The hardest part of entrepreneurship, which also happens to be the most important part, is building something that people actually want. Startups are birthed to solve problems and theoretically give people what they want — solutions to their problems. Within this context, the failure of a startup may be the result of problems that are [...]
TWTRCON DC ‘09 and Twitter’s Future
“I don’t see where Twitter will get its next one million users,” chirped Steve Rubel at the final TWTRCON DC ‘09 panel featuring him, Rohit Bhargava, Frank Gruber, and Clay Johnson.
Steve believes sites like Facebook are the ones that are prepped for larger growth. Yet, he has been surprised by the way that Twitter has [...]
DC Tech and Startups – Ready to Breakout
I attended the DC edition of Startup2Startup this past Friday. The details of the event and the panelist are on Eventbrite.
All of the panelist had a focus on early stage investments and engaged with their companies as angels or incubators. Since the event was focused on the government, Errol Arkilic of the NSF had [...]
Recap of Social Matchbox DC – Summer Social 2009
“Open mic for startups” — Social Matchbox — convened in the E Street Cinema last evening with presentations from eleven startups in the D.C. area. The evening is mainly focused on 4-minute presentations, where startups pitch their ideas and share what they need — most need money, coders, and Mountain Dew. There’s also time to [...]
Recap of Real-time Stream CrunchUp
The Real-time Stream CrunchUp and August Capital MeetUp have come and gone. For me, the most interesting parts of the day were the product demos and initial morning conversation with Ron Conway and John Borthwick. My notes from the day are on Posterous and Twitter. I’ll provide some additional analysis and thoughts below.
Paradigms and DefinitionsMuch [...]
ThinkFree – Online Office with a Desktop Feel
I was impressed when I met the CEO of ThinkFree – TJ Kang – at the New New Internet Conference. Both his analysis of the marketplace, as well as his product grabbed my attention.
ThinkFree is an online MS Office alternative, offered at the low low cost of zero dollars. One of the distinguishing factors of [...]
Exclusive: Michael Arrington Shares Details on Future TechCrunch Network Blog
We were lucky enough to speak with Michael Arrington at TNNI. Mike shared some details about his forthcoming new addition to the TechCrunch Network – a blog focused on the enterprise.
In this clip, Mike shares some thoughts on why “Enterprise 2.0″ is now gaining attention, some of the players in the space, and who will [...]
Other Perspectives on TNNI
In addition to Doug Kushin (who assisted me with video production), I had a couple of friends helping me out at TNNI – Dennis McDonald and Joseph LeBlanc. Each have very different backgrounds and thus different perspectives on the conference.
Joe is a talented Joomla programmer, who recently is back to freelancing now. Here were some [...]
Brian Williams of Viget Labs on TNNI
Brian Williams – the CEO of Viget Labs - is a partner of ExecutiveBiz (the organizers behind TNNI). He was kind to spare a couple of minutes to tell us about the motivation of TNNI, as well as what Viget Labs is all about.
tagged under new new internet, viget labs, executive biz, brian [...]
Stay Tuned for Live Coverage of TNNI
Today is the day. The New New Internet comes to the DC area. I’ll be providing updates both here and on TNNI, including some live blogging and possibly even some video.
It’s going to be a great day. Coverage of the event is brought to you on this blog today by Freshbooks, PipelineDeals.com, and ConnectBeam.
Web 2.0 Makes You More Productive
Many people get caught up in defining Web 2.0. I had breakfast with a friend yesterday and told him about TNNI conference. He said, “What’s Web 2.0? Is it software or is it an idea?” I said, “It’s an idea.”
I shared a thought on TNNI’s social network last week that highlights this philosophy:
When speaking with [...]
How to Blog a Conference
Josh Hallett obviously took a lot of time and energy to put together his recent How to Blog a Conference - great stuff. As I noted in his comments section, this reaffirms the approach and strategy I’ve taken with next week’s conference.
In particular, my friend Doug Kushin (who I hope to introduce more formally soon) and [...]
The New New Internet Goes Social
You might remember that a week from today, The New New Internet Conference is set to kick-off. Some new features were just rolled out at the site, all focused around social networking pre-event. The Conference Social Network ties into the Birds-of-a-Feather unConference, the day before the event.
Go check it out and don’t forget to use [...]
The New New Internet comes to Washington D.C.
It’s finally here. A serious Web 2.0 event on the East Coast – The New New Internet Conference (TNNI).
What is it?
TNNI is not just a “Hey, the web is cool again conference.” It’s focused on Web 2.0 for Business and the selected speakers show that commitment. Andrew McAfee is an Associate Professor at Harvard [...]
Thou Shalt Hang out at Wells
I’ve been at the Buzz Conference the last two days – an event hosted by National Community Church (NCC). I pointed to NCC in an earlier post, in how they used Xanga to promote their Week of Justice. This morning I went to a Bloggers Breakfast at their coffeehouse Ebenezers.
One of the core convictions of [...]
Idealogues Tend to Agree on the impact of The Army of Davids – Part 2
Read Part 1 of my write-up on the debate I attended 3/6/06, entitled An Army of Davids or Triumph of Goliath?
Joe Trippi – like many people – likes the printing press metaphor when thinking about the power of the Internet. But he articulated the idea that the Internet isn’t just about distributing information, it is [...]
An Army of Davids or the Triumph of Goliath?
This coming Monday (3/6), I’ll be headed to a little debate between Glenn Reynolds, Joe Trippi, and Barry C. Lynn, hosted at the National Press Club:
Do the Internet and other related technologies allow us to be more in control of our lives? Are politics, culture, and economics more responsive to individuals than ever before or [...]
BrainJams DC
Organizer Chris Heur is bringing his BrainJams event to DC.
I “met” Chris via my first blogoposium event, back in September ‘05. He was gracious enough to add some insights to the discussion.
I plan on attending the BrainJams DC next Monday and hope to make it out to the Geek Dinner as well (details of [...]
DC 2.0 Launches
Silicon Valley isn’t the only place where the Web 2.0 digerati can have fun. In fact, Dion Hinchcliffe, Stowe Boyd, and I have set out to prove that. After prolonged virtual relationships, we finally realized that we actually are neighbors in the Washington D.C. area – and we mean to take advantage of it.
We are [...]
Crash Course on Blogging – December 19th
Hosted at The Leadership Institute
December 19th, 7-9:30 PM
Are you a Washington, D.C., metro area non-profit organization ready to take the plunge into blogging? Are you confused, skeptical, or outright frustrated with the process?
Then Crash Course on Blogging is exactly what you need. This two-and-a-half hour seminar will demystify the technical and social aspects of blogging [...]
Washington DC Blog Seminars
Last Thursday morning, I had the pleasure of sitting down with La Shawn Barber of The Language Artist. La Shawn is also based in the Washington DC area and recently announced her new business blog consulting and ghostblogging services.
As my regular readers and many of my colleagues know, I’ve looked for people and / or [...]
BBS05 – Corporate Policy and Strategy
Rebecca Blood and Matthew Oliphant were two of the better presenters of the BBS. Each of them brought their A game, when addressing both the policy and strategy approaches to the realm of blogging.
Rebecca provided a whirlwind of information, in bite-sized bullets -
Policy is separate from strategy
Establish legal liability – Inform employees of what would [...]
BBS05 – Blog Writing Tips
Not everyone should blog, according to Molly Holzschlag and Darren Barefoot – well, at least not in the corporate environment. The best bloggers for your organization will be those who are passionate about your business (and not necessarily part of upper management). Just as important, they need to be articulate. Some other points include -
Understanding [...]
BBS05 – Blogging and Feeds Legitimized
To keep it simple, here is what you should take away from the Microsoft keynote this morning – blogging and feeds are officially legitimized. Microsoft is in the technology business. Sure, their approach is almost exclusively proprietary. Sure, their motive is related to their bottom line. But if they are “betting big on bloggers and [...]
BBS05 – WordPress.com is Simply Awesome!
As a proud WordPress user, I attended the early demo presented by Matt Mullenweg (of WordPress). I thought it was going to be a basic “here is WordPress” like session. I must say, I was more than surprised by what I heard.
Matt announced WordPress.com, a new hosted version of WordPress. The feature set [...]
BBS05 – Addressing Technology Questions
For newcomers to the world of blogging and feeds, the BBS might lead to more questions than answers when it comes to understanding these technologies. Should I offer partial or full feeds? Should I be concerned with design? What blogging platform or news reader is the right or best one for me?
Where does that leave [...]
BBS05 – Dave Taylor and “Findability”
The BBS05 got off to a great start with Dave Taylor. He presented a most excellent session today, providing attendees with a crash course on Business Blogging – those in attendance got more than their money’s worth.
Probably the most interesting idea Dave spoke about, in relations to both blogging and RSS, is what he [...]
Blog Business Summit
I’ll have the pleasure of attending the Blog Business Summit from August 17th – 19th out in San Francisco, CA. The summit will feature the most prominent and well-respected voices in the arena of business blogging, including Dave Taylor, Robert Scoble, and Molly Holzschlag.
Here are a couple of samples from the great sessions that [...]
