & Beverage:

 

Zola Açaí – Zola Açaí is a beverage company creating Brazilian Superfruit beverages with extraordinary healthy benefits to promote optimum health and performance.  Founded in 2002 with the goal of creating products that are “Good for You and Good for the Planet,” Zola offers a line of Açaí Superfruit Juices and functional Brazilian Superfruit Smoothies sourced from the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil.  Committed to social responsibility, Project Zola was created to provide funds to the school in the local community where Zola’s açaí berries are grown.  Zola always sustainably harvests its açaí berries, which puts the trees at their highest and best use and ultimately helps protect the trees of the Amazon.

 

Venture Capital & Financial Services

 

Azure Capital Partners – Azure Capital Partners is a venture capital (VC) firm with over $650 million under management, headquartered in San Francisco, California. The firm’s goal is to identify, invest in and help build early stage information technology companies that are at the forefront of a transformative opportunity for growth. Azure’s partners have a long track record of identifying and helping to build some of the most successful companies in communications, consumer, enterprise and Internet technology segments. The Azure team is recognized for industry thought leadership and a unique professional investment approach to venture investing. A proven methodology and primary research enable Azure to identify young companies in attractive markets whose business models provide sustainable competitive advantage. Portfolio companies include Bill Me Later, Calix, Education.com, Fonality and Zend.

 

Index – Index is one of the top global venture capital (VC) firms, investing in a range of tech and biotech sectors. The firm is known for its recent exits such as Skype (eBay), Tellme (Microsoft), Last.fm (CBS) and other hot portfolio companies such as MySQL, Trolltech, NetVibes, FON, Zend, Rebtel, Viagogo, DoubleTwist, B-Hive, OpenX and more. For a complete list, visit www.indexventures.com

 

Crosslink Capital – Founded in 1989, Crosslink Capital is a leading multi-stage technology venture capital and growth equity firm with over $1.4 billion in capital under management. Crosslink was among the first investment firms in the U.S. to integrate public and private technology investing. This strategy allows Crosslink to partner with its portfolio companies on a long-term basis. With more than 17 years behind it, Crosslink Capital has invested in over 90 private equity portfolio companies, including such industry leaders as Equinix (Nasdaq: EQIX), BlueArc, Magma Design Automation (Nasdaq: LAVA), Miller Heiman and Yipes (acquired by Reliance Communications).

 

DCM – DCM is a Venture Capital firm that partners with exceptional entrepreneurs to bring disruptive products and services to global markets. With offices in Silicon Valley, Beijing and Tokyo, DCM invests primarily in early-stage companies (and selectively in strategic late-stage opportunities) and applies its expertise in the following core technology sectors: Business Software and Services, Cleantech, Consumer/Digital Media, Communications/Networking, Components, and Security and Storage. DCM has invested in and provided guidance to more than 120 companies since 1996. DCM currently manages U.S. $1.6 billion in assets. For more information, please visit www.dcm.com.

 

Barclaycard – Headquartered in Wilmington, Del., Barclaycard US creates customized co-branded credit card programs for some of the country’s most successful travel, entertainment, retail and financial institutions, including US Airways, Best Western, Carnival Cruise Lines, Travelocity, L.L.Bean, Barnes & Noble, BJ’s Wholesale Club and UBS.  The company employs 1,200 associates and was named a Top Employer in Delaware in 2008.  Barclaycard is a division of Barclays PLC, a major global financial services provider engaged in retail and commercial banking, credit cards, investment banking, wealth management and investment management services.  With over 300 years of history and expertise in banking, Barclays operates in over 50 countries, employs 135,000 people and services accounts for over 27 million customers and clients worldwide. 

 

Virgin Green Fund (VGF) – VGF is one of the world’s leading investors in the fight against global warming. Through its investments, the firm aims to help the world achieve energy independence in an environmentally conscious manner; replace depleting reserves of conventional energy with renewable sources; and aid efficient management of finite natural resources.

 

Zetta, Inc. is a leading provider of enterprise cloud storage solutions. Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Zetta Inc. was established in 2007 by successful serial entrepreneurs. The company has raised $11 million to date. Zetta is backed by Sigma Partners, Foundation Capital and angel investors including Ron Conway, John Zeisler and Amidzad.  

 

Enterprise

Alien Technology – Alien Technology provides UHF Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) products and services to customers in retail, consumer goods, manufacturing, defense, transportation and logistics, pharmaceuticals and other industries. Organizations use Alien’s RFID products and services to improve the effectiveness, efficiency and security of their supply chains, logistics and asset tracking operations. Alien’s products include RFID tags, RFID readers and related training and professional services.  

 Aravo – Aravo, a Supplier Information Management (SIM) company provides a single unified platform to bring together internal users, suppliers, and third-party data and service providers. Organizations use Aravo to centralize the management of all supplier information, simplify and improve the oversight and management of global factory audits and site inspections, empower supply chain professionals to manage suppliers by exception, greatly improving operational productivity, and proactively manage supplier risk and improve supplier development initiatives

Darkstrand, Inc. leverages enterprise-level network bandwidth to close the collaboration gap between corporations and research communities. Darkstrand is a pivotal corporate partner for solving real workflow, development and collaborative challenges, linking teams, facilities and suppliers into one ecosystem in a high-speed, networked grid environment via the National LambdaRail (NLR), a vast 15,000-route mile optical network spread across 30 U.S. cities.  Darkstrand shortens time to insight and expands productivity for companies wanting a competitive edge. Based in Chicago, Illinois, Darkstrand was established in 2005, and has raised $12 million to date from private investors.

 

Jigsaw - Jigsaw is a leading provider of business information and data services leveraging user-generated content contributed by its global business-to-business community of more than 700,000 members. Today, the Jigsaw community and more than 600 enterprises use the Jigsaw directory to access information for 12 million business contacts and 2 million companies. Jigsaw delivers low-cost and easy access to high-value business information that can be used to identify key decision makers and people for purposes such as sales, marketing, recruiting and customer service. Founded in 2004, Jigsaw is located in San Mateo, Calif. and is funded by Austin Ventures, El Dorado Ventures, and Norwest Venture Partners. 

 

Green Tech:

 

Sungevity – Sungevity was founded in 2007 with the goal of convincing homeowners that solar is affordable, a good investment, and a viable way to reduce carbon emissions. Sungevity’s team is led by President and CXO Danny Kennedy, a long time social entrepreneur and former manager of Greenpeace Australia and Pacific. In 2001, Kennedy led Greenpeace’s California Clean Energy Campaign, which helped create the current California Solar Initiative. Sungevity’s team also includes JP Ross formerly of Vote Solar, Martha Belcher formerly of the David Brower Center, and Alec Guettel, co-founder and CFO of Axiom Legal Solutions, Inc.

 

Sustainable Spaces – Based in San Francisco and founded in 2004, Sustainable Spaces is the leading provider of home performance services, helping homeowners and homebuilders create homes that are comfortable, healthy and energy efficient. A licensed general and solar contractor, the company specializes in home testing and building performance retrofitting for existing homes. Sustainable Spaces applies building science to quantitatively analyze a home’s performance as a dynamic system, so as to tailor a solution to the client’s goals, budget, and priorities. The company has been recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council as the case study in their REGREEN Green Remodeling Best Practice Guidelines. www.sustainablespaces.com

 

Innovalight – Innovalight is focused on bringing ultra low-cost solar power modules to the marketplace. Innovalight is harnessing a proprietary silicon-ink process, developed by the company to print thin-film solar power modules. Leveraging the advantages of solvent-based processing, Innovalight will help accelerate the promise of more affordable solar power solutions for residential and commercial application. The Company was recognized as a 2006 Technology Pioneer winner at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland.

Sparkpr, Sustainable Spaces and Sungevity Host Cleantech Dinner

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on April 8, 2009
in Clean Technology, Spark Clients and Uncategorized
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Last night members of the Sparkpr Cleantech practice Tim Turpin, Nick Leahy, Pamela Ames and I put on a dinner for two of our exciting green startup clients Sungevity and Sustainable Spaces. The event was held at the LEED Certified Orchard Garden Hotel, a fitting venue for these two eco-conscious companies.

Sungevity is a residential home solar provider that specializes in installing home solar electric systems and providing solar quotes via the web. Danny Kennedy, JP Ross and Kirstin Hoefer joined us from Sungevity, and marketeer Hannah Russin came for drinks.

Sustainable Space is a home performance retrofitter, and Matt Golden, Pratap Mukherjee, Shana Fong, and Sandra Sumbaugh, attended the dinner.

Additional guests of honor included Tod Francis from Shasta Ventures, Abe Yokell from Rockport Capital (both specializing in clean technology investments), and Warner Phillips of Tendris, a multi-faceted green investments company.

The event was a success with nearly 20 media in attendance ranging from business, technology reporters from outlets including Agent France-Presse, Bloomberg, Forbes, Fortune and the New York Times. On the green front we also had guests from Greentech Media, Treehugger and GreenWire.

The evening was a fantastic dialogue and meeting of the minds where guests chatted about the future of the clean technology industry, how to motivate consumers to go green, the need for green collar jobs and how the government is working to help the industry.

All in all a wonderful night.

-Katie
Guests Chatting about Green at Daffodil Restaurant

Spark Clients Named as CNET Webware 100 Awards Finalists

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on March 31, 2009
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Today, the editors of CNET Webware have announced their 300 hand-picked finalists for the Webware 100 Awards that annually honor the people’s choice in Web 2.0 apps, sites, and services. We’re pleased to announce that four Spark clients made the cut!

Now, we need your help as CNET has opened the voting and is inviting all readers to vote for their favorites to pare that list of 300 down to the 100 winners. See below for the Spark companies, categories in which they were nominated, and links to vote:

Blinkx: Photo & Video - Places to store, view, and edit still pictures and video, and video streaming services. CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR BLINKX

Farecast: Commerce - Services that are about money: retailers, payment services, job boards, advertising services. CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR FARECAST

Skydeck: Communication - Tools for person-to-person communication, like E-mail, instant messaging, and VOIP. CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR SKYDECK

StarDoll: Social Networking & Publishing - Social networks, both personal and business-focused, and tools to put content on the Web. CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR STARDOLL

The winners will be announced on May 19 so stay tuned to see who makes the final cut!

-Jacqueline

SaaS Comes to NASDAQ!

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on March 24, 2009
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Yesterday inContact (NASDAQ: SAAS), our Contact Center-in-the-Cloud company, rang the bell at NASDAQ. They received four star treatment as you can see from the photos. Coverage of this proud moment appeared on CNBC, CNBC India, CNBC.com, Business News Network (Canada), Bloomberg & Bloomberg Brazil! inContact certainly earned it.

pic

Never before has the need to do more with less been more painstaking for companies than in today’s challenging economic times. Similarly, never has a market category been more right for our economic times than contact centers-in-the-cloud. Leveraging all of the economic benefits of cloud computing (e.g. reduced costs, no hardware CapEx, ability to increase revenue, pay for what you use), contact centers-in-the-cloud enable companies to commit to the vital function of customer service, and at the same time deploy a team of dispersed at-home agents, technologically and cost-effectively enabling them to reverse the offshoring trend that began nearly a decade ago and bring contact center jobs back home – quite literally.

With approximately 600 inContact customers around the country, approximately half of them use at-home agents - and the percentages are growing all the time. Congrats inContact!

pic2

- Donna


INQ Wins Big in Barcelona

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on February 19, 2009
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The Spark team would like to congratulate INQ Mobile for winning the GMSA award for Best Handset at Mobile World Congress. The INQ¹ won the award over four other top-class contenders: the Nokia E71, T-mobile G1, BlackBerry Storm and LG KS360.

This is a huge honor, as these awards represent the best and brightest in the global mobile industry. The INQ executive team collected the award, dressed to the nines, at the GSMA’s back tie event. Check out the acceptance speech from INQ CEO, Frank Meehan and photos on the INQ bar in Barcelona: http://www.inqmobile.com/type/blog/mwc2009/.

- Mara