A new feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.
This week: We caught up with Sam Blackman, CEO of Elemental Technologies at the San Francisco NewTeeVee Live conference. Elemental Technologies hopes to become a major player in the future of online and over-the-air video through its high-performance encoding technology.
by Scott Austin, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Working for a start-up is hard enough. Trying to wittily describe “the unique entrepreneurial culture that sets their company apart and inspires them to go to work each day”–in 140 characters or less–is equally challenging.
That was the task set by the National Venture Capital Association and job board StartUpHire, which asked for Twitter-esque submissions from start-up employees in celebration of Global Entrepreneurship Week.
Brizzly, the Web-based Twitter client from Thing Labs, covered in Almost Famous two weeks ago, begins public beta today.
In addition to opening its “expanded” Twitter interface to the world at large, the start-up is offering an on-the-fly translation tool for foreign tweets. And it has hired former FriendFeeder and current Facebooker Ben Darnell.
A new feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.
This week: A Skype visit with, some questions for and a few pertinent stats about Israel Derdik and his high-flying media suite, Aviary, a Web-based media-editing platform that enables users to alter, save and present their multimedia creations, all in the cloud.
by Scott Austin, Lead Writer, Venture Capital Dispatch
Start-up CEOs often spend nearly all of their waking hours building their companies. Their investors, on the other hand, typically appear once a month for board meetings. So it’s not surprising that some entrepreneurs may feel a little resentful toward their venture backers.
That’s somewhat evident from the new survey, “A Seat at the Table,” which canvassed more than 500 VCs and CEOs at venture-backed companies and asked them several questions about their thoughts on boards.
by Jon Gray, Contributor, Laid Off and Looking, The Wall Street Journal
My productivity lapses don’t come from Facebook. My problem is a combination of world news sites and Twitter. Using RescueTime, an online time management tool, I’ve named two productivity goals for myself. One goal sets my unproductive time at less than 90 minutes per day. The other sets my highly productive time at greater than five hours per day.
A new feature wherein All Things Digital looks at up-and-coming and innovative start-ups you should know about.
This week: A video visit with, some questions for and a few pertinent stats about Chris Wetherell and his creation, Brizzly, a Web-based social media reader.
by Andrew LaVallee, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Peek, a New York mobile start-up, has begun selling TwitterPeek, a new device for posting and reading Twitter updates.
TwitterPeek became available on Amazon and Peek’s Web site Tuesday. Its $100 price includes a full keyboard, always-on tweet delivery and nationwide Internet coverage, plus six months of service.
As an experienced tech entrepreneur and angel investor, Rizwan Virk was happy to see a solid return on one of his recent investments after just one year.
But the exit didn’t come from a software start-up or social media company finding a corporate acquirer. Instead, Virk’s quick payoff came from an independent film.
by Marisa Taylor, Tech Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Silicon Valley may be the place to be for Internet startups, but New York is the birthplace of cool, an attribute that comes in handy for launching some tech companies.
by Jessica E. Vascellaro, Tech Reporter, The Wall Street Journal
Many things are down during the recession. But there’s a boom in click fraud, the tricks used to make online ads seem more effective than they are. And companies that police the practice are seeing fresh business as Internet concerns seek to hold onto advertisers during the downturn.
They kept their Twitter feeds quiet and their iPhone cameras dormant. Most of them didn’t want their names to be used. There was more than a little bit of paranoia in the air as the guests arrived at last weekend’s Summit Series event, formally the Young World Leaders Summit–not the most modest of names. It was a gathering of about five dozen under-35 entrepreneurs and executives at a beachfront luxury resort outside the glitzy vacation city of Cancun.
In a world of social-network widgets, videoblogs and Web 2.0 gewgaws, sometimes it’s the simple things that work best. That’s the lesson of Web 1.0 start-up The Smoking Gun, a simply designed site that relies on public documents and criminal mugshots to bring in boatloads of traffic.
by Alana Semuels and Michelle Quinn, Staff Writers, Los Angeles Times
In recent months, some start-up technology companies have died or gone into comas after running out of money, a possible early sign that the resurgence in venture investment may be coming to an end. File123 is counting its days. Edgeio was edged out. TripUp has fallen. BrightSpot went dark. Firebrand flamed out and Ezmo is no more. Industry analysts say this year will bring a big wave of start-up deaths as the credit crisis gripping the financial markets makes investors cautious in other areas.
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