This week we have Craig Kanarick, blogger at EXP.

Jason Calacanis hosts This Week in Startups with guest Larry Drebes, Founder of JanRain.

00:02:00   What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer

00:03:25   Tyler is moving on to start his own company. Tyler “it’s a little nerve racking” and bitter sweet for Jason.

00:06:00   Pre-taped show will air Friday with Razorfish’s Craig Kanarick

00:06:30  Following the holiday we will have Steve Huffman, Founder of Reddit and Hipmunk

00:07:30  Ask Jason – Sam Bensalem – I started a bootstrapped startup and to pay for it I started a small project which is now becoming a hit. I can’t do both, do you have any advice on which to go with?

00:08:30  Answer – Do you remember Andrew from Groupon (TWiST #52), he said he was doing an internal project and it was failing and watched his users use his platform for something different. Be sure to do something you are most passionate about but if the side thing is paying the bills build it up and get someone to run it for you or sell it. You can take the proceeds for your passionate project but passing on a winner is tough. Use it as a means to an end.

00:13:15   Paul Graham’s Tweet

Trada is a crowdsourced pay-per-click marketplace, leveraging the skills of more than 500 certified paid search experts. Mention TWiST and get $100 worth of PPC marketing FREE for every $1,000 you spend on Trada (Max $3,000 spend or $300 bonus). On average, advertisers who start working with Trada reduce their CPA by 10%!

0017:00   What does Janrain do? We concentrate on user management, it’s a SaaS product for identity management. We have three products Engage, Federate, Capture.

00:18:45   Engage is the log-in service. How long does it take to learn each APIs to set-up? It takes a couple weeks and it’s quite complicated and always changing. We have a lot of gaming sites, LA Times, etc.

00:20:00   How much does it cost? We have several tiers from freemium to an enterprise class, which is bases on unique users.

00:21:15   Federate is the other product, which is the other side which you sign-in on one site and it allows you to not have to resign-in to sister sites.

00:21:50   Why is this such an issue? First it’s a security issue because you are on separate domains. Log-ins tend to be company specific.

00:22:45  Who do you compete with? It’s mainly Open Source and large providers that do it themselves.

00:24:45  What happens when everyone logs in with another providers info? Are you commoditizing the space? Not really, I think the ecosystem will even things out. Most people think Facebook is sufficient but Google is actually the number one sign-in choice. Site go through a life-cycle. MySpace used to be “the site” now it’s not with Janrain you buffer yourself from this.

00:26:00   Let’s talk social graph, Facebook allows you to take out your info and store it. What are people doing with that, that is interesting? It feels like some companies are storing the graph and then when friends join I get alerted is this what we can expect? yes, connecting them local can be advantageous for some sites?

00:27:00  Should we worry about privacy? We believe the user should approve the use.

00:28:45  What percentage of people put in fake info.? On legacy systems I think it is high but on Facebook I think it is low. Their is a value add to give your real information.

00:29:50  What do you think about Googles plans for Google Me? I think it’s great, I think their is plenty of room to innovate.

Provides fully hosted / managed Microsoft Exchange and Google Apps e-mail

00:30:30  What could LinkedIn do with their API? I think it caters to utilitarian type things, very professional type stuff.

00:31:45  What is the most interesting social implementation out side social networks? HuffingtonPost is great.

00:33:45  What do you think about how aggressive some site are with auto-posting etc.? We consult most of our customers that you shouldn’t hide anything from the users but it’s ok to be aggressive. If it’s great content they’ll share it and if you are sneaky it will be short lived.

00:36:30  What are the problems in this space, are the spammers up on this? I think it’s just starting because it’s a social graph it’s a little self policing. One thing that you can watch for is masking the url of companies like Facebook.

00:39:00   Public Key is the combination of public and private key is the combination of those on separate systems is what works. SSL is the best example.

00:42:15  Why haven’t we seem more biometric systems? I think we need a standard but also systems will be built upon that standard.

00:43:30  Are all sites moving toward single sign-on or socially enabled of some sort? I think eventually you’ll carry around some sort of digital identity.

00:44:30  How many startups have you done? This is my third, my first was four11 an email directory which was purchased by Yahoo.

0048:00  What was the other one? Desktop.com

00:51:00  What was the lesson you learned from that? I think we grew really aggressively, I would mush be more scrappy.

00:52:30  How do you assure companies you are not going away? First we use open standards that doesn’t lock someone in. We have a lot of grown up and run a stable company.

00:54:45  How important is culture to you? It’s very important you can set the pace but you can’t demand it. You do influence it by your hires, we look very hard for the right people.

00:57:30  The News with Lon Harris

00:59:00   TechCrunch vs. Joojoo

A Northern California judge has made an initial ruling on TechCrunch’s ongoing lawsuit against Fusion Garage, makers of the Joojoo pad. The result is that almost all of TechCrunch’s claims against Fusion Garage, which had collaborated with the blog on what had initially been called the CrunchPad but had never actually signed a contractual agreement, were thrown out of court, including the charge that Fusion Garage had “misappropriated business ideas.”

The only allegations not dismissed by the ruling are that TechCrunch and Fusion Garage were, indeed, business partners, and that TechCrunch may be able to claim “breach of fiduciary duty” against its one-time collaborators, who have since released the product to little fanfare or acclaim. TechCrunch as given 20 days to amend some of its other claims. If the case goes to court, TechCrunch will now have to prove Fusion Garage violated its duty by releasing the Joojoo on its own.

How do you think this will all shake out? Do you think TechCrunch will ever seen any real money from this lawsuit, or is this a matter of principle?

01:000:45   Feedback – Mike in all their dealing would never sign an agreement. When they broke up he said you can never prove anything. His position was I’m a lawyer and I have the upper hand. Jason said yeah your a lawyer and you played me but I’m the Michael Jordan publishing and won’t hesitate to come out of retirement to take you down. I’ll not get in a lawsuit with you but I’ll settle. Irony of ironies is, that same argument is what he is claiming with JooJoo. He screwed me and he’s probably screwing them.

01:04:45  Insights From Tyler – I find it that people have a hard time listening to their gut with their head up their ass.

01:06:00   Digg Revolt

Digg pushed out Version 4 of their popular social news aggregator last week, and ever seen, the site has been inundated with protest submissions – many of them linking to competitors like Reddit – most of them aimed at the site’s new focus on professional, published content over public submissions. Digg temporarily blocked manual submissions Monday morning, though it’s not 100% clear whether this was in response to the criticism of “source diversity” or whether it was to correct some of the other small changes and bugs that have so angered the community. Aside from the changed focus on relationships with celebrities and media outlets (at one point, Mashable stories nearly dominated the entire “TopNews” section), frequent Digg users have complained about error messages and other bugs.

In response to the criticism, Founder Kevin Rose has already made some tweaks to the new system and has brought back some of the Version 3 features, including RSS feeds, more visible info about user backgrounds (such as when a specific user joined Digg) and the “upcoming” section that highlights newly-submitted stories. Other changes – such as the elimination of the “Bury” option – seem to be more permanent. This comes just as Digg confirmed that Amazon executive Matt Williams would join teh company as new CEO, replacing temporary fill-in Rose, who has served as CEO since the ouster of Jay Adelson in April. Rose will now be the site’s “Chief Architect.”

What sort of responsibility does a site like Digg have to its long-time hardcore fans? Think this is the sort of issue that can be adjusted, or that Kevin Rose can talk his way out of on Twitter? Was it inevitable that such sweeping changes to such an entrenched community would cause this kind of backlash?

01:06:20  Feedback – This is a big issue and it shows their is passion for the site. It proves the audience this juvenile. Adding RSS feeds is more efficient. I think the changes are brilliant and the experience is better. It means Digg is still relevant. Kevin is the leader in pioneering social news and he still has a ways to go. Congratulations to him and his team.

01:12:00   Americans Don’t Care About Location

According to the New York Times, only about 1% of Americans use location-based services, and this may not change any time soon. Despite $115 million poured into location-based startups last year by venture capitalists, only 4% of Americans have ever even tried to use one, and the concept remains far outside the mainstream. The article contains a lot of anecdotal evidence and quotes from “average Americans” who, despite an interest in social media, remain skeptical and even paranoid about updating people about their location. The article contains a few other interesting inures…80% of people who have used location-based services are men (possibly because women have increased native fears about being stalked, attacked, etc?) and 70% of those who use location-based services are between the ages of 19 and 35. An executive at Loopt postulates that those born after 1981 seem to be overall less protective of their location info than older folks.

Is this a trend that is just still developing? Or is the industry’s intense focus on “checking-in” really that out of step with what mainstream consumers want?

01:12:45  Feedback – You just described all technical revolutions, it’s the classic anti-story. The value these products supply is invaluable

01:16:00   Google Buys SocialDeck

Google purchased Canadian mobile game developer SocialDeck this week for an undisclosed sum. SocialDeck games, including Shake & Spell, Color Connect and Pet Hero, had been downloaded about a million times in 2009. As well, SocialDeck has some non-game-related applications, including Spark, which provides social integration across BlackBerry, Facebook and iPhone platforms. SocialDeck’s founders are Anish Acharya (formerly of Amason) and Jeson Patel (formerly of Microsoft), and the CEO Dan Servos used to head up casual game developer NeoEdge. The company had raised $250,000 to date from BlackBerry Fund.

So this could have something to do with Google attempting to build a broad platform that will extend across the Web and to mobile devices, and will be compatible with a wide variety of other platforms. Any more clues as to what Google has up its sleeve from this deal?

01:17:00   Feedback – The Google game platform will be across all platforms, they need social games to compete against the iPhone and Facebook. We are going into a Golden Age of M&A.

01:19:00   Chartbeat Raises $3 Million Round

Real-time web analytics startup Chartbeat closed a $3 million Series A round of financing this week, led by Index Ventures and including Ron Conway’s SV Angel Fund, Chris Sacca’s Lowercase Capital, Chris Dixon’s Founders Collective and…Jason Calacanis! It marks the first batch of external financing Chartbeat has taken since its founding by incubator Betaworks, the same group that brought us link-shortening service Bit.ly.

Chartbeat says it is tracking more than 1.2 million concurrent visitors to various websites, and has a customer base that includes Gawker Media, Time Inc., The Chicago Tribune Starbucks, AOL, ThisWeekIn and Mahalo. The company offers its services for $9.95 per month and plans to use the investment money to expand internationally.

What about Chartbeat appealed to you? How big do you see this company getting? What specifically are you hoping they spend this money on?

01:20:00   Feedback – I fell in love when I saw it, I begged to be an investor. It’s my opinion that if John’s betaworks incubator isn’t trying to raise money for a company it will be a success. I’m proud that I was the first Angel Investor.

01:25:00  End

Jason Calacanis hosts This Week in Startups with guest Gabriel Weinberg, Founder of DuckDuckGo.

00:07:10 James Andrew submitted a suggestion for a theme song.

Provides fully hosted / managed Microsoft Exchange and Google Apps e-mail

00:11:00 Ask Jason – Tim Kress – You have mentioned in your news letter that when the market is hot to raise capital at a high valuation but on TWiVC Mark Suster talks about being careful not to go too high and right size. What’s your take on both approaches?

00:12:00 Answer – I’ll answer your question with a question? What is Mark’s job and what is my job? Mark’s a VC and Jason is an entrepreneur and are on opposite sides of the table. VC’s will say make sure you don’t raise too much money at a high valuation because they want to buy low and sell high. Entrepreneurs will say I need to get the best price I can with the least amount of dilution. If someone comes to you and says I’ll give you $2 million for 20% of your company or $2 million for 10% of your company which would you take? Is their a downside when thinking about the exit? Two downsides come to mind. The VCs that are willing to pay the higher valuation the good VCs will say “oh well their paying a higher valuation because they have to they don’t have the track record, we do” A hot VC that brings a lot to the table may say we’ll give you $10 million and the up and comer may say we’ll give you $15 million, 50% more that’s the marketplace. The VCs who are established and bring a lot to the table generally pay less and the new VCs generally pay more. The real issue is if you raise at a high valuation then success is a multiple of that number. The VCs put in a protection in case you don’t reach the multiplier expectation called Preferred Shares, so if they sell for less they get their money first.

Trada is a crowdsourced pay-per-click marketplace, leveraging the skills of more than 500 certified paid search experts. Mention TWiST and get $100 worth of PPC marketing FREE for every $1,000 you spend on Trada (Max $3,000 spend or $300 bonus). On average, advertisers who start working with Trada reduce their CPA by 10%!

00:19:20 If you are a search engine marketer they are looking for experts

00:21:45 Hacker News has this site and they talk about this new startup a lot, DuckDuckGo

00:23:00 The Interview with Gabriel

00:23:10 How long have you been working on DuckDuckGo? How many people work on it? How much funding have you received? I’ve raise zero capital, it’s mainly just me I’ve been working on it for three years and it’s been live for about two.

00:23:45 How is your site different and why did you create it? I created it to be a better primary search engine. My motivation is I was starting to see SEO spam more and more and the results page was getting harder to read. So I tried to rethink the results page and make it more readable and understandable for the user. We have a ton of features that are in that vain one is called Zero-Click Info where we put answers above the results. Ultimately we try make it more understandable.

00:26:30 So the first box is from the Google API? Nope, no Google API whatsoever, the first result looks a little different with no snippet, its a human powered result when we good results. After that we use BOSS and Bing but don’t use them exactly but we use those APIs.

00:27:20 So you have a list of trusted places such as Wikipedia or IMDB that you use? Correct

00:28:00 Since Yahoo is no longer supporting BOSS how does that affect you? They are actually supporting it but we use a lot of other services. We use them interchangeable to get the deep web graph if you will like SEOmoz has. The way we use it is we rank the results. We actually started our own crawler to weed out spam.

00:29:00 How do you know it’s spam? I built this big training set of domains and rule sets that I train each month and it brings up great results.

00:30:15 You are one guy and you have been able to remove this spam pretty easily, leads one to ask why haven’t Google, Bing etc. taken these sites out? I try to focus on things that can’t copy as easily, not that they can’t technically do it. It’s just that they seem to have a disposition against a heuristic approach if they didn’t they wouldn’t do it because they be called our for censorship.

00:31:30 Google’s position is that it’s all algorithm but that’s not true their is definitely human stuff going on. Because their is no way Wikipedia would rank so high.

00:32:20 How big is the site now? We have 10s of thousands of users a day but we don’t track users, we have over 1.5 million searches this month.

00:33:20 Is the idea to build this without advertising or monetization? My intention is to have highly relevant ads but when I tried it I didn’t like the results so I’ve been working on it and will probably have them again soon but I have no pressure to do so.

00:34:20 Let’s talk about privacy and search, you’ve decided to not track anyone because if you are not trying to monetize you don’t need to. I keep search results but nothing about the user. Google anatomizes them but you can still track peoples sessions and ore than likely connect the dots to a person.

00:36:20 Another piece we do that others don’t, when you go to Google and click on a link that information is sent to the site.

00:37:30 If the government came to you and said we want to review your logs, is that info in your Apache logs? I don’t save the IP address.

00:38:45 If you were to put Google ads on your site how do you deal the need for cookies? You proxy the ads through your server not client side, I don’t use their API so I’m not going to use their ads feed. Do you think Google is nefarious? No, I’m not against them, the people coming to our site are generally leaving Google so we don’t want their ads in front of them.

00:39:40 So what else in this space is notable? I really like the Zero-click Info with no spam, if you go to the About page and click Goodies. Their is all this stuff that I put into the searches, we deep index content from some of these places.

00:43:15 If you type !a term it will take you right to Amazon. It takes you right to the site.

00:45:30 Your last venture was The Names Database, what happened with that? We sold it to Classmates.

00:45:45 You do Angel Investing now what is your thesis on investing? I’ve done 4 deals and advising a few. I’m looking for companies that may not need VC money, with a viral distribution, I also look for a spark that indicates it will work.

00:47:40 What worries you most about the state of the Internet today? I’m bullish and not terribly worried about much. I think privacy is a real issue but it’s not forefront yet in the media spotlight.

00:48:50 What companies impress you? I really like my investments but they are relatively new: Notehall, WakeMate, MyZamana, KadioMobile (sp?), I advise MyDunkTank founder video.

00:52:15 What’s Philly like for entrepreneurs? It’s not the greatest city but it’s improving. We do have a Y Combinator type incubator called DreamIt

00:57:30 Is PerfectBusiness a pay to pitch scam?

00:58:20 The News with Lon Harris

00:58:45 Yelp Deals

Yelp has been quietly experimenting with a Groupon/Living Social/Daily D-style functionality, called Yelp Deals, offering time-sensitive daily deals offering steep discounts at local businesses. They’ve now made the new product somewhat more official, announcing plans to offer local deals in San Diego, San Francisco, New York and a few other cities in the near future. (For example, offering 5 Yoga classes for $30 that would normally cost $65 at Dan Diego’s The Little Yoga Studio.

This, of course, comes shortly after Yelp introduced Foursquare-inspired “check-in” functionality, allowing individuals to become “Yelp Royalty” by checking in repeatedly at local businesses. Think this presents a genuine threat to sites like Groupon, considering that Yelp already has 36 million users a month? Are Yelp spreading themselves too think trying to do everything in the local space? Why has Yelp’s check-in service not become more significant a player yet?

0059:30 Feedback – Websites are typically known for one thing, occasionally two but rarely three. However, the Internet is changing and the big businesses can because they have scale. Very viable competitor to Groupon but the space is big enough for both.

01:03:50 Buxfer Joins the Deadpool?

Social payments service Buxfer launched in 2007 out of the Y Combinator incubator. The site allows you to monitor all your bank and credit card accounts in one place.

Though the site itself is still live, it’s now a bit of a ghost town…No new tweets since October, no more blog posts and over on Get Satisfaction, users are wondering if anyone is even still in the building. Plus, the site’s two founders are now working at Facebook.

Buxfer raised $300,000 in angel funding back in ’07, and according to TechCrunch, there have been no official announcements from the entrepreneurs or investors as to the project’s current status.

As an investor, are you concerned about companies like Facebook offering lucrative deals to entrepreneurs to basically give up on their own companies? How would you feel as a Buxfer investor?

01:04:50 Feedback – As an investor you can take over the asset and sell it but we don’t know the story of this one. As an investor you do expect some projects to fail.

01:07:45 Netflix on the iPhone

I feel like we do Netflix stories every week, but they just keep making news!

The popular Netflix iPad app is now available for the iPhone and the iPod Touch. All Netflix members can download and stream movies to the app for free. It works on both 3G and WiFi connections as well, much like the recent Hulu Plus app (though consumers should of course bear in mind that AT&T no longer offers unlimited data plans to most users.)

Much like the old school XBox version of Netflix, the iPhone version doesn’t let you add to or manipulate your streaming queue, but will allow you to access it. It also does not offer functionality for your DVD/Blu-Ray queue.

How big a gamechanger is this for Netflix? Will you start watching movies and TV shows on your iPhone?

01:08:40 Feedback – Yes, people will watch movies on their phone. Why would Apple not buy Netflix, it’s a no brainer.

01:11:00 Hulu Plus: Huge Rip-Off?

And speaking of Hulu Plus…is it a huge rip-off?

A new analysis of all the Hulu Plus available content reveals that 88% of it is already available for free on Hulu.com. This includes 98% of the clips that you can see on Hulu Plus! Out of 28,000 TV episodes, only around 3300 of them are exclusive to Hulu Plus. These include episodes of “The X-Files,” “Law and Order SVU,” “SNL” and “Family Guy.” HOWEVER, it’s worth noting that many of these shows are available on Netflix Streaming as well WITHOUT ADS, so if you had that one, you REALLY don’t need to go for the Hulu option.

Even worse, there’s more competition on the way for Hulu. Apple may be announcing 99 cent TV rentals on its September 1st event in a few days…

Am I being too hard on Hulu? It’s only a bit over a month old…Will more content be coming along soon? What would you do if you were running Hulu to make it more competitive?

01:12:00 Feedback – People who own the rights are purposely making this confusing so they can maximize profits. The ads are so repetitive

01:14:45 Facebook and Y Combinator

Facebook has announced that it will start working with Y Combinator companies to “create transformative social experiences,” and this will apparently involve giving them preferential treatment and access to company resources. To quote Facebook’s post:

“We’ll provide product, technical and design resources to support new Y Combinator companies interested in working with us to build deeply social products…These companies will have priority access to our technologies and programs such as Facebook Credits, Instant Personalization and upcoming beta features.”

Last year, Y Combinator partnered with Twitter in a similar fashion, with its companies getting priority access to the stream.

How big an advantage will this be for YC companies?

01:15:30 Feedback – Any startup that participates in this is stupid, they will steal your idea and get you to sell to them at a low price. Don’t do it, it’s a trap, it’s a trap. Techcrunch has become a favor bank at this point. They treat Mark Zuckerberg with kid gloves.

01:21:00 Kooaba Lands $3 Million in Funding

Swiss startup Kooaba offers mobile visual search and augmented reality technology via mobile phone apps. Basically, you can take a snapshot of print ads, DVDs, book covers, movie posters and so forth and get all kinds of information like specs, price comparisons, coupons and so forth.

Kooaba received $3 million in Swiss franks (about $3 million) this week in venture funding from undisclosed Swiss investors. They plan to use it to enter new marks, hire more developers and pursue partnerships with other visual search and augmented reality companies.

Seems like there are a lot of companies in this space, or something similar. Thoughts on this? Would you invest in one of these AR companies?

01:22:00 Feedback – No, I wouldn’t invest. The application of this doesn’t work well, the numbering system works.

01:23:10 .co winner is @ZChaitman wins $100 for Socialcampus.co

01:25:45 Thank you to @Tricaster

01:26:30 To all the Jayters that want to be on contact: Lon [at] thisweekin.com

01:27:59 End

Jason Calacanis hosts This Week in Startups with guest Andy Hickl, CEO and Co-Founder of Swingly

00:00:30 I’m Back! Back from a week in the Catskill Mountains and it feels good to recharge the batteries

00:01:45 Will have the founder of DuckDuckGo, Janrain and RotoHog on soon

Create Your Opportunity – .CO is the new web address that gives you a truly global, recognizable and credible option for branding your online presence.

00:02:40 If you tweet a .co domain that you bought recently and tweet it with #TWiST.  The ThisWeekIn crew will pick one person that wins a $100

00:04:00 Ask Jason – Abdul Ramirez – DigiTech.com – BrokerLoop – We are pivoting to a SaaS model and what to know if the new product should be under the umbrella or it’s own company?

00:09:00 Answer – Technically probably a good idea to invest in a separate LLC in case you want investors or some sort of legal issues come up with your service based business. It comes down to cost really you can have multiple brands under one company unless you have partners. If partners or investors are involved you should protect them. When you decide to do the angel round ask for multiple referrals and ask for a flat fee that is contingent on closing the round. Ask them to “grow with me”.

00:16:30 The Interview with Andy Hickl or Swingly

00:18:00 Where are you based? Dallas, TX right down the street from Mark Cuban

00:18:50 Can you tell us about your product? Swingly is an answer engine, we are trying to bring answers to people. How we are different is we want to use technology by using natural language processing to be able to marry questions to specific answers. The technology is real now more so than the past.

00:20:55 I’m also the CEO of Language Computer Corporation a government contractor that focuses on natural language processing since 1995 when we started Swingly in 2009 we thought we had the tech advantage to make it happen. In the 1990s it was about speech recoginition, 2000s it was about machine translation, 2010 will be about decoding the the jumbled mess on the web and turn it into a semantic code.

00:24:30 Certain sites like Mahalo and Quora have learned how to incentive the Q&A process well bu their are certain questions that you can’t incentivize.

00:25:00 Initially we are going for factual questions and right now about 70% of the time you get a good answer and 30% is a “clunker”.

00:27:30 Whenever someone pitches me on search I go to Google for comparison. In this example TrueKnowledge came up number one with the right answer what is different between you and them? We democratize the search, you don’t have to be Wiki famous to be in the results.

00:29:00 Let’s look at your second example “who has Lyndsay Lohan dated?” and it comes up with a better result. My question is you did two searches and you prepared those, how do you compete? I think their has to be something said about size Google has the worlds largest index and to think from day one we will be able to go head-to-head is crazy. Where we compete is to do this nano-scale retrieval of a variety of information that is tough to find.

00:33:00 I like half of your answer, you said hey we are just beginning but when I search the answer of your example I get the results at number one on Google.

00:33:30 Do you have an example where you beat Google? Ask where did Jason Calanis go to College? Google failed, TrueKnowledge missed it. Try “how old is Oprah Winfrey?” look at feedback, they are taking a meta view of all the answers.

00:35:20 What do you think of Googles execution? They do a good job, Google Squared is the right direction in this space.

00:36:00 You’ve started this company and are taking on Google and Microsoft are you insane? My biggest mission is to establish that this technology has arrived. We’ve built this with two guys.

00:36:30 You just said commoditizable service are you going to bring this technology out as an API are you the destination or are you bringing this out as an API to the Huffington Posts or Mahalos of the world? Yeah, I think we going with licenses is the right way to go. The holy grail is when to give an answer and when to shut up.

00:37:30 What do you mean by saying “knowing when you have an answer and knowing when to get out of the way” what do you mean by that? A system like ours is 70% accurate so the other time we don’t know the answer we don’t want to try answer it. But when they do I want to be sure I give good results?

00:38:30 How do you know that? Do they use certain words? It’s recognizing when people are seeking a factual question but it’s all about trying to find the intent of what people are asking.

00:39:40 Does your technology use ontology? No, our secret sauce has been about recognizing 12,000 kinds of names.

00:40:40 Are you familiar with Psycorp (sp) in Austin? Yes, they take text and turn it into a formal representation and turning it into something machines can reason over.

00:42:30 How do you compete with something like ChaCha where a human searches and finds the facts? I think their will always be a place for a human in the loop but we can reduce the cost for those humans.

00:43:30 What brought you into this field? My training is in computational linguistics (my PhD.) my research brought me to the field.

00:44:45 Who looses in this space if you are successful? Will people not go to Google? It’s the expectation problem, by that I mean I go to Quora, ask and answer questions but not as much as I should because I don’t expect certain answers to be there. Success will be to augment these sites.

00:48:00 Is a social component in the plans for Swingly? One we allows endorsing through a like button, we want to allow people to supply their own answer and allow the machine check them.

00:51:30 How are you going to make money? In the short term we are close to closing some licence deals, or people with certain verticals

00:52:30 The News with Stuart Brazell

00:53:50 iMac and MacBook Touch Patents

Apple filed a patent this week for a pair of devices that would run both the OS X and iOS operatng system and that would use both a traditional interface and the touchscreen interface popularized by the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices.

These products, being referred to as the iMac and MacBook Touch by blogs, have swiveling screens and would basically work like traditional desktop or laptop computers combined with an iPad.

This, of course, brings up a number of questions:

- Think these will be real products we’ll actually see in the marketplace?
- Will a touchscreen interface be useful when you’re talking about larger computers, such as you’d have from a desktop?
- How much do you think consumers would be willing to pay for these devices? Would a $1500 notebook computer be worth $2000 if it was a touchscreen?

00:54:20 Feedback – I did see that yesterday, I don’t think people will do this. What application besides a game will people use this. Is he bringing the iPhone OS to the desktop. If that happens I’ll probably go back to the PC. It maybe good as a kitchen or casual computer. This could be just a case of them patenting things.

00:58:00 AngelPad

Seven former Google employees are starting a new startup incubator called AngelPad. Not a lot of information has been released yet, save for a tweet that announced a launch date (Friday, September 10th) and news that they’ll have a San Francisco office. The founders are Thomas Korte, Richard Chen, David Scacco, Vibuh Mittal, Gokul Rajaram, Deep Nishar and Keval Dasai.

The new site, AngelPad.org, describes the project like this:

“AngelPad is a mentorship program founded by a team of ex-Googlers to help web-technology startups build better products, attract additional funding and ultimately grow more successful businesses.”

Also, they’re saying that “founders and angers [are] working together to build great startups.”

Think this will take a Y Combinator kind of approach? What can entrepreneurs expect from a seasoned group like this? What are the advantages and disadvantages?

00:59:05 Feedback – Y Combinator has been a huge success. They are popping up everywhere, I think most people will be able to get Angel investment. I think the question is will their be capital to see these through to the end?

01:06:45 Leo Laporte Gives Up on Social Media

In his blog, TWiT network broadcaster Leo Laporte explained that he recently discovered his posts had not been appearing on Google Buzz since August 6th, and no one noticed they were gone. This has caused him to lose faith in social media as a whole:

“It makes me feel like everything I’ve posted over the past four years on Twitter, Jaiku, Friendfeed, Plurk, Pownce, and, yes, Google Buzz, has been an immense waste of time. I was shouting into a vast echo chamber where no one could hear me because they were too busy shouting themselves. All this time I’ve been pumping content into the void like some chatterbox Onan. How humiliating. How demoralizing.”

Does Leo have a point? Does it make sense to post your content somewhere like a blog, that you personally can control, rather than giving it for free to sites like Facebook and Twitter? Or is this just Leo trying to get attention? Will he come back eventually?

01:07:30 Feedback – He is over dramatizing a bit, Loren Feldman said make better content. It’s all about quality content. Twitter is a bit light and even a blog can be light it’s all about quality content, that is why Jason is going back to email.

01:13:05 Insight From Tyler – No One Wants To See Grandma Do The Robot

01:14:10 EA’s New Medal of Honor Game

EA’s planning a new edition of its “Medal of Honor” series of first-person shooters that takes place in Afghanistan, and puts the player in control of US forces there. In the multiplayer mode, however, players can take on the roles of either US soldiers OR The Taliban.

This has caused a lot of criticism, particularly from the families of American servicemen and women who find the premise of the game disrespectful, turning a real-life war into a game for children. EA has said that “someone has to be the bad guy” in any game, and claim that this new “Medal of Honor” is no different. Members of Britain’s government are also upset. The country’s defense minister, Laim Fox, has asked retailers in his country not to stock the game, calling it “shocking” and “thoroughly un-British.”

What do you think? Is it fair for games to simulate real military scenarios? Or is this insensitive to the families really affected by these conflicts?

01:15:00 Feedback – I think it’s too soon. The war is still going on. I think this is more commerce than art, if art it’s acceptable but with commerce it’s too early.

Thank you to Tricaster

01:23:03 End

This week we have Brian Alvey, CEO of Crowd Fusion. For more information, show notes, and an upcoming schedule, go to www.thisweekin.com.

00:00:45 Jason is taking his first week long vacation in the Catskill Mountain in Upstate NY since starting Mahalo next week

00:01:30 Brian is the first guest to be asked back for a second time while he works with customers of Crowd Fusion in the LA area, one of which is a top 50 media site

00:03:00 Brian introduced Jason to Fflick which brings movies to Twitter but it’s all about execution. The ultimate test when investing in a company is would you use the product? Like Blippy and Rapportive who brings CRM to your email

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00:07:00 Ask Jason – John Cecchettini – SimpleCTMS – What should a startup do when a competitor starts throwing stones right away?

00:09:00 Answer – First, is the competitor bigger and more established than you or are they smaller? The person is high profile and outspoken person in the community and is trying to make a competing app that isnt released yet. If they are bigger you are fighting up, not down, don’t ever fight down. You could say you are thrilled at the attention you are being given on your groundbreaking product and you appreciate the feedback and feel that you are on track with these 3 features and encourage the person to continue to provide feedback while you gain marketshare. In this case everyone probably knows he is a d-bag but you should pretend he’s not. It’s not taking the highroad but you are making them appear as a troll and thank them for the free advice.

00:13:00 Brian – has seen Jason perfect this approach by raising his own visibility but attacking someone bigger. It’s important to note that people probably haven’t seen the criticism and it will disappear if you don’t make a big deal about it and comment

00:14:00 Tyler – You guys nailed it, when it’s happening to you, you have all the emotions that go along with it. Try to sit back and remove yourself from the situation and analyse things.

00:14:45 Jason – Also use it as a motivational tool for your employees

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00:18:00 Ask Jason – Ray Chan Chin Ching – We want to sell ads on our site but we don’t know which ad network to use or what format to allow, what should we do?

00:19:45 Answer – All ad networks suck equally, they tend to have terrible inventory and sell to the worst advertisers, it feels like a pump and dump. Their are a few high profile companies like Federated Media but even their customers feel the same. If you are going to be a publisher you need to invest in 3 things: content, technology and a sales team. Focus on selling directly and forming the relationships yourself. Is the site generic or in a vertical? Generic sites are harder to sell but you could focus on a few high CPM or affiliate products and create the content around those products where the ad almost becomes part of the content.

00:23:45 Brian – You are right about ad networks, keep it relevant, work distribution deals, try synching your ads with your audience

00:27:00 Tyler – Some startups are targeting behavior.

00:27:30 Jason – Like Tacoda but it doesn’t work too well

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00:31:30 Shark Tank – Sam Howley – CustomerCradle – Google analytics for offline businesses, it’s a marketing conversion tracking system. It helps you tell which advertisement campaigns are working and which employee converts the best.

00:34:30 Feedback – Excellent pitch, you took the full minute and at no point did it drag but the website needs a little bit of work

00:36:10 Brian – the pitch was great, my question is how does it work, what is the capturing method?

00:37:00 Sam – Capturing takes place on the website or on a systems tray application

00:37:30 Jason – Can you integrate it into products like what 37signals has?

00:37:45 Sam – Not at the moment but we have discussed that

00:38:00 Jason – Integration will be key to your success, people do not want to have all their information spred across multiple apps

00:39:30 Tyler – Platinum status pitch, tieing in deeper analytics on top of the point of sale would be nice.

00:43:00 The News with Lon Harris

00:43:30 We put the Skype logo in the top right corner, they ask for it in their TOS

00:43:50 Google Voice Recognition for Android – Google has unveiled a new voice recognition feature for the latest Android phones. The new application, Voice Actions, allows people to tell their phones verbal instructions for things like sending e-mails, making calls, getting directions or playing music. The free app is so far available only for Android 2.2 and will come preloaded on Motorola and Verizon Droid 2 phones. Many Android phones already had the ability to search the Internet via voice command.

Android phones, taken as a category, already outpace iPhones. Think that trend will continue? Will we see Apple’s purchase of Siri – a “personal assistant” software company that also worked with voice-command technology – become more crucial in the coming months as they now have to compete with Voice Actions?

00:44:35 Feedback – Something has to happen because people are texting too much whil e driving, it’s an important issue. I think we will see a lot more legislation around this. It’s possibly a way for Google to own mobile search. It’s like the accessibility issue like blindness, everyone at times wants to communicate but can’t type. Jason doesn’t see it as a major game changer

0051:45 Oracle Sues Google – Oracle issued a press release on Thursday saying it had filed suit against Google for infringing on copyrights and patents related to Java. Oracle, of course, acquired Java when it purchased Sun Microsystems earlier this year. They’re claiming Google “knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property” with its release of Android software. Furthermore, they’re claiming that Java is a mobile operating system competitor against Android, and Google is using elements of Java technology without a license. The lawsuit further alleges that Google knowingly hired former Sun Java engineers in an effort to infringe on copyrights and patents.

Google’s representatives said they could not comment before fully reviewing the lawsuit. For background, Google CEO Eric Schmidt was part of the team that developed Java at Sun before becoming CEO of Novell and later Google. Other members of the Google management team played a significant role in Java’s development back in the ’90s.

Thoughts on this? Is this a case of Google actually behaving inappropriately, or the way that patents work being woefully out of date for how technology actually comes together?

00:52:45 Feedback – The issue here is Java needs to be open source, they have different flavors that are but the core needs to be open. It’s probably not a good idea because Google will just create some alternative

00:54:10 Deadpool: TweetMeme – Twitter introduced their own version of the “Tweet” button this week for websites to encourage people to share their content on Twitter. In doing so, Twitter is actually licensing some of the technology developed by TweetMeme, which has been offering their own “Retweet” button for a long time now, even though they designed the actual Tweet button entirely in house.

TweetMeme Pro will live on for websites that want customized Twitter analytics, but the company is now going to refocus on a new product called Datasift that curates various realtime streams.

The new Tweet button has another feature, actually – it can allow the owners of websites to suggest Twitter accounts for readers to follow.

Think Twitter handled this well? Does making a deal with TweetMeme, rather than straight-up taking the idea and running with it, encourage developers to innovate and build new products around Twitter? Or will this discourage third-party developers from working in the Twitter ecosystem, for fear that their ideas will just be absorbed?

00:55:00 Feedback – People at one point thought that they could create businesses on top of someone else’s platform but I warned many times it’s not advisable and if you do you will always be looking over your shoulder. Zynga maybe the only successful one to do this but they branched out to different platforms to protect itself

01:01:45 Airstrip Gets Funded – San Antonio startup Airstrip creates mobile software that allows doctors to monitor their patients’ data, such as vital signs, from anywhere through their smartphones. The company’s “Observer” suite includes apps that focus on cardiology, critical care and lab work. The FDA approved the app last month. Now, they have announced that they have closed a round of financing from Sequoia Capital for an undisclosed sum.

The idea here is not only that doctors will save time with these devices – not having to be “on call” at a hospital to get test results back, or able to be more flexible in how they treat patients – but also that patients can have tests done from home. For example, if you think you have sleep apnea, normally you’d need to spend a night in a lab; now, you could be monitored whiel you rest comfortably at home.

I know we’ve discussed the caginess generally around investing in medical technology startups, but does this sound like a good investment to you? What’s the quickest route to monetizing this technology?

01:02:40 Feedback – Brillant idea, well done Sequoia, call centers in India will be doing this soon, rich people will want their health monitored. The question is how much is too much?

01:06:00 WePay Raises $7.5 Million – Y Combinator backed startup WePay has raised a $7.5 million Series B round led by Highland Capital Partners. The startup had previously attracted a high-profile roster of angels, including Ron Conway, Davd McClure and Max Levchin.

WePay is a billing system, much like PayPal, with the crucial difference that it allows for “group paying.” Unlike PayPal, you don’t get one account that’s tied to your previously-established bank account. Instead, you can set up a variety of FDIC-insured accounts to which you can invite other individuals, all totally separate from your main personal accounts. There’s also the option to use a WePay VISA prepaid card. Among the “groups” the site is appealing to are girl scout troops, fantasy football leagues and timeshare owners.

The site earns money by charging a 3.5% transaction fee. The plan with the new funds is to staff up and start encouraging more sites to incorporate the WePay API into their service.

What’s the stop PayPal from just adopting this same system? Think WePay has a chance competing against the PayPal online payment juggernaut?

01:07:00 Feedback – This is like Kickstarter for everybody, it helps groups like fraternities or book clubs raise money. One good example is parents raising money at the end of the year to buy a teacher a gift.

01:09:15 Google Ventures reportedly invests in Apple game maker Ngmoco

01:10:10 Empire Avenue – Canadian startup Empire Avenue has raised a $200,000 seed round from a group of angel investors. The site assigns everyone an “influence score” based on their social media presence and then allows users to “buy and sell shares” of one another. Your influence score is your share price, measured in the site’s virtual currency, Eaves. Everything from posting a photo to Flickr, tweeting, getting blog comments or getting people to buy your Empire Avenue shares makes your stock price go up.

The site plans to use the funds towards its rewards and advertising programs.

Thoughts on the “social influence analytics” space? Think this has more promise than Klout or similar systems that have sprung up previously? Is all of this “measuring social influence” stuff just a fad or is there a real business here?

01:11:15 Feedback – the idea has been done before and the score can always be gamed and it really doesn’t matter. It cannot be a single score, multiple scores are needed for areas of expertise

01:14:30 Internet Explorer 9 Beta is Coming! - Microsoft has announced that it will launch the IE 9 Beta at an event celebrating “The Beauty of the Web” in San Francisco on September 15th.

Anything specific you’re expecting? Can MSFT possibly catch up to Chrome and Firefox at this point?

01:14:50 Feedback – Yes, they can get better but they don’t focus on the browser for some reason, speed is critical and they don’t have that down yet

01:17:40 No show next week.

01:19:54 END

Jason Calacanis hosts This Week in Startups with guest Kurt Wilms, founder and CEO of Fflick.

00:01:00 Jason introduces Fflick, which he calls the hottest new startup in town. He heard about it from Brian Alvey, the guest from the very first episode of #TWiST. Jason also announced that he’d be doing a special early Friday episode because he’s flying to New York to give the keynote at Loren Feldman’s Audience Conference.

00:02:45 Jason gives some inside information about the lawsuit between Michael Arrington and the Fusion Garage team. Jason called the lawsuit, which is allegedly being brought by Arrington against the team that he claims stole his “CrunchPad” concept for their joojoo device, “the dumbest thing Arrington has ever done.”

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00:06:30 Jason chatted briefly with Kurt from Fflick.com about what it’s like to be the hottest new startup on the block and get attention from VC’s.

00:07:25 Ask Jason – Edward Baker – After hearing rumors about all kinds of crazy offers made to Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook, Ed was wondering what Jason felt that Zuckerberg’s exit strategy was from the company. He also wondered why Zuckerberg wanted to stay with the company when he could be doing “so much more for the world.”

00:09:00 Answer – Jason feels that most rational people would sell when they have an ultra-hot startup and are getting life-changing offers to become the next Mark Cuban. Jason feels that Zuckerberg is probably staying on largely because he’s enjoying the job and likes being hands-on with the product. He also discussed the roles of Sean Parker and Ron Conway, and the ability to sell off “founder’s shares” on the secondary market, in influencing the decision-making process of entrepreneurs like Zuckerberg. Finally, Jason said that he believes Zuckerberg wants to be the next Bill Gates and may never agree to sell Facebook. Jason finished by theorizing that the caller was trying to bait him into trashing Zuckerberg, but said he’s now out of the trashing Mark Zuckerberg business.

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00:17:25 The Interview

00:17:33 Some of Kurt’s co-founders were also in the studio with him. They are Ron Gorodetzky, the CTO, and Dav Zimak, the Chief Science Officer. The fourth founder, Marc Hemeon (who is CCO), could not attend the interview.

00:17:53 All four co-founders worked at Digg. How long did they all work there? Ron had worked there the longest, having come on board as a systems administrator in the very beginning. (He calls himself “Employee #0″). Jason offered Kevin Rose $4 million for the company at the time, but Rose didn’t take it.

00:19:20 Are Rose and Jay Adelson cool with these four guys leaving to start their own company? Kevin and Jay are entrepreneurial guys and are fine with Kurt and his team’s decision to break out on their own. They’re also fans of Fflick and are excited about the project. It’s a natural evolution, after working at startups, to want to start a startup yourself. (Ron is also a co-founder of Internet TV network Revision3.)

00:20:21 When and how did the idea for Fflick come about? Kurt was working on another movie site called MovieLens.org, which originally got him involved in the combination of the Web and movies. He then got the idea of mining information from Twitter for a movie review website.

00:20:56 What is Fflick and why should I use it? Fflick is a “social media platform.” Movies are just the first experiment with it. The idea is to build vertical sites that analyze and pull in data from Twitter. Other verticals may include TV shows, movies, etc. The “Fflick Score” is a “sentiment rating” (basically a favorability rating) out of all the tweets that are pulled in. Machine learning algorithms are used to label certain kinds of tweets to determine whether they are positive or negative.

00:22:35 How does it work? Dav explains that combinations of words are broken down into parts that provide context clues into the intent of the tweet. If humans label enough tweets correctly, the machines can learn to accurately determine if a tweet is posivie or negative. Various tricks – such as keywords and linking similar terms (like movie titles and actors) – are used to determine if a tweet is actually about a movie or about a word that happens to also be a standard noun. The Netflix API is used to pull in information about specific films. Twitter users are also ranked according to influence (based on follower-to-followee ratios).

00:24:55 Why not ask people to rate movies instead of pulling their ratings off of Twitter? Fflick actually does encourage people to tweet their thoughts on the movie right from the site, and thus vote on the movie via the site. It’s built-in marketing. Jason noted he wanted more nuanced rankings than “love” and “not love.” There are plans at Fflick to rate movies on more of a sliding scale; this functionality just isn’t public yet.

00:26:45 How accurate is the system? Most people seem to think it’s fairly accurate. It’s early, though, and algorithms will be enhanced over time. The machines also give an indication about the level of accuracy they are providing. Dav also noted that the system can have an unfair bias towards films that are tweeted out by celebrities. (If Ashton Kutcher tweets about a movie, there will be more “positive sentiment” about it, but possibly because HE is popular, not the film.) They’re working on improving this.

00:27:45 How do you rate a film that isn’t out yet? It’s basically people rating the trailer, the marketing, the hype around the movie, etc. It’s like a “hype score.”

00:28:16 How closely do Fflick scores align with those on Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes? A blogger did a study where he graphed the three ratings systems against one another. They match up fairly well for the movies that were graphed. Fflick and Metacritic seem to align pretty closely. (The one divergence Fflick’s team noticed was “Charlie St. Cloud.” Critics bashed it but female Zac Efron fans on Twitter bumped up and inflated its Fflick score.)

00:29:00 Is it international by design? The team tries to pull in new release movies from everywhere. Profile pages are international by default.

00:29:42 Do you have to sign up? Is that ethical? Does anyone get mad? Everyone automatically is pulled in. If you go to Fflick for the first time, it’ll take a few moments while the site looks up your Twitter feed. Some people have been upset about having a profile made for them without consent. But the site is only pulling in publicly-available information and not actually forcing anyone to create a Fflick account.

00:31:10 Digg’s team is supportive? Are there concerns about poaching? Fflick doesn’t intend to take anyone else from Digg. There’s no official “no poaching” agreement, but as friends with Kevin, they’re going to refrain from taking any more Digg employees.

00:31:40 Who do you show this to first? Did you start raising angel funding? Some of the founder’s friends and family members gave them angel investments to pay for servers. There’s been some buzz in the investor community, particularly following the TechCrunch article. Kurt said that studio executives have also gotten in touch thinking about ways to collaborate, though thus far there have been no direct efforts to get them to adjust low ratings for films.

00:35:05 Will the revenue model be selling ads to studios and getting people to watch trailers? How do you work that in without selling your soul? Fflick is working on creative ways to work in advertising into the site. One possibility is using Twitter’s “promoted tweets” model.

00:36:00 How does this business model become defensible? Couldn’t Flixster or another company just start doing this themselves? Kurt says creating a system like this one is not a trivial problem. There are a number of difficult computer science issues – like disambiguation – that have to be solved to make this system work properly. Working with Twitter is one thing; Facebook, on its huge scale and with its social relationships, will be even more complex.

00:37:00 Why don’t users currently have the ability to correct inaccuracies in Fflick? They’re working on that feature. They also may build in the ability to “correct” your sentiment about a film in case the system got it wrong.

00:38:00 Are they using this system to watch the stock market? Not yet. An issue with any financial issue is getting rid of the inaccuracies and junk in the Twitter stream and getting only good quality stock information. There’s also the issue of differentiating comments about the brand itself vs. the stock.

00:39:30 How many tweets will they need to look at to be sure they get it right? Dav calls this a general machine learning question. The amount of data they need to look at depends on the complexity of the function. To capture all the subtlety of the language of tweets, it would require hundreds of thousands of samples. Jason and Dav discussed a general history of the concept and study of machine learning, which formally kicked off in the early ’80s.

00:43:28 How will they deal with gaming of the system without any IP data access to Twitter? They’d be happy to see that because it would mean their site is big and influential enough to be worth gaming. They also learned a lot of tricks at Digg for weeding out fraud that they could likewise use here. They also noted that people follow others on Twitter whom they already trust.

00:45:40 What do you think of the new Digg? Jason’s talking about a new feature called MyNews. It’s fun, and a good way to see what your friends, as well as tastemakers, are saying. The old Digg had hidden that kind of functionality.

00:46:40 Are they going for a big venture round? An angel round? Other goals? Immediate goal is to get into other verticals, and bring in other social media, such as Facebook. That’s the product roadmap. Financially, they’re looking to bring in money to execute on their roadmap and continue hiring.

00:47:45 Has anyone been a CEO of a company before? Kurt is a first-time CEO and he’s raising money for the first time. Ron has been a founder of a new company before at Revision3. Dav is starting up a company for the first time. Jason thinks it will be easy for them to raise a round because they already worked for an “epic startup” and have instant credibility. It’s social proof that they will work well as a team. Tyler likes that they already have a ton of content on their site; it’s already working and has information readily available. (This was an insight!)

00:50:10 The News

00:51:48 Google-Verizon “Open Internet” Plan

On Monday, Google and Verizon released their “joint policy proposal” to the FCC for how to handle Net Neutrality. Both started by insisting that they love the open Internet and don’t want to prioritize Internet traffic.

There do seem to be plans, however, to prioritize yet to be determined Internet services that may come about in the future, such as health care monitoring, online education services, “smart grids,” online gaming networks and so forth.

The policy proposal also suggests a prohibition against ISP’s discriminating in any way in lawful Internet traffic, applications or content.

The companies were careful to say that they aren’t actually engaged in any business discussions, and simply wanted to formulate a joint policy proposal for the FCC moving forward.

We should note (as did Gizmodo and many commenters did at many blogs) that none of these proposals apply to wireless Internet, save the need for “transparency.”

Are they leaving wireless open intentionally as a loophole, as it’s the fastest-growing method people are using to access the INternet? Could Google theoretically favor traffic going to Android phones over competitors?

Feedback – Jason and his guests felt that Google had too much to lose in terms of reputation to risk messing with net neutrality issues. They benefit from a more open, free Internet. Jason is troubled by how Google is targeting Yelp for extinction through SEO. (He’s investigating this and wants viewers to send tips if they know more.) Jason also is concerned by the involvement of Verizon, which he does not trust to be fair or competitive.

00:57:30 More on the Mark Hurd Case

Last week, we discussed the departure of Mark Hurd from HP amidst allegations of inaccurate expense reports that were discovered during a sexual harassment investigation. Well, the story has continued to make headlines.

Reuters reports that Hurd will leave HP with an estimated $34.6 million exit package. That includes $12.2 million in severance, plus millions in vested options and restricted stock.

This is after HP has claimed, recall, that Hurd falsified thousands of dollars ine xpenses to hide his relationship with former contractor, reality TV star and B-movie actress Jodie Fisher.

How are HP stockholders not up in arms about this? If you’re caught falsifying expense reports, shouldn’t you get nothing? Isn’t that what would happen if someone got caught stealing from Mahalo?

Oracle CEO Larry Ellison wrote an e-mail to the New York Times calling HP’s board’s decision to “force out” Hurd a “grave mistake.”

“The H.P. board just made the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago,” Mr. Ellison wrote. “That decision nearly destroyed Apple and would have if Steve hadn’t come back and saved them.”

Oracle has been a major rival to HP in the computing hardware market, particularly since its acquisition of Sun Microsystems, and Ellison and Hurd are close friends.

The Times has also reported that the HP board made the decision to remove Hurd based on the advice of a PR specialist who warned that the sexual harassment investigation would lead to months of humiliation for the company.

Feedback – CEO’s need to be paranoid and over-the-top to avoid even the appearance of inappropriate contact with employees or financial irresponsibility. In this case, Hurd misappropriating funds and then spending them on a relationship with Fisher sounds like prostitution, though Jason was careful to stress that this is not an allegation but merely a suggestion based on the available information. Jason feels that Hurd should return his bonus.

01:08:36 Google Acquires Jambool for $70 Million

YET ANOTHER Google social acquisition this week as the search company purchased Jambool, the makers of the “Social Gold” payment system, for a total of of $70 million. Social Gold allows app developers to build payments directly inside apps like games. The company was founded by former Amazon employees Vikas Gupta and Reza Hussein and thus far has raised $6 million in funding.

So far, Google has made a deal with Zynga for games and Slide for apps. Could this be Google’s attempt at a version of “Facebook Credits”? Think we’ll see even more Google social acquisitions in the weeks ahead? What do you think their Google Me social network will actually be like?

Feedback – All Google has to do is provide a viable alternative to Facebook and they’ll impede Facebook’s progress. It doesn’t have to be better; just viable.

1:11:15 Skype IPO

Internet telephony company Skype has filed with the SEC hoping to raise $100 million in an initial public offering. The company plans to trade on the NASDAQ Global Market, and is expected to immediately become one of the largest publicly-traded Internet companies. Last year, eBay sold Skype to a group of private investors at a valuation of $2.75 billion.

The company currently has 560 million registered users, about 124 million of whom are active on a monthly basis. 8.1 million of these users pay monthly fees to use Skype, and average spending about $96 per user per year. For the first six months of 2010, Skype reported revenue of $406 million, and net income of $13.2 million.

The company notes that their future is a bit in question, due to their overwhelming dependence on the SkypeOut service (which allows Skype users to call people who aren’t using Skype, but just normal landlines or cell phones) for revenue. If a lot more people start using Skype, in other words, this means more Skype-to-Skype calls, which are free.

Would you invest in Skype stock? Where else would you take the company from here?

Feedback – Jason feels there are many places to take the Skype brand, particularly handset phones and taking some of the telecom industry’s business. He also thinks this is great news because “the IPO is coming back,” which is good for entrepreneurs and innovation. (Dav prefers using Skype to traditional telephone calls.)

01:17:00 Gowalla Unveils Check-in API

DISCLAIMER: Jason is an investor in Gowalla.

Location-based service Gowalla unveiled their new check-in API, meaning that third-party apps can now write to Gowalla’s API for the very first time. Gowalla issued the following “6 Commandments” that all developers should follow:

• Check in where the user actually is
• Don’t encourage checking in where the user isn’t
• Never check in without permission from the user
• Encourage social behavior, discourage bot-like behavior
• Rapid, repeated checkins are not tolerated
• Use the API responsibly

As TechCrunch notes, the discouragement of “fake check-ins” implicit in these instructions is at odds with FourSquare, which encourages users to get “creative” by inventing places to check in and generally mucking about with the service.

What do you think of Gowalla’s more structured, organized approach to check-ins, as opposed to FourSquare’s more lenient, loose approach? What are some applications you hope to see developers do with this API?

Feedback – Jason agrees that FourSquare will continue to be the “loose” system where people can goof around with location and have fun, whereas Gowalla will become the more organized, trusted place to look at locations where people have actually been. Jason thinks, over time, as these systems interact further with the real world, having a trusted way of determining where people have actually been will become increasingly important.

01:19:20 Epix Streaming Deal with Netflix

Netflix has closed a deal with premium cable channel Epix to give Netflix exclusive streaming rights to Viacom, MGM and Lionsgate films. The movies will show up 90 days after they debut on TV on Epix. The partnership won’t be permanent, necessarily – the LA Times claims it’s locked in for five years. Netflix also recently signed a similar deal with RelativityMedia, to have access to stream the movies during the pay TV window – a bit earlier than the 90 day Epix delay. The LA Times reported that this deal could cost Netflix some $1 billion over its multi-year lifetime.

How important are these kinds of deals for Netflix as it competes with services like Blockbuster, Hulu and RedBox, as opposed to having a lot of new releases right away, or competing in terms of price points?

Feedback – Netflix has a loyal base of movie fans, so Jason’s pretty confident Netflix will continue to enjoy success with a balance of a good streaming selection with discs filling in the gaps.

Speaking of Netflix, Lon recommended everyone watch the documentary “The Art of the Steal,” about the Barnes art collection in Merion, Pennsylvania. Jason recommended “Stranded: I’ve Come From a Plane That Crashed on the Mountains,” a documentary about the 1972 plane crash that stranded the Uruguayan rugby team in the Andes mountains.

Jason Calacanis hosts This Week in Startups with guest Marco Zappacosta, CEO and Co-Founder of Thumbtack

00:03:00 Jason met Marco Zappacosta of Thumbtack at Open Angel Forum (SFO) and the reaction was obvious they were going to get funding, Jason is an investor

Create Your Opportunity – .CO is the new web address that gives you a truly global, recognizable and credible option for branding your online presence.

00:06:30 Ask Jason – Max Yankelevich – I allow a Google like atmosphere at my company and a lot of my engineers are coming up with great side projects but lack the skills needed to grow them into a business how can I help?

00:10:15 Answer – A lot of people have ideas but the execution is the hard part, most incubators even fail, incubators like Techstars and Y combinator are more like coaches. Focus on your own company that alone should be enough. If you have a big network and a lot of contacts it’s possible but can be overwhelming. If you are determined to do it pick the best one and don’t be afraid to shut it down quickly.

00:15:00 The Interview

00:16:30 What is Thumbtack? It helps you find day-to-day consumer services, it’s the Amazon for services. Craigslist lacks the safety and peace of mind that people want, we vet the people.

00:18:20 So what is next level of vetting? We will build out the list and a government worker will certify the person’s address

00:20:30 What is DOJ Smart Screen? We manually run every service professional through a government sex offender registry.

00:21:30 When did you launch? Early Dec. 2009, we have 50,000 professional registered, none are srapped. We are taking the slow growth approach and verifying people believing the experience will be better.

00:23:00 So what is the trend in use, do people just find someone? They usually find someone they like and then ask us for more options

00:23:30 How much does it cost to sign professionals? We haven’t had to pay anyone, we reach out to some people to let them know about us and 45% sign up

00:26:00 So who built the site? Right now 2 engineers do it all, we are hiring and looking for talent

00:26:30 When did you come up with the idea? Fall 2007, we worked at an advocacy group in college and knew we wanted to work together in a startup. Aug 2008 we got our first technical founder

00:27:30 The term social proof is being used a lot these days and getting a good domain is part of that. How did you get such a good domain name? We financied the domain name, the guy wanted $36K and on day one we took the plung, we put 1/3 down which was held in escrow so we wouldn’t lose the entire amount after one year we had some protection. We used Moniker

00:30:00 The next step was building a marketplace which takes time, for 6 months it was two of us and then we had 3 marketing guys and 1 engineer which allowed us to focus on marketing and how we could be unique.

00:31:30 The problem was how do we create Network Independent Value, which means how do we create value before you have scale. At the time people were using classifieds or independent sites, we built them a place to create a profile and added on tool to help them run their business (invoicing, schedule management, CRM, etc.)

00:34:30 Our first investors were friends and family, we had 1,000 users, a product and a path to grow, having customers gave us credibility when we went to OAF.

00:36:00 How did you find out about Open Angel Forum (OAF)? your email newsletter

00:36:30 What is the process? You submit a web form, the next step is a web conference that we were nervous the product wouldn’t showcase well, from their 6 were selected and we got 5 minutes to pitch and we focused primarily on the product

00:38:00 The beauty of OAF was that the Angel Investors were really looking to invest and paid attention, they asked good questions, I was nervous but just showed the product and the good thing was they kept looking at the site not at me, the reaction was positive.

00:39:30 What was post event like? It was clear some people were very interested but and a quick follow-up was key.

00:42:00 How did you come up with the valuation? They had a number in mind before coming but it was basically a guess, in the process you are testing demand, not everyone invested some walked away which was ok

00:43:30 How did you get the Angels to commit? Most had a dollar amount in mind and they introduced us to other Angels like AngelList

Provides fully hosted / managed Microsoft Exchange and Google Apps e-mail

00:51:00 Have you talked to VCs and what was it like? Yes we have talked to them and it’s good to get our name out there but most institutional investors are wary of local services but RedBeacon is changing that

00:52:00 What was your reaction to RedBeacon winning TechCrunch50? Bitter sweet, it validated the idea but they got first recognition. We are different in that we offer ancillary services

00:53:30 We are looking for developers, we would like one front end, one back end and someone with a little bit of both (email Marco [at] thumbtack.com if interested)

00:57:30 Are you considering an office at a different location in order to find better talent? No, right now we want the people all together but the lack of talent is a bottleneck for us right now.

Trada is a crowdsourced pay-per-click marketplace, leveraging the skills of more than 500 certified paid search experts. Mention TWiST and get $100 worth of PPC marketing FREE for every $1,000 you spend on Trada (Max $3,000 spend or $300 bonus). On average, advertisers who start working with Trada reduce their CPA by 10%!

01:04:00 The News with Lon Harris

01:05:00 Demand Media IPO – Demand Media filed for an IPO today. According to the filing, Demand revenues reached $114 million for the six months ending in June 2010, an increase of $91.3 million over the same period a year ago. According to Silicon Alley Insider, Demand hopes to raise as much as $1 billion in the fall IPO. Demand’s largest rival, Associated Content, was purchased by Yahoo! for $100 million earlier this year.

Feedback – Yes, they will get their money, half their revenue comes from eHow but they are labeled a content farm which we at Mahalo do not want to be we are somewhere in the middle. The problem is Google is aware of this and may push their site down, algorithms don’t know the quality of content.

01:10:00 HP CEO Mark Hurd Resigns – HP CEO Mark Hurd has resigned on the heels of sexual harassment charges from a former HP contractor. Following an investigation, it was concluded that there was no violation of the company’s sexual harassment policy but Hurd violated the company’s “Standards of Business Conduct.” Hurd acknowledged he had displayed a lack of character and said that stepping down was a painful decision.

“As the investigation progressed, I realized there were instances in which I did not live up to the standards and principles of trust, respect and integrity that I have espoused at HP and which have guided me throughout my career. After a number of discussions with members of the board, I will move aside and the board will search for new leadership.”

The board of directors has formed a committee to find a proper replacement.

Hurd joined the HP board of directors in early 2005 and was named chairman of the board in 2006. Prior to joining HP, he spent 25 years at NCR Corp.

Thoughts on this? Did Hurd have no choice but to step down after these allegations? Is stepping down an admission of guilt?

Feedback – He must have done something because he resigned. Guys can be stupid when it comes to women, sometimes women won’t say when something is offensive and maybe just writing it down for later use. At Mahalo Jason doesn’t have an office, if he did it wouldn’t have a door and is very careful so that this situation can never happen.

01:21:30 Deadpool: Google Wave – Way way back in the Fall of 2009, Google Wave was the next big thing. BusinessWeek wondered allowed: Will Google Wave replace e-mail and Facebook? TechCrunch said, after getting a first look at Wave in May of that year, that it “dripped with ambition” and called it a brand new method of communication for this new era. Robert Scoble called it brilliant and said that all it needed to thrive was to be freed of its e-mail interface.

Well, Google announced on Wednesday that it would discontinue development of the real-time collaborative communication tool. To quote the blog post: “Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects.”

Google’s also saying that the development of Wave taught them a lot, and noted that parts of the code – such as drag-and-drop and character-by-character live typing are now open source so the world can enjoy them and continue to innovate on top of them.

Why did Google Wave fail? Was it a flawed idea? Poor execution? Or does Google just have too much on its plate now?

Feedback – I was never a fan, it was too complicated and too much was going on. The metaphor of email to mail works, chat is an analogy to talking, wave was too abstract

01:25:30 Google Buys Slide – Google this week purchased one of the original “social gaming and apps” creators, Slide, for $182 million. Slide, of course, is the company behind the ubiquitous “Super Poke,” along with numerous other, similar apps that live inside Facebook and MySpace.

That’s a nice chunk of change, but it’s important to consider that Slide received a $500 million pre-money valuation back in 2008 and has taken in $78 million in investment to date.

A follow-up post in TechCrunch noted that, though these numbers may sound disappointing, no one actually lost money on Slide, and several people will walk away with a nice payday, particularly founder (and former PayPal executive) Mex Levchin. It’s estimated he’ll walk away with about $39 million, after having invested about $7 million of his own money in the Series A round.

According to the TechCrunch post, Google also agreed to pay $46 million in employee retention bonuses, ballooning the total cost of the deal to $228 million.

How do you think the investors feel about getting their money back? Is this a disappointment or a win?

And once the “preferred shareholders” get their money out, though…is there going to be anything left for the employees who worked building Slide in exchange for stock? Is this a cautionary tale in how startups work?

Feedback – It might not be true or they may not have all the information. When you get a big number like that it pushes the goal post very far out

01:32:00 NYT Story on Net Neutrality – A controversial New York Times piece on August 4th claimed that Google and Verizon were nearing an agreement that would allow Verizon to privilege certain kinds of Internet content in exchange for a fee, essentially attempting to put a stake in the heart of the prized Internet tenet known as “net neutrality.” Net Neutrality, of course, envisions an Internet where no specific content is favored over another. (The NYT envisioned a scenario in which Google could pay Verizon in order to prioritize YouTube views over those of other streaming video providers.)

According to the Times, the deal would basically involve Google (which provides Android operating systems to many Verizon phones) declining to protest Verizon’s attempts to charge content providers for priority service.

Both Google and Verizon have denied the NYT report, Verizon in a post on its public policy blog and Google with a Tweet. And the story did seem kind of fishy considering Google’s long history of supporting net neutrality efforts.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt later said that he was hoping to make some kind of compromise between the hardcore net neutrality advocacy of “open web” proponents and the hardline view of the telcom companies, and also noted a difference between discriminating against different kinds of data and individual sources of the same kind of data. So, in other words, it’d be okay to say we want video prioritized over audio, but not YouTube over Vimeo.

What do you make of all of this? Do you believe the NYT report or the denials? Is Net Neutrality in immediate danger?

Feedback – The New York Times is wrong Google will not sell out but fiber to homes has stopped and I suspect Google will get into that

01:33:30 TechStars Boulder – 11 new startups launched from the TechStars seed accelerator program in Boulder, Colorado, yesterday, and I know that you were there to see the presentations and launches.

Adstruc: an auction marketplace for outdoor billboard advertising

StatsMix: collaborative custom dashboards for displaying and analyzics website and API metrics

GearBox: toy company that builds toys that interact with smartphones

Vacation Rental Partner: Manage your vacation rental home without hiring a management company

Omniar: visual search that would allow you to look up and find information based on photos. (So take a picture of a painting at a museum and get back relevant info about it.)

Spot Influence: search for influencers on specific topics across the web

BlipSnips: easily share specific moments from a long video across your social graph

Kapost: web content marketplace allowing publishers to utilize a crowd-sourced virtual newsroom approach like we have at Mahalo. Manage remote writers through a WordPress-style interface.

RentMonitor: helps landlords to manage multiple properties keep track of rent collection, advertising, tenant screening, maintenance, etc.

ScriptPad: iPad and iPhone app for doctors allowing them to quickly and safely write prescriptions

RoundPegg: ensure scientifically that new hires fit your company’s culture by suggesting interview questions and psychologically analyzing certain answers

01:42:00 Tuesday’s guest will be the guys from fflick

01:42:45 END

Ustream is the leader in free live video and its platform empowers any individual, public figure or brand to stream to a global audience of unlimited size viewable on the Web and mobile devices. The interactive functionality within Ustream enables real-time engagement with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and AIM to reach millions of people. Follow us on Twitter (@Ustream) or fan at Facebook.com/Ustream.

Jason Calacanis hosts This Week in Startups with guest Adam Bernhard, CEO and Founder of Hautelook.

00:01:00  Open Angel Forum in NY was great

00:01:30  Jason will be speaking:

Aug. 3rd – FoundersShowcase
Aug. 14th – The Audience Conference
Oct. 5th – Future of Web Apps

00:02:00   Adam Bernhard, CEO and Founder of HauteLook (@HauteLook) a flash sales company, they bring in 8 – 10 brand a day and sell approx. 800 different items for a 48 hour period. In the industry it is being coined as Social Commerce and is becoming a major marketing vehicle for brands and a discovery tool for products

Trada is a crowdsourced pay-per-click marketplace, leveraging the skills of more than 500 certified paid search experts.  Mention TWiST and get $100 worth of PPC marketing FREE for every $1,000 you spend on Trada (Max $3,000 spend or $300 bonus).  On average, advertisers who start working with Trada reduce their CPA by 10%!

00:05:30   Ask Jason – Jeff Lee – SevenLunches – How do we get customers without spending too much money?

Answer – Guerilla Marketing is using flyers and any method to get your name infront of anyone. You need a combination of Guerilla and viral emailing. Jason likes to use what he calls the “Control-F” measure. How forwardable is your email, you have to write something good and compelling. By the combination I mean write great emails and enable the restaurants to help you with marketing by placing a promotion in there store that mentions your site. Let your current members be your referral service offer them something for free for referring people that sign-up. You could do something like the DailyD and ask people to suggest new restaurants and bring your requests to them. Consider approaching restaurant associations but bring compelling data so you can show them your successes. One thing you will have to do is temper the expectations of the restaurants while you grow but convince them if they help you grow it will pay dividends in the long run. Focus on one geographical local and get traction, learn and then spread to the national markets.

The Interview

00:16:30  How did you get started? We were in the apparel business as liquidators and saw an opportunity to help brands liquidate excess inventory and thought we could use this as a marketing channel for brands and to enable them to continue to brand building

00:19:00   The customers are educated and recognize brand value but what we break down the geography barrier at an affordable price

00:20:45  In order to see the deals you must be a member

00:21:30  Are their affiliate programs for the industry? We don’t do that we try protect the customers and the brands

00:22:30  What was the inspiration for the business? We were a liquidator and saw the opportunity and an original idea. It was coincidence that we launch 10 days after Gilt. We started out with 4 people and have rapidly grown to 200 employees in 2 years.

00:24:00  What is it like to grow so fast? It makes it fun we many of the people hired are young which fits into our approach. Fashion is fun, fast and always changing.

00:25:00  Are you considering other verticals? We are currently in 11 and launching many more, men’s products will launch Monday, wine and gourmet food will follow soon.

00:26:30  Is their enough excess inventory for all the new companies popping up like this? Brands only want to deal with a few of the major players, so I don’t see this being a problem for us

00:28:00  Do you require exclusive deals? No we have no contracts, these companies are our partners, we don’t buy inventory they buy the event from us that is what we manage

00:29:00  Recently received funding ($31 million) from Insight Venture Partners

00:30:00  Who loses in this type of business? No one really, brand win, maybe the brick and mortar retailers but that is such a big market that they probably win due to us helping the brand

00:34:00  Do you expect 10x growth in 3 years? More than likely the business will look very different by then

00:35:30  Jason predicts people will start to use these services exclusively

00:37:00  IPO soon? We are going to focus on our continued growth but many opportunities are available

00:37:45  Gilt vs. HauteLook are very different business models, Gilt purchases the product and work only with very high end. HauteLook is more casual California style

00:39:30  Will you get in to the media business? Magazines? Video? Partnering with media is interesting, which ties in well with marketing. One thing we do well is gather data and we have real time analytics (like Chartbeat). Which has been a great value for our partners, in one instance we helped them decide whether to build a store in a specific location

Provides fully hosted / managed Microsoft Exchange and Google Apps e-mail

00:43:40  Return rates are very low around 11%

00:44:00  Will you expand globally? No their is plenty of opportunity in the US

00:45:00  What is the toughest thing for you? Deciding where to go next and which opportunity to take, it comes down to magnitude and discount available

00:46:30  What is the profile of the addicted person? Well our users are highly engaged, in one mailing survey we had a 20% open rate in 45 minutes

00:49:50  Can anyone add a product? It has to have an original MSRP

00:50:30  Will HauteLook have a private label? currently no plans to do that but we have plenty of opportunity in this business. UNIQLO is an example of fast fashion in stores in Asia

00:53:00  How does the industry look at them? They are way into the user experience in store and do A/B testing for consumer responces

00:55:30  All goods are first runs in HauteLook

Create Your Opportunity – .CO is the new web address that  gives you a truly global, recognizable and credible option for branding  your online presence.

01:01:00   Contest – one person will win a free domain name (money for the expense paid by Jason) to the person who buys a .co domain and tweets it (include @Jason #TWiST and the domain name you purchased)

The News with Lon Harris

01:02:30   Google/Zynga Partnership – In an interview with the Wall Street Journal this week, Google CEO Eric Schmidt seems to have let the cat out of the bag and confirmed an earlier report by TechCrunch about a Google/Zynga partnership.

When asked about Google’s partnership with Zynga, Mr. Schmidt said “we haven’t announced it” but “you can expect a partnership with Zynga” in the future.

TechCrunch reported back in early July that Google had invested between $100 and $200 million in Zynga and that a strategic partnership was in the works. Neither company had confirmed any of this information since.

Thoughts on what kind of partnership these two may be planning? Is this Google trying to lure people away from Facebook and into its forthcoming Google Me social network? Or does Google possibly have plans to build an open platform for games, to compete more widely with Facebook for the casual gaming audience?

Response: The game is devalue the other guys assets, Facebook will be doing search and ads. 90% or so of Facebook users either upload photos or play games. Jason believes a Zynga / Twitter deal will happen and Zynga will possibly be bigger than Facebook, every site can add a social graph

01:08:00   Facebook Puts Off IPO – According to a report in Bloomberg, Facebook will put off its IPO until 2010, to give Mark Zuckerberg and Co and chance to gain more users and boost sales. The hope is that another year of growth without the scrutiny that would come from a public listing will benefit the company and drive the price higher, while also giving Zuck a shot at improving his leadership and communication skills and allowing some of the recent scandals and controversies to die down. In a TV interview last month, Zuckerberg said Facebook would go public “when it makes sense,” but most had believed this would be some time in 2011. Facebook is currently valued at $24.9 billion and did something between $700 and $800 million in sales last year.

Thoughts? Think we’ll see a Facebook IPO in 2011 or 2012? Is an extra year really going to help?

Response – They can change their minds but why would they leak this? No idea, it maybe about the valuation and bigger expectations. They will probably try increase their EBITDA and will be squeezing the advertisers

01:16:30   Spotify Setbacks – Spotify music service, which has now been launched and popular throughout Europe for some time, continues to struggle with a US launch, and according to Billboard.com, they have experienced yet another setback. Billboard reports that Spotify is back to square one in its negotiations with US record labels, which have essentially rejected the service’s European business model outright. (The European model is basically “freemium.” You can stream music for free if you see ads, or you can pay for a subscription without ads and with mobile access.) Warner Music Group and a few other labels are on the record as disliking the freemium model. Billboard reports that Spotify is basically starting from scratch, asking the labels what kind of model they would need to see in order to allow the company to launch stateside.

Spotify denies the allegations in the Billboard article and claims that they are still planning to launch a US version in 2010. The article also reported that Spotify CEO Daniel Ek had approached Founder’s Fund’s Sean Parker to lead US operations, which Ek has denied.

You’ve had a chance to test out the European Spotify service…Think it will have a shot stateside? Is it crucial that the company launch soon, considering its healthy competition from Pandora, as well as planned streaming music products from Google and Apple on the horizon?

Response: It’s a great service and too good to be true, the music industry will screw it up and music will go to the subscription model

01:24:00   Voyurl – Voyurl is a new service that’s in stealth mode that’s basically Blippy for your Web behavior. You can choose to share with other people a list of what websites you’re visiting (with the obvious option to disable, say, pornographic or other embarrassing sites.) As the site’s welcome page reads:

“A little creeped out? That’s cool. But don’t worry, it’s ok to look. Besides, you can turn off voyurl at any time, for those, ahem, unmentionable sites. Plus, you can set your own filters. See, it’s not that scary.”

TechCrunch is also now reporting that the site has taken out some Google ads for the names of prominent investors, hoping to grab them while they’re Googling themselves. They’re also fundraising using Kickstarter (though they’ve only raised $1,300 so far.)

Think this concept has legs? Would you potentially invest? Do people have any interest in sharing their web behavior in real time with others, especially considering the potential for embarrassment?

Response: It’s basically Blippy for web behavior, the idea has been tried before, people will do it, it’s customizable but it should look like a browser and any site you visit should be public, it’s an interesting idea

01:31:00   Facebook Hacker – A guy named Ron Bowes, a security consultant and map developer, created and uploaded a torrent this week that contains more than 100 million Facebook users’ information. He’s being referred to as a “Facebook Hacker,” and has been accused of a security breach, but claims that all he’s really done is compile publicly-available information in a nice format for easy statistical analysis. Facebook itself says that Bowes’ data is no different than what you’d find in a phone book. Gizmodo is now reporting that several major corporations have gone ahead and downloaded the torrent, based on a scan of IP addresses. Their list includes Apple, the BBC, Disney, Goldman Sachs, HBO, HP, IBM, Intel, Motorola, Pepsi, Procter and Gamble, Viacom and…wait for it…The Church of Scientology!

Did this guy do anything wrong? Would you be concerned to find out your data was included in his Facebook Directory torrent?

Response: He’s indexed the site, you can’t trust Facebook and if you put personal information on the site it’s probably on the torrent. Jason thinks he’s a hero for bringing the issue to light.

Special Thanks to Newtek for the Tricaster, the network wouldn’t have been possible without it, it’s the backbone of what we do.

01:39:00  END

Ustream is the leader in free live video and its platform empowers any individual, public figure or brand to stream to a global audience of unlimited size viewable on the Web and mobile devices. The interactive functionality within Ustream enables real-time engagement with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and AIM to reach millions of people. Follow us on Twitter (@Ustream) or fan at Facebook.com/Ustream.

Jason Calacanis hosts This Week in Startups with guest Rahul Sonnad, Founder and CEO of Geodelic

Trada is a crowdsourced pay-per-click marketplace, leveraging the skills of more than 500 certified paid search experts.  Mention TWiST and get $100 worth of PPC marketing FREE for every $1,000 you spend on Trada (Max $3,000 spend or $300 bonus).  On average, advertisers who start working with Trada reduce their CPA by 10%!

One Gumball Machine Giveaway to a random person who, thanks @Trada and mentions #TWiST

00:06:00 Ask Jason – Ken Kowal – eRoutingGuide – I am having trouble finding my target community (manufacturers), how do I find them?

Answer: You basically are looking for lead generation, create content around the subject and brand it well and make it memorable, write about services they use. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a good approach companies like Trada offer a compelling service. Writing a whitepaper that can be mailed out in a handwritten envelop is an option, it can be pricey but if it leads to a couple customers and your return is high that is an option. Create a really good landing page like 37signals they are good at getting information. Be creative and do something like Grasshopper and the chocolate grasshoppers they sent. The freemium / tiered model like Freshbooks maybe an approach, consider giving away the service for 6 months and ask for reviews. Be creative and they analyze the results.

00:19:30 Behind the Startup – is a new segment where we will follow Jason’s Angel investment in StorkBrokers and look into the initial process of investing, marketing, web design to launch.

StorkBrokers is an online marketplace for parents to sell kids old toys, clothes, books, cribs, bassinets and other stuff.

In this first segment we hear from Sterling Hawkins, StorkBrokers, Founder and Joey Tran of Fortis General Counsel, where they discuss the initial Angel Investment.

Key issues for Jason:

Company Structure – LLC vs C-Corp. – StorkBrokers was originally started as an LLC which isn’t always best when seeking funding in the beginning it works well for tax purposes but they will convert to a Deleware C-Corp. The reason for Delaware is the state is easy to work with and the laws are predictable. Which brings up the issue of existing investors and valuation and how Jason’s investment is integrated.

Intellectual Property – who owns the code? Domain name? Does someone own a small part of the company that may later come back to haunt you? (Anyone ever heard of Facebook?)

Protections – Occurrence of Debt. (basically put an investor wants to be protected so his value isn’t diluted), No one can amend the charter, nor liquidate or increase the number of shares.

Key Issues for Sterling:

What does the investor bring to the table? The value has to be key to the companies growth in order to sell the investor to the other investors.

Different valuation between parties and how much control each investor will have is a balancing act.

The entire process to bring on an Angel Investor to restructure the company and establish the new structure is approx. $10,000

00:41:30 The initial approach will be to bring on a couple more equity partners to bring their expertise instead of paying for their services: PR/SM Firm, Design Firm and Legal

Provides fully hosted / managed Microsoft Exchange and Google Apps e-mail

00:49:00 The Interview with Rahul Sonnad – His first startup was in 1998-99 he was an MP3 fan and wanted to build basically Rhapsody which was an odd concept at the time. He was working at Microsoft and they didn’t want to do it. So he raised some money and paid for so research and immediately got out of the music business and went into hosted video and sold to Comcast in 2006.

00:55:00 2006 was a very good time for an exit but how do you reconcile selling when you decided to sell and do you think about your timing? You think about it a lot but you really don’t know, it’s a personal answer you have to ask yourself if your still interested in the business, have you done due diligence for your investors, are you fully vested in the company.

00:58:00 Once you’ve raised money it’s tough to get more valuation, it’s easier to build another business

01:00:00 So you worked for Comcast how long did you stay? 18 months +1 day, you basically have earn out clauses and you need to transition it into a new company.

01:01:30 How did you come up with the idea for Geodelic? I was fascinated with GPS location services but I was waiting for the right platform. Being best to market isn’t always the right approach but once the iPhone was launch the timing was right.

01:05:00 Will the iPad be the next big thing? The iPad is an element of mobile but HTML5 will be the next big thing that allows you to launch one product it will eventually replace the App. Right now apps are snappier but in time their will be change

01:08:00 What is the premise behind Geodelic? Like back in the day evryone was saying you need a website but in the mobile space you will need an app that is optimized for where you are. So if I walk into a hotel the Geodelic knows where you are and opens up information about that company and it gives them a way to engage people who are at there place of business, the beauty is it’s passive the GPS tells where you are. Our goal is to give companies the toolset to engage people and create their own content.

01:14:00 You have some amazing content right now are you going to create all the data? No we started down the content road but we license the app and enable companies and power users to create the content which is their content that they can take where they choose. We started with content, moved to social networks and game mechanics and will move to financial incentives.

01:18:30 Who owns peoples location data? Apple basically set the standard, you are notified and choose to opt-in or out.

01:19:00 Should this data be anonymous? Yes but from an app maker perspective we are inudated with too much data to really watch anything. However, if someone wanted to create something bad they could as long as the app was running.

01:21:30 How accurate is GPS? Will it get better? 15-30 feet right now but with multiple sources including land based towers it will get better.

Create Your Opportunity – .CO is the new web address that gives you a truly global, recognizable and credible option for branding your online presence.

The News with Lon Harris

01:27:30  Flipboard – New “social media magazine” app Flipboard for the iPad was the week’s most talked-about app, both because of the amazing buzz it got upon release and the technical problems that kept everyone from getting a chance to check out its features.

The app basically takes your Twitter and Facebook feeds and converts them into a magazine-style layout for ease of reading. Unfortunately, a server crash soon after the app launched has kept the vast majority of users locked out of the site’s main features. An upgrade was released that allows you to enter your e-mail address so Flipboard can contact you when the infrastructure received an upgrade, but most people continue to not be able to use the app.

Is this a minor detail no one will remember in a month or two? Or does this kind of crash immediately following launch, and at the height of buzz surrounding the app, hurt its chances of finding a big audience? As Robert Scoble asked: “Is it fair to judge a startup badly based on 24 hours of extraordinary growth?”

It sets itself apart from aggregators and news apps like Pulse in that it doesn’t rely on RSS feeds but instead grabs URL’s directly from social media sites and networks.

However, according to a blog post in Gizmodo, Flipboard may be violating copyright law by scraping content from sites to which it doesn’t own the rights. Flipboard co-founder Evan Doll told the site:

“Flipboard shows short content previews. We do not offer a “full article” view in Flipboard for articles of arbitrary length. If the user wants to read the full article, they tap ‘Read on Web’ and are taken to the full site in an embedded browser.”

Gizmodo notes, however, that plenty of copywritten content, such as Boston.com’s “Big Picture” feature – a slideshow of photos taken from wire services – are fully viewable within Flipboard.

So what do you think? Is Flipboard “fair use”? Do products like Flipboard and Instapaper (which allows you to take content from websites and download it to read later…without ads) violate the rights of content creators to host and sell ads against their own content? Are they opening themselves up to a potential lawsuit?

It’s different fair use is often misunderstood, the question that needs to be asked is did I infringe on their ability to do business?  In this case it’s unfair, if they were using thumbnail images it would be ok, they need to only show a short excerpt and then link to the full story on the original site.

01:33:30  Disney Acquiring Playdom? – Last month, we discussed Disney’s investment of $33 million in Playdom via its venture capital arm, Steamboat Ventures. This brought the total investment in Playdom to $76 million, and set a valuation of about $345 million. Now it appears that Disney may be prepared to acquire Playdom outright. According to TechCrunch, the deal is all but made and is being referred to internally as “Project Platinum.”

Disney recently acquired iPhone game publisher Tapulous, makers of Tap Tap Revolution.

No word yet on what price Disney is prepared to pay for Playdom, though we should note that Zynga, Playdom’s main (but much bigger) competitor, has been valued at around $2 billion.

Does this deal make sense for Disney? Do you expect it to go through?

Disney needs to be in the gaming space, they command a lot of different brand just think of all the opportunities, it was probably leaked because someone has an agenda

01:45:00  Facebook Contract Lawsuit – So, by now, everyone has heard about the lawsuit filed by NY based lawyer Paul Argentieri, alleging that he paid Mark Zuckerberg back in 2003 to create two sites, one of which was called “The Face Book.”

Argentieri has delivered one document to the court which appears to be signed by “Mark Zuckerberg,” and which promises to split 50-50 ownership in Facebook with Argentieri’s client Paul Ceglia in exchange for a fee of $1000. Additionally, the contract promises Ceglia an addition 1% stake in Facebook for every day teh site was late. Thus, Ceglia is suing for 84% of the company, plus damages.

Though admitting that Zuckerberg once worked for Ceglia, Facebook has replied that it “strongly suspects” forgery is involved and called the lawsuit “absurd.”  Zuckerberg told ABC World News: “We were quite sure that we did not sign a contract that says that they have any right to ownership over Facebook.”

Argentieri says he has documents to back up his claim of being a majority stockholder, and called the claims of forgery “reckless and absurd.”

You can see the contract here…http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/07/facebook-suspects-forgery/

Any reason to believe this is a valid case? Even when you consider Ceglia was indicted in NY in 2009 on charges of defrauding people who pre-paid him for heating supplies he never delivered?

They (Facebook) has settled many lawsuits aready, Jason’s trying not to be the “anti-Facebook guy” but the evidence seems to be mounting.  The question is why did they take so long to bring the lawsuit?  Jason thinks the suit will be settled.

01:54:00  Betable – Betable.com is a new site where users can create their own bets and then share them with friends. The company is describing themselves as “Twitter for Betting,” and is hoping to be a place where regular people who would like to place bets with friends can go online to organize these sorts of ventures easily. (Zynga for Betting might be more accurate).

Here’s how it works. Betable takes 10% of the profits on all bets. Users get 30% of the proceeds from a big they’ve created. Anyone who places a bet has their money taken up front to guarantee that winners get paid. Bets can be shared on Facebook or Twitter automatically, so your friends needn’t already be on Betable for you to invite them to place a bet. And because it’s social, Betable hopes that means that people don’t scam one another by placing fake bets or claiming false victories.

The company has launched in the UK, where gambling laws are a bit looser than in the US, but the entire team, including CEO and founder Christopher Griffin,is here in the states.

The company has secured a $3 million in funding from Atomico, a venture fund created by Sykpe founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis.

Are you surprised to hear a VC firm taking a stake in what is technically a gambling site? Or is this “social” enough to get around the concerns over online gaming?

As long as it’s only available in the UK this is a great idea it wouldn’t be legal here.

02:01:30  End

Jason Calacanis hosts This Week in Startups: Global Meetup

00:01:00 Meetup.com recently created a global platform and found their initial success with Howard Dean’s campaign in 2004

Create Your Opportunity – .CO is the new web address that gives you a truly global, recognizable and credible option for branding your online presence.

00:11:15 London – James Kennedy (Organizer) – Lieven Van Marcke – gnuTrade – is a financial trading company that brings you new ways to trade the markets and a completely new type of trading screen that also features a play before you trade game. Allowing you to learn before you spend real money but eventually when you are ready allows you to switch to real trading on their own platform. >20k registered users and they want to raise $800k

Feedback – It’s a great way to learn at your own pace, Tyler (a prior trader) asks about execution time, which is 3-4 seconds but will improve with the new infrastructure planned. The domain name is bad (Jason bought NewTrade.co for them), get a professional designer and improve your color palate for version 2

00:29:30 Madrid – Javier Rincon (Organizer) – Raphael – JaraTech – Recruiting from outside the organization is an expensive and inefficient way to fill roles. It can, according to some estimates, cost between five and seven times as much to recruit someone from outside the organization than it does to promote from within. Our tools will help you filling this gap.

While talent management and succession planning elucidate and manage the long-term development of human capital, our employee performance management tools are designed to help managers get the most out of their staff. You will be able to set goals according to personal ability and strategic objectives, assessing employee performance and attributing reward accordingly.

Feedback – You are in the right space and you can save companies a lot of money. CraigsList is still winning but there is a lot of room to improve.

00:41:50 Rotterdam – Pascal Lindelauf (Organizer) – Ins & Outs – There’s tons of product information sites out there. We know. But on almost all of them, the focus is on selling the item or finding the store that sells the product at the best price. Reviews and opinions are second-class citizens. And even if they have a prominent place, then the reviews and opinions are written by the occasional consumer.
We found that there is actually no place for a product expert (being someone who works in that particular product business or simply a product enthusiast) to have his voice heard and showcase his expertise.

Feedback – Great domain name and branding, consider dropping the voting and using a score and curating the reviews similar to Metacritic. Pay someone to summarize others reviews, there are plenty of opinion but not enough curration.

00:58:45 Maldives – Shafiu Hussein (Organizer) – Ask Jason – What are the barriers for a VC or Angel to invest in a company a long ways away?

Answer – Generally VC and Angels won’t invest in companies over an hour away, some will travel by plane short distances but you need to find someone local. Try build an Angel investment community by finding someone successful in your area and play to their ego. Because, you live in such a romote location take a successful (locally oriented) idea from another country (like Groupon) and create it in your country. Play to your strengths which is little competition you could easily start a podcast and provide lead generation for the tourist industry.

01:12:30 Pittsburg – John Ganotis (Organizer) – Held at AlphaLabs an incubator that looks like a good deal ($25k for 5% and maintaining a significant presence in Pitt for 5 years). – Nick – Shoefitr – Shoefitr helps people find the perfect fit with 3d imaging, they scanned 440 running shoes and have the fit down to a milimeter.

Feedback – The idea is brillant, what was the moment you created up with the idea? All 3 founders are athletes and are acustomed to buying shoes online, they would try them on in a store and then go find them cheaper online. They originally wanted to scan shoes and peoples feet but realized that wouldn’t work so they developed scanning and comparing shoes. Jason recommends working out a deal with Zappos who is already considering the product. Landing Zappos will bring in all the other deals, the business model is based on small commission per sale.

01:27:00 Paris – Kirsten Winkler (Organizer) set a new benchmark for the global meetups with @TWiSTParis and TwistParis – YooCasa – Is a gaming / fun site for family members to spend quality time with each other when one person is away. Targets the 2 – 10 years olds because kids like to experience things at that age not talk.

Feedback – Great Idea, what platform is it built on? Adobe which allows for a very robust experience. You may want to integrate a mobile app. It already works with the droid.

01:37:00 Charlotte – Les Porter (Organizer) – Sara Branson – XceedMD – Electronic medical records SaaS delivered in a way that Doctors prefer, streamlines to fit the examination, product is in beta and has been used for over a year and is 70% complete, pricing will be monthly per Doctor.

Feedback – definitely the industry is moving in this direction but the government regulation maybe a not so fun hurdle.

01:50:00 San Deigo – Craig Stern (Organizer) – held at eBoost Consulting – Jason Kirby – Amaranth For Africa – a plant that provides 75% of daily nutrition, it’s oils are widely used and has a harvest time of 60 days and it’s not commercialized, the plan is to bring microfranchising to Kenya and help bring local companies together.

Feedback – You are teaching people to fish which is always a good approach, go to Kickstarter or IndieGoGo to help seed your idea.

02:04:40 Los Angeles – Marriage – will be the wedding and marriage network. We’re sitting on some great real estate here, so we decided to share it with members of our community. Engaged and married couples, along with wedding and marriage professionals, will be able to have their own exclusive marriage.com page and blog.

Feedback – The domain name is unreal I’m sure it is worth a lot but my expectations are to get all the tools I’d need to get married, the domain name brings with it high expectations. You may want to get a celebrity face to help get traction but this may not be your best idea for this site.

02:29:00 Shoefitr wins the second Global Meetup award for best pitch and product.

Sept. 22nd will be the next Startup Meetup focusing on Asia

02:34:30

Jason Calacanis hosts This Week in Startups with guest Susan Choe, CEO and Founder of Outspark

Ustream is the leader in live video with more than 75 million monthly viewers. The platform empowers any individual, public figure or brand to stream to a global audience of unlimited size.  Ustream offers free broadcasting and viewing platforms for theWeb and mobile devices. Follow on Twitter or fan at Facebook.

00:02:00 This Week In Startups Global Meetup, Tuesday July 20th at 11am PST

00:05:00 We have a tough time finding women CEOs that are Founders of very successful technology companies and and we are please to have Susan Choe of Outspark joining us

00:06:30 Outspark has been operation for 3.5 years and publishes free MMOs to play and people pay for elements and features, the concept has been widely used in Asia and they bring many games from that region.

00:09:30 The idea to actually start her own business came from her time at Yahoo trying to achieve the same thing but decided to go out on her own

00:11:30 How many employees and players do you have? 50 employees in San Francisco, 10 in Asia and have 6.5 million registered users

00:12:15 Are the games appealing to Americans? Outspark focuses on US, Canada, UK and Germany and appeal to everyone, revenue is in the double digit millions

00:13:45 What are the revenue expectations when you launch a new game? 10-15% pay $45-50 a month for 4 – 8 months and media companies are starting to approach them for virtual goods

00:15:30 Who is spending money on these games? Everyone, society is looking for something more interesting than movies

00:17:45 What is the record spending for one person? We have had one family spend $120,000

00:18:30 What is it like being a female CEO? Female CEOs should be judged the same as male CEOs it’s all about performance and execution, once guys get over it we all have fun achieving the same results, gender shouldn’t matter

00:20:00 Do you think less women want to be CEOs? Traditionally men do it but Susan finds it fun, people need to give women a chance

00:23:30 VC’s do profile and usually go on trends

00:24:00 What is the most important thing for social media games to focus on? Observation, they need to focus on what the players are doing what trends are occurring in game, you ust look at creative ways to engage and solve problems

00:27:00 Why are these games addictive? Online games allow you to live a life that maybe more fuller than your own. Player archetypes form in game and are necessary (alpha player, socialite, collector and observer) to create a community.

00:30:00 Will we see these on the iPad? The business is downloadable if the hardware meets the minimum spec people will be able to use it

00:31:15 Will HTML5 be robust enough as a gaming platform? Success isn’t about the format it’s about game design and keeping people engaged (look are some of the successful games graphically they aren’t appealing it’s about game play)

Provides fully hosted / managed Microsoft Exchange and Google Apps e-mail

00:33:45 ASK JASON – Adam Bunnell – Built a plan to incorporate videos and college recruitment with more detailed information than currently given. When a project gets out of control, what is the best way to proceed?

Answer – this happens to Jason at times, you feel like you are drowning in opportunity, knowing where you are in your career and what skills you posses will help an eliminate certain avenues and start off with the road of least resistance. How do you plan to monetize? Charge the students a subscription fee, colleges and student credit card companies are an opportunity. Buy some flip cams and start off with a YouTube channel and be the unauthorized real world version for 5 – 10 schools in your area, this will show a body of work when you seek funding. Give people the sense that you are showing people something the school doesn’t want you to see. Jason likes to use OneLook (as a reverse dictionary for naming) and just because someone else is in the space isn’t a reason not to go for it.

Soon  launching WebSpy Soho – Easily monitor Home & Small Network bandwidth usage, Internet  connection speed and much more – Test Alpha version

THE NEWS with Lon Harris

00:51:45 Apple Announcement – Steve Jobs this morning offered something of an apology to Apple fans about the iPhone 4′s now-infamous reception and antenna problems, which he called “Antennagate.” He said “We’re not perfect, phones aren’t perfect. But we want to make all our users happy” during this morning’s press briefing. Though he said that he thinks the issues have been blown out of proportion, and that only half of 1% of iPhone 4 users had actually complained (which is, when you think about it, a pretty high number), he also noted that he takes criticism of Apple personally and takes pains to communicate directly with users rather than farm out these kinds of issues to PR people. His proposed solution? iPhone users who have reception troubles will get free protective bumpers for their units.

The New York Times reported last night that Apple would not announce a recall this morning despite rumors all week to the contrary.

According to a report in Bloomberg, Ruben Caballero, a senior engineer at Apple and an antenna expert, informed senior management that the iPhone 4 design was flawed and could potentially hurt phone reception, though the source of this information was not revealed. Allegedly, a carrier partner also raised a red flag about the issue prior to the release.

Despite the issues, Apple broke sales records with iPhone 4, selling 1.7 devices in the first three days of its release.

Will this have any long term effects? Steve Jobs is the best CEO ever, he’s gangsta, the illness may have given him a new look and he just takes care of business. The battery of the iPhone 4 is 3 times better, camera is amazing, processor is snappier, great screen, however, no one app makes it better they just inproved on the base product

00:59:15 New MySpace Profile and Threadbox Acquisition – A big week for MySpace. First, the company announced that it was acquiring the team and assets of social messaging service ThreadBox, a Palo Alto-based firm that focused on melding e-mail and instant messaging into a collaboration tool. It’s expected that MySpace will use the acquisition to improve its own internal user communications system. No word on how much MySpace is paying for Threadbox’s team and assets, but the company had raised $2 million from angel investors after launching at the DEMO conference in 2009.

Then on Thursday night, ThisWeekIn host and MySpace VP Sean Percival tweeted out a new MySpace page, debuting what he called a “clean new profile.” The new profiles aren’t rolled out site-wide yet, and MySpace has confirmed that they are just meant as a test, and designed to encourage feedback from the community…

According to TheNextWeb, the Twitter response has been mixed, and it’s still unclear what exactly has changed and what hasn’t about features and options as of yet.

It’s certainly a lot easier on the eyes, and more organized, than the previous incarnation of MySpace, and it’s notable how much emphasis has been placed on integrating “Videos by Sean Percival” into the overall layout.

What do you think of the new MySpace profile? Will the public’s concern over Facebook privacy issues coupled with a slick new design be enough to put them back on top, or start earning MySpace some attention once more?

Yes, they have a chance at re-engaging people and bringing them back, people need to know they can trust the new management team to itterate when necessary. It’s the first thing that has been executed well with the new management team.

01:03:45 HelvetiNote

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01:06:00 FrontierVille Hits 20 Million Monthly Users – Social gaming champions Zynga have another massive hit on their hands, it seems. After about 5 weeks, their newest game, Frontier Ville, has hit 20 million monthly users, with around 6 million Daily Active users. Some other quick states:

6.3 million people have built a cabin
2.3 million people are married in the game
252 million snakes have been clobbered
128 million bears have been scared away

FrontierVille is currently the company’s third most popular game of all time, behind FarmVille and Poker.

Is this an indication that Zynga has real staying power, or are these users just jumping ship from FarmVille to FrontierVille. In other words, can Zynga continue to grow its audience by releasing new games? How significant is this milestone?

Probably a lot of crossover players, Has Zynga hit critical mass? No they have more platforms available like the iPad

01:09:30 Ze Frank Games – Video blogger and “performance artist” Ze Frank has received $500,000 from a group of VC’s and angel investors to start a stealth project known as “Ze Frank Games,” though the specific nature of the project remains shrouded in secrecy. Investors include Andressen Horowitz, Founder Collective, Ron Conway’s SV Angel, betaworks, Gary Vaynerchuk and more.

Frank has remained exceptionally vague about his plans, but told TechCrunch “the company is still in stealth mode, but it will involve social gaming and will be influenced heavily by what I’ve learned about play and participation over the last ten years with projects like The Show and Color Wars.” He’s also been hiring a front-end developer and a graphic designer.

Color Wars, you’ll recall, was a project Ze Frank took up on Twitter to organize people into groups and give them “challenges.” Gary V said he invested not so much because of the project but because he wanted to be involved with Ze himself. Chris Dixon of the Founder Collective said “Ze is a genius and he’s going to do amazing stuff.”

Would you give Ze Frank money on the basis of his reputation alone, without knowing exactly what he’s up to? What do you think Ze Frank Games will be?

No Jason would not invest without knowing the plan, he believes something has to be outlined it is big news that a video blogger is able to get a big investment however social gaming feels overdone

01:14:20 Metaweb Acquired by Google – Google announced on its official blog this morning that it has acquired semantic search startup Metaweb, though the terms of the deal have not been disclosed. Metaweb maintains Freebase, an “open shared database of the world’s knowledge,” which is sort of like the Wikipedia of data, and also develops semantic data storage. Obviously, on one level, owning Freebase will make Google’s search more intelligent, as it now has a massive almanac of data that’s readable by its software. Metaweb says it will continue to support existing partners, but won’t take on any new partners. The company had raised close to $60 million from investors including Benchmark Capital and Goldman Sachs.

How is owning Metaweb going to help Google, and how significant of a boost will it be? Isn’t this basically paying for what they already tried to accomplish with Google Base?

If it comes out that it was bought for less than $180 million this was a talent buy because Google should be able to do the same thing, the price will be the tell

01:22:30 END

This week we have guest host Jason Nazar, Co-Founder and CEO of Docstoc and Brian Lee, Co-Founder of LegalZoom & Founder of ShoeDazzle.

Ustream is the leader in live video with more than 75 million monthly viewers. The platform empowers any individual, public figure or brand to stream to a global audience of unlimited size. Ustream offers free broadcasting and viewing platforms for theWeb and mobile devices. Follow on Twitter or fan at Facebook.

00:03:00 ShoeDazzle takes peoples information and recommends fashion items primarily shoes, Kim Kardashian is a Co-Founder and spokeman

00:05:30 How many shoes do women buy a year? 9 on average per year

00:06:00 Giveaway – a one year subscription will be given to a person who tweets something creative that includes @shoedazzle and includes #twist winner will be choosen at random

00:07:30 Are you a LA native? Yeah Brian grew up in Orange County and went to UCLA for undergrad and graduate school, his father is an entrepreneur, he worked for his businesses and his parents were shocked he wanted to be a lawyer

00:08:45 How long did you practice law? 3 years Were you a good student? Not necessarily he was towards the bottom.

00:09:30 Brian Lee and Brian Liu were friends at law school and they would eat lunch everyday and say their has to be something better than this, being a lawyer wasn’t exciting, one day in 1998-9 they thought the internet was hot and thought why not create something law related online.

00:11:00 Approx. 92% of people who represent themselves they do something wrong and thought this was the opportunity

00:15:00 How did you meet and get Robert Shapiro (OJ Trial) involved? They thought they need a credibility and trust factor to get people to use the service, none of their friends or family knew him so Brian cold called him late at night not expecting to get him but he answered the phone. Initially Robert said he was not interested and Brian convinced him to hear his pitch and the rest is history

00:19:00 First VC meeting was the day the NASDAQ crashed in 2000 and all they had was a team and an idea but no real product, yet they believed in the idea 100% and decided to bootstrap, they raised $50k from friends and family

00:21:00 How did you grow the company? We were profitable from day 1

00:22:00 They were able to grow the company because they were lucky and used GoTo.com in the beginning

00:26:00 They currently have about 400 employees and did bring in a professional management team to run day to day operations

00:27:00 How did you decide to bring in others to run your company? Brian Yiu the other founder was a better manager and he grew things a bit but they decided to bring in a group to continue the growth

00:28:00 What are you good at? I wouldn’t say I’m better but I’m good at coming up with ideas, I’m creative

00:29:00 When should people start paying themselves a salary? Not until the company can afford the burn rate

00:29:45 What is the value of a co-founder? Invaluable everyone brings something to the table and it works best if both have different strengths

00:31:30 How important was Robert Shapiro? Absolutely invaluable he brought credibility, PR and Buzz

00:32:50 LegalZoom currently does 10% of all incorporations

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00:35:30 Kim Kardashian is a co-founder and was not a cold call, Robert worked with her family and they wanted to leverage the same celebrity as they did with LegalZoom

00:37:30 How did you come up with ShoeDazzle? His wife was a big influence, she would come back with a big bill on shoes and it came from the experience of buying the shoes that came with a referral, one of the ladies at a store would put shoes a side and she would pick from the selection and it made her feel great.

00:39:45 The two businesses are actually alike in the sence that they ask for information and a specific product is recommended, he believes many companies will bring real world experiences online and it’s all about entertainment and engagement

00:41:30 They launched ShoeDazzle in March 2009 and raising money was much easier they raised >$21 Million

00:43:30 They have over 120K registered users, everything has been organic and word-of-mouth, they use 15 Minutes PR firm

00:45:40 What happens if a shoe is bought? The inventory risk is limited in the fact that they has 120K user, only 5 choices of shoes a month and they hand pick the shoes

00:47:00 What is the next big challenge for ShoeDazzle? We will be hiring a professional CEO

00:49:45 Do you plan on going into men’s shoes? We haven’t decided but we have branched off into handbags

00:50:45 Is Kim considered a Co-Founder? Yes, she has equity in the company

00:53:00 What qualities do you look for when hiring? Smart, hardworking, belief in the company

00:55:30 What mistakes have you learned to avoid when interviewing? Hiring based on common interests

01:02:00 What is your biggest mistake? Not planning enough for growth, he has always felt like hiring was behind the curve

01:03:00 Biggest mentor? His father

01:06:30 Jason Calacanis and interviewing, what do you look for? Passion is the key to interviewing

01:09:30 How do you motivate your team? I believe people will channel the energy of your leader

01:14:30 THE NEWS with Lon Harris

01:15:00 iPhone 4 Recall? – Kind of a rough week for Apple with all these issues surrounding the iPhone 4 antenna. Wired’s Epicenter blog is reporting that the company deleted threads from its official message boards that linked to a Consumer Reports review of the phone which stated that the publication “can’t recommend” the phone based on the antenna problems. (Consumer Reports, by the way, suggests adding a strip of duct tape over the antenna on the lower left corner.) A number of PR experts are now saying that Apple will be forced to do a recall of the iPhone 4 in order to salvage its brand image and public reputation. Chris Lehane, a former Clinton White House advisor, has compared the iPhone 4′s issues with Toyota’s recalls and insists that the company must come forward with a meaningful fix. So far, Apple has admitted there is a problem with reception on the phone but has stated that it is a software rather than a hardware issue. (The company says the problem is the phone misreporting signal strength, and that they will issue a software patch to amend the problem.)

Do you think Apple will recall the iPhone 4? What do you think of the way the company has responded to the issue publicly thus far?

This article won’t make a difference people are still buying the iPhone, this is just a press grab, it’s the best smartphone but not the best phone

01:18:30 Reddit Begs for Money – News recommendation service Reddit, which is owned by Conde Nast, has gone public about its need for additional funds in order to hire more people and buy new servers, to keep the service running. Thus far, about 6,000 users have donated to the site and joined what they’re calling “Reddit Gold,” out of a total of about 8 million daily unique visitors (280 million pageviews per month). Reddit says their goal is to turn Reddit Gold into a genuine “subscription service,” though thus far the details are cloudy and there seem to be no benefits to subscribing aside from the undying gratitude of the Reddit team and a badge to put on your profile page.. On Friday night, you’ll recall, Reddit published a blog post basically asking for users to donate money to help them out, despite being owned by profitable company Conde Nast. They explained that, though Reddit has a lot of users and traffic, they do not have a lot of revenue. “corporations aren’t run like charities. They keep separate budgets for each business line, and usually allocate resources proportionate to revenue. And reddit’s revenue isn’t great.”

What do you think of Reddit – and by extension, Conde Nast – a major conglomerate – asking for money in order to keep Reddit going? Think the users will donate a significant sum? How else could they monetize what, by all accounts, is a massively successful service.

The community loves Reddit and is extremely loyal but they have no business model, users need to be realistic and Reddit needs to figure out the value added for donations, it shows how poor a job Conde Nast did in the intregration

01:27:00 WSOP 2010 – Wicked Chops Poker – He went out with aces and made it to the top 3,000 out of 7,500 and lost his bet with David Sacks and will do a double or nothing on Full Tilt Poker with proceeds going to charity

01:33:00 Fring vs. Skype – Last week, Fring released an iPhone app that allows iPhone 4 users to engage in unrestricted 2-way video calling over WiFi or 3G with any other iPhone, Android or Symbian devices. This was obviously a significant advance over iPhone’s native FaceTime app, which only allows for video chat with other iPhone users over WiFi. Shortly after releasing the new features, and in the face of a massive uptick in video calling, Fring reduced support for Skype, which it has long supported. Fring is now reporting that Skype has blocked them and is threatening to sue after 4 years of working together. Fring also released a blog post in which they referred to Skype as “cowards”:

“They are afraid of open mobile communication. Cowards. Needless to say, we are very disappointed that Skype, who once championed the cause of openness is now trying to muzzle competition, even at the expense of its own users. We’re sorry for the inconvenience Skype has caused you.”

Skype told TechCrunch that they’re debating behind the scenes with Fring about how to operate in accordance with their Terms of Use and License agreements. Skype also claims that they have not blocked Fring, but that their service was halted on Fring’s end. Fring has disputed this version of events.

What do you think of Skype’s actions here? Are they behaving in a cowardly fashion? As an open platform, do they have the right to refuse to work with any other networks that they choose?

When you are loosing or new you are open and when you are winning you are closed

01:41:06 END

This week we have a special guest host Jason Nazar (TWiST #6) CEO and Founder of Docstoc interviewing guest J.R. Johnson, CEO and Founder of Lunch.

00:01:45 ASK JASON – Scott Klein – Sound Around – We’re in second place in our market, how will pricing affect my product moving forward?

Answer: Congrats on your business, generally I wouldn’t worry about being second in a market I’d worry about being better and cutting prices isn’t always the right place to start to gain market share. Work on marketing and connecting with bands, people don’t necessarily know you are second in a market. Work on promoting yourself. You need to work on 4 things:
Don’t discount hustle and just work harder
If you really want to try discounting, do it for a limited time
Do some financial modeling, make some assumptions and see where you stand
A/B testing different prices maybe an option

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If you tweet #TWiST @JasonNazar @JRLunch and @DNAmail we will pick one winner who will receive a free month of DNAmail service

00:12:45 JASON’S SHARK TANK – Scott McIntosh – MusikPitch – Allows people to create a contest for custom music for any project, similar to 99designs but for Music

Pitch Feedback: You spent too long trying to describe the value of your product, consider shortening that part and adding your business model and market size and who is your primary customer.

General Feedback: It sounds like you have the classic marketing problem, you have supply but need more demand, focus on trying to get customers that need multiple songs and offer a multi-tiered prcing model to entice these people or consider offering something for a quick sale.

Soon launching WebSpy Soho – Easily monitor Home & Small Network bandwidth usage, Internet connection speed and much more – Test Alpha version

00:30:20 J.R. Johnson started off as an attorney and after 18months left to pursue his dream with a startup

00:31:15 Are you from an entrepreneurial family? Not at all, he’s from a family of lawyers and what he didn’t like is that being a lawyer has very little creativity you are mainly stuck in past precident

00:32:30 Growing up all along he had the entrepreneurial bug and while attending USC he was part of the entrepreneurial program

00:34:30 At school he listened to all the success stories and realized that these guys were just ordinary people and figured he could do it, often when reading about people they can sound intimidating so hearing from them was extremely important.

00:37:00 Did being a lawyer or going to graduate school help you? No in law school you read about all the things that can go wrong and often graduate school is a hinderance. However, the critical thinking and being able to articular well in written form was learned in grad. School.

00:41:00 Where did the idea for your first company VirtualTourist come from and what was it? It was basically a review site for the travel industry and was sold to Expedia, he ran it from ’99 – ’08. The idea started on a trip to Germany when he met two guys who were starting vTourist and he self funded $263k with friends and family and moved them to the US.

00:43:00 Was it a tough sale getting the guys to move to the US? Not in 99 the internet boom was still happening and his lifestyle afforded the risk.

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00:47:00 How did you get people to submit reviews? Because old Google search placed a lot of importance on domain age they usually ranked high and people clicked them first. However, user generated content at the time was not common back then.

00:49:30 How did you market your company? We didn’t it was all SEO

00:50:30 If you knew how difficult it would be, would you have done it? No

00:51:00 What was it like to ask friend and family for money? Back then it wasn’t hard at all, everyone was getting rich from the internet. When things got tough then it was tough facing people.

00:53:00 What motivated you to stick with it? Stubbornness

00:55:00 When did things turn around? People continually added reviews but when they were able to insert ad links things turned around

00:56:00 What didn’t you know going into your startup? Basically everything, I knew nothing about the travel industry, I recommend if are interested in an industry go work for them and learn while you get paid.

01:00:00 Entrepreneur Superhero, is July 14th, what are you best at? Persistence and not giving up

01:01:30 He almost sold the company in 2005 to Internet Brands, which ended up getting them in legal trouble, he signed a terms sheet that included a breakup fee, they won but he didn’t get a lawyer and failed to notice the clause, be sure to get a good lawyer.

01:05:00 Basically sold VirtualTour because he wanted to start Lunch, a feature rich site that allows you to create communities about niche areas of interest, it’s basically a mini-Yelp.

01:07:30 Why the name Lunch? It’s just a great name?

01:08:55 What is different your second time around? I took 17 hand picked people from VirtualTourist but my burn rate from day one is much higher but I have a bigger vision.

01:09:00 What are you like as a boss? Laid-back I don’t micromanage, I like to go to work and I want employees that feel the same.

01:11:30 What characteristics do you look for when hiring? People who are smart and hustle

01:13:30 What is next for lunch? Communities are taking off but finding people with the founder mentality is tough but fun to watch how they manage people

01:17:15 Will you continue to build companies? Right now I am too focused on Lunch but if I wasn’t doing this I’d probably be focused on philanthropic endeavors.

Ustream is the leader in live video with more than 75 million monthly viewers. The platform empowers any individual, public figure or brand to stream to a global audience of unlimited size. Ustream offers free broadcasting and viewing platforms for theWeb and mobile devices. Follow on Twitter or fan at Facebook.

THE NEWS with Lon Harris

01:19:00 New Apple TV – Rumors abound about the next version of Apple’s set-top box, the Apple TV. Engadget reported earlier this year that the new Apple TV will run on iOS, the same operating system as the iPhone and iPad, but now we have some more gossip to report.

In addition to streaming content directly from the cloud (as opposed to the iTunes model of downloading content first and then playing it), it’s been rumored that Apple will push 99 cent streaming TV rentals, as opposed to the $1.99-$2.99 current pricing structure. (Rentals would apparently work in much the same fashion as current iTunes rentals – once rented, it’s available for 30 days, and once you push play, you get it for 24 hours.)

Think viewers will prefer Apple’s 99 cent rental model over the Hulu Plus and Netflix subscription model? Will any of these services break America of its reliance on standard subscription-model cable TV?

The products aren’t their yet, sports will be very difficult to bring to the internet, it’s tough to get licensing, it get’s expensive at the end of the month and prices aren’t going down maybe when the distribution forces prices lower it may succeed.

01:23:45 Facebook Acquires Nextstop – According to a blog post on the startup’s site, Facebook is acquiring social travel recommendation service Nextstop. Nextstop, launched in 2009, combined a travel search engine with a recommendation and reputation system, creating essentially a social game based on popular travel destinations. The site was launched in ealry 2009 by former Google employees Carl Sjogreen and Adrian Graham, who had been part of the teams behind Google Calendar and Picasa.

Most of Nextstop’s employees and assets will go to Facebook, though the site plans to release all of its current recommendations and content under a Creative Commons license.

Think this was primarily a talent acquisition, with Facebook looking to hook up with some former Google product people? Or is it an indication that Facebook has big plans for socializing travel?

Travel is getting hot again with Google buying ITA but it’s probably about acquiring good talent

01:27:35 Blizzard Real ID – World of Warcraft developers Blizzard have touched off a massive controversy by announcing their intention to force people to post to their message boards using their real names, not a username. The change will supposedly take effect starting with the forthcoming release of the long awaited “StarCraft II” and will eventually apply to World of Warcraft in a few months when the new “Cataclysm” expansion pack is released.

Blizzard says that it is moving to the new system to decrease the need for moderation on its forums. Blizzard fans offered a variety of arguments for why this is an invasion of privacy, or just a bad policy, including the threats of stalkers for female gamers, the threats of violence against gamers of both genders who upset particularly hostile or emotional companions and a negative impact that posting about a game could have on someone’s professional situation.

Do the fans have a point here? Should Blizzard continue to allow people to post anonymously, even if it downgrades the overall quality of the conversation? Is there a genuine privacy issue here, or are people just being oversensitive?

This is a bad idea, people escape into roleplaying games for a reason and it’s a game

01:31:00 MapQuest to Adopt Wikipedia Model? – MapQuest, the OTHER mapping service that’s currently #2 behind Google Maps, has announced that it will launch a new site based on the project OpenStreetMap, which crowd-sources user-generated maps and has become popular in Europe. The project, which will launch in the UK but can be applied to any location worldwide, will have $1 million dedicated to it in the US alone by MapQuest’s parent company, AOL.

Though for now, MapQuest itself will continue to rely on purchased maps owned by the company, the hope may be that it one day could shift to maps that users keep track of themselves and update with local information. The company notes that users can be more detail-oriented about their communities than purchased maps, and that they can update quickly in the event of traffic, construction and even items of specialized interest like wheelchair ramps.

We’ve seen that the public will update sites like Wikipedia for free, though the veracity of the updates is sometimes questionable. Will the same apply to maps on a for-profit website? Do you think the public could improve the MapQuest project and once again make it competitive with Google Maps?

No I doubt most people will trust it, Google has satellites how can you argue with that?

01:34:35 Open Letter to Fans from Cavaliers Majority Owner Dan Gilbert – Sounds like some letters we’ve heard about from Jason but you gotta feel bad for Cleveland

01:42:45 END

Jason Calacanis hosts This Week in Startups All Jayter Show.

02:24 Sponsor Break

Jayters

04:55 - Call #1: Melissa Ulto (aka Miixxy)

Complaint: As a freelancer, she resented Jason’s request for freelancers to submit Launch Conference logo designs for free. She feels that, as Jason stands to profit from the conference, and has enough funds from previous investments and companies, he could easily afford to hire a talented designer and compensate them fairly rather than attempting to exploit free labor by making empty promises for tweets and exposure. Thinks Jason is a “cheap millionaire”

Key Quote: “i’m an idiot because i believe you should pay designers for their work? actually, that’s employment law. look it up. :)”

Submitted the following preview of the coming argument: YouTube Video

30:54 Sponsor Break

31:38 Sponsor Break

31:55 Call #2: Ben Cook (aka Skitzzo)

Complaint: Skitzzo is an SEO who refers to Mahalo as a “spam factory” and strongly disagrees with the recent decision to change the site’s Terms of Service, which he feels is unfair to freelance writers. He feels that Jason is “stealing” from writers who believed they would earn revenue share for the work they put in to their pages. He also feels Jason should allow Mahalo writers to take their content off of his site and place it elsewhere on the Web.

Key Quote: “Jason Calacanis, Mahalo’s founder, has responded to the criticism of this move in several places. Unfortunately, none of the responses actually address the fact that his company is stealing money from the pockets of the very people who helped build his site.”

Runs the SEO Blog Skitzzo
Feels that people mocking Jason’s poker-playing against Doyle Brunson distracts from the “real issues”
1:08:13 Call #3: Dan Murphy (aka Domurtag)

Complaint: Objects to what he calls Jason’s “narcissistic personality, constant self-promotion and outright lying.” He feels Jason has been repeatedly proved to be a liar and a hypocrite in TechCrunch and points to blog posts on the SEO blog “Smackdown!” as evidence.

Key Quote: (From Twitter) “First episode of #TWiPkr tonight. I bet it features @Jason explaining how his poker playing is as incredible as his business skills?”

A frequent fixture in the ThisWeekIn chat rooms.

This week we have Neil Young, CEO and Founder of ngmoco the maker of We Rule. Jason Calacanis hosts This Week in Startups at 1pm PT Tuesdays and Fridays.

00:02:30 The Launch Conference will be Feb. 23rd & 24th at the San Francisco Design Center

00:03:30 Friday’s show will be a special “All Jason Haters” episode, Aaron Wall, @Miixxy you are invited and if you see yourself as a Jayter please contact Lon@thisweekin.com to set up your chance for an interview.

00:11:15 Thank you to Drobo for helping us out with the DroboElite

00:15:15 THE INTERVIEW with Neil Young

00:15:30 Tell me a little about ngmoco and when you got your start? Created June 26, 2008, Neil used to work for EA, he loved the iPhone and saw a great opportunity, they currently have 25 apps and 16 apps have been in the top 10, 110 employees and their company really was a hit when they switched to a free to play model

00:17:40 2.5M unique downloads and high hundreds of thousands play daily

00:18:30 Why is the game so addictive? They utilize simple core compulsion loops combined with social expression of design and social obligation features

00:21:20 Do you have people the area psychology majors working for you? No but as game makers we have learned along the way and understand how people play games

00:22:45 Reciprocation effect

00:25:30 What is the most activity you’ve witnessed? We don’t really look at individual use it alters reality, we try look at general stats, primarily number of friends, we have had people spend $10,000 on Mojo (in game potions that allow you to speed things up)

00:31:45 What is the future of iPad gaming? It’s a huge marketplace, we envisioned .5-1B iPhone like devices and still think app gaming is a huge opportunity, creatively we are only in the beginning.

00:37:40 Male v Female ratio of players? 55% male and 45% female

00:38:30 With free apps one can generally expect 60% iTouch (younger users) and 40% iPhone

00:39:30 Will we be able attack other kingdoms? Not sure, we discuss it but the ramifications may hurt the social experience

00:40:20 What is the future of the console? It’s a disaster and the budgets needed are out of control a top level game requires, the iPad will eat into peoples time and take time away from the console

00:43:10 Jason hasn’t dropped the game because he was given more land to build out his empire

00:43:30 If you are a developer check out ngmoco they are hiring

00:44:50 Growth is causing the occasional hiccups with the servers and they spend a lot of time working those issues

00:47:00 Riptano

00:49:30 THE NEWS with Lon Harris

00:52:00 Jason thinks games like Call of Duty need to incorporate more education and was a game developed called JasonNation a geography based education iPad game

00:59:20 TechCrunch TV Launches – Yesterday saw the launch of TechCrunch TV, a new streaming video network from the popular technology blog that features about 40 minutes of live programming a day focused on technology topics. These shows then rerun on a stream around the clock, both in a featured loop and with individual shows available on demand. The network will also highlight other videos made in the past for the TechCrunch blog.

The network launched with two shows – Keen On… (starring Andrew Keen) and “TechCrunch Now,” starring reporter Evelyn Rusli and the site’s bloggers discussing news of the day. More shows, including “Speaking Of…” with Cyan Banister are planned for later this week.

Have you checked out the network? What do you think? Is this a direct competitor for us at ThisWeekIn? Good guy running the show, he will watch on occasion, they will shine when they get big guests, Jason thinks Arrington is setting TechCrunch up to be sold.

01:05:30 Hulu Plus – A post went up today on the Hulu blog by CEO Jason Kilar introducing the new “Hulu Plus” service.

Hulu Plus is not a replacement for Hulu, but a new ad-supported subscription service. It will feature full seasons of almost every show that’s currently featured on Hulu, such as “MOdern Family,” “Glee,” “30 Rock,” “Saturday Night Live” and “Parks and Recreation,” along with archive classic shows like “Arrested Development,” “Law and Order: SVU” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

The service will also be available on Samsung Internet TV’s, gaming consoles like the Xbox and PS3 and Blu-Ray players, with more hardware options to come for watching Hulu on your TV. As well, a new Hulu Plus app for iPhone and iPad will be available allowing you to stream HD shows over Wi-Fi and 3G connections.

The package costs $9.99 a month. Invitations to the beta are currently available.

You’ve long been a fan of subscription systems like Rhapsody. Think Hulu Plus will have success? Are people willing to pay $10 a month for shows they can get on TV for free? Yes, many people don’t have a landline telephone anymore nor a radio and most are starting to consume entertainment over the internet a combo of Hulu and Netflix maybe enough for some

01:18:10 Google Me – Earlier this week, in a tweet he has since deleted, Digg CEO Kevin Rose indicated that Google was building a direct competitor for Facebook, to be called “Google Me.” Now, a former Facebook executive, Quora founder Adam D’Angelo, has confirmed the rumors, stating confidently that there are a large number of Googlers working on the project presently and that it is an attempt to expand what the company had started to do with its “Buzz” project. According to D’Angelo, Google realized that Buzz is not enough and the only way to take on Facebook will be to create a full Facebook-inspired social network of their own. D’Angelo says Google had assumed Facebook’s growth would slow, but now they are scared at the rate with which it has continued to expand.

Do you think Google will be able to chip away at Facbeook’s more than 500 million current members? How should they counter-position themselves? Is this doomed to the same fate as Google Wave and Orkut, side projects that never really took off as Google continued to focus on its core search and advertising business? No they will be able to compete but they need one portal and to finish a product completely not just an 80% complete

01:21:00 Verizon iPhone? – Breaking news today, as Bloomberg is citing two anonymous sources who say that an iPhone for Verizon Wireless will be available beginning in January. It has been theorized that the “leaked” announcement may be a tactic by Verizon, encouraging people to wait a few more months before buying an iPhone 4 and renewing their AT&T contracts for 2 more years.

Obviously, this is great news for Verizon, which will get its hands on one of the hottest phones in history, and bad news for AT&T. Do you think this will impact the Android platform, which has been the dominant smartphone platform for Verizon? If I can get better service on my iPhone, doesn’t that take away one of the biggest arguments for switching to Android? The network is iPhone’s only weakness, the iPhone has basically become a computer

01:25:45 Ad.ly Expands to Twitter Aps – So, Ad.ly launched last year as an in-stream advertising network for Twitter accounts, and sort of had their business plan interrupted last month, when Twitter announced a new policy prohibiting in-stream ads. (At the time, Ad.ly argued that it did not violate Twitter’s TOS, because their ads are not technically served within the Twitter stream or timeline, but it’s unclear if Twitter agrees or disagrees with this stance). The company has continued to expand into new markets, first with an announcement that they would insert ads into MySpace streams and now with an ad network for third-party developers, allowing clients to serve ads to users within Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn applications. The new product, called Ad.ly for Apps, launched today and allows developers to use an API to serve contextually and locally targeted ads to app users based on their streams. Founder Sean Rad is calling it “AdSense for the Stream.”

Think Ad.ly can surviva Twitter’s crack-down on in-stream advertising? Is the solution to start expanding to other services beyond Twitter, or is Twitter integral to the success of a service like Ad.ly? Full disclosure Jason invests in Tweetup something similar, Jason has never been a fan of building purely on someone else’s platform

01:37:00 Friendly Music – Music licensing company Rumblefish has announced a new online store, “Friendly Music,” which enables YouTube users to buy a lifetime, worldwide music license for selected tracks for $1.99 a pop. Currently the catalog contains 35,000 copyright-cleared songs, with new ones being added daily. One interesting side note…The service ONLY applies for user-generated, non-commercial, non-professional videos. if you’re a YouTube partner, meaning you get paid for adjacent or embedded advertising on YouTube, you need to negotiate an additional fee.

What do you think of this service? Does it have legs if it’s only available for people who aren’t making their videos for a profit? No the music industry is a mess they should allow a revenue sharing model where they approve use but they will never learn.

01:44:00 Peace and Love, Peace and Love

01:45:00 END

00:01:30 TWiST Global Meetup will be July 20^th 11am PST, 2pm EST, 7pm GMT

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00:07:00 ASK JASON – Kevin Goldman – Goldman Design – His company has grown and he needs to bring in additional high level help, what is the best way to compensate and maintain incentives?

It’s a very fluid situation because many are at different points in their lives, finding out that will be key. Come up with a couple packages, consider equity with a vesting period, that usually is the best fit unless someone is going through extenuating circumstances which is why you need to sit down and talk. Meet five or so people and ask their expectations to get inside their heads, if they won’t offer expectations they may not be a good fit because things are not starting off with honesty. Finding the right fit will take time and more often than not your best team members will more than likely be full-time not part-time.

What is the typical percentage offered when someone brings in long-term clients? Over-servicing will be your best marketing in a service based business. For team members focus on an extra ordinary experience instead of 10%, share something special with them and their family that will build your relationship and give lasting memories.

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00:27:00 ASK JASON – Fan Bi – Blank-Label – At what stage do you bring in professionals?

You have a high class problem and that’s a good thing, turn your weakness into a strength, most would love to have your problem. While you learn the business and catch up, limit further sales to something like “500 shirts for 500 amazing individuals” for the next few months thus creating demand and scarcity. Which gives you time to learn how to scale your business, you don’t need to bring in professionals.

00:41:00 ASK JASON – Ken Seville – Civi-Side – Business development is ahead of product development but I have a great PR opportunity should I wait till my product catches up?

This problem will persist your entire time as an entrepreneur no matter what company you run. There are two schools of thought: don’t worry and just be crappy or release when you have a great product. Both will work and neither is better but the opportunity to learn from the market and pivot to make your product better is easier once released. It’s a stylistic and personal decision you will have to make.

Soon launching WebSpy Soho – Easily monitor Home & Small Network bandwidth usage, Internet connection speed and much more – Test Alpha version

01:10:00 The Launch Conference will be Feb. 23^rd and 24^th.

01:11:30 SHARK TANK – Nouman Saleem – Enrolled.in – A social network for academics which looks to assist students with their studies. Great idea and with the proper execution and getting the proper professors onboard this has great potential. Jason offers an Angel Investment, which Nouman excepts and they plan to meet soon to work out the details.

One point of note, if you are working on a startup it is smart to get a waiver from your current employer so they don’t try to take your idea down the road.

Ustream is the leader in live video with more than 75 million monthly viewers. The platform empowers any individual, public figure or brand to stream to a global audience of unlimited size. Ustream offers free broadcasting and viewing platforms for theWeb and mobile devices. Follow on Twitter or fan at Facebook.

THE NEWS with Lon Harris

01:31:00  iPhone 4 Just Released – The iPhone 4 official release was yesterday, and hundreds of thousands of people lined up outside Apple Stores worldwide to get their hands on the new “magical” device. The phone was sold out in most major cities. Best Buy, Radio Shack and Wal-Mart all reported having run out of phones due to excessive demand. Analysts suggest it may be as long as a month until stores are able to get their hands on a consistent stock.

So what’s new in the iPhone 4? Front and back facing cameras, allowing for the video conferencing program “FaceTime,” a high-resolution screen with over four times the pixel count of previous iPhones (which Apple is calling “retina display”), multitasking, a gyroscope for enhanced motion control, HD Video recording and editing, a 5-megapixel camera with LED Flash, and many many smaller upgrades to the iOS software package. All for $199 for a 16Gb model and $299 for the 32Gb version.

Thoughts on the new iPhone? Will you upgrade? Any new features you were hoping for that are missing?

Yes, all Apple products are made well, the price is great and the products have become status symbol like. The new phone is quick and the new chip will be a differentiator.

Green Job Spider sent in “Are You Not Entertained” t-shirts, two will be given away randomly to whoever thanks the sponsors.

Playdom Funding, acquisitions – It’s been a big week for social gaming startup Playdom, which is currently the largest social gaming network on MySpace and is also making inroads into Facebook. (The company’s games include Mobsters, Poker Palace, Sorority Life, Treetopia and Tiki Resort.) TechCrunch estimates the company currently has 28 million monthly gamers, though it’s still nowhere near the size of its major competitor, FarmVille creators Zynga.

On Monday, the company closed a $33 million round of funding from investors including Disney’s venture arm, Steamboat Ventures. This completed a Series A round for a whopping total of $76 million at a $260 million pre-money valuation.
Then on Thursday, Playdom announced its fifth acquisition of the year, social gaming startup Hive7. Hive7 was founded in 2005 and also develops games for Facebook and MySpace, including Knighthood, Youtopia and Sindicate. Previous acquisitions by Playdom included MMORPG developer Acclaim Games and FB game developer Offbeat Creations.

Is eating up other developers Playdom’s fastest route to taking out Zynga? What would you do with $76 million if you were Playdom’s CEO? Are games within social networks the future, or just a fad?

No, but there is a lot of market share to succeed. Often VCs will target a market and choose to invest in the number 2 or 3 player just to be in the space.

Open Graph Search Engine – Facebook confirmed this week that all Open Graph-enabled web pages will show up in searches performed on Facebook.com. Every time a Facebook user “likes” a page, this page is essentially being “crawled” by Facebook and will show up in Facebook search. In an example from AllFacebook.com, a Facebook search of Annapolis Marriott will now bring up a TripAdvisor.com page on the hotel that has been ‘liked” by 3 users. The blog suggests that will likely give rise to a whole new kind of SEO, in which sites attempt to optimize for maximum likes and thus higher results in Facbeook searches (a practice they deem “like baiting.”)

Is this a declaration of war on Google from Facebook? Do you think AllFacebook is right to suggest that sites will now have to focus not only on pleasing Google’s spiders but also the Facebook community and “social semantic search engine”? Will websites optimize for Facebook?

Yes, they already are. The big players (Apple, Google, Facebook) will eventually all have their own search, ad network and branch out into many other products. The game has changed and it seems like it has become ok to steal others ideas.

01:48:30  YouTube vs. Viacom Thrown Out of Court – Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube was dismissed by a judge this week. Viacom initially filed suit against Google’s video-sharing site in March of 2007 for what it called a “widespread and willful infringement” of Viacom’s content. YouTube defended itself by arguing that it complied with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, removing copyright-infringing material upon request.

Judge Louis L. Stanton of United States District Court for the Southern District of New York sided with Google, arguing that whiel the company knows that some copyrighted material appears on its site, it does not and can not know which clips have been uploaded with permission and which have not. Therefore, the company is shielded by the “safe harbor” provisions of the DMCA. Google’s general counsel, Kent Walker, called the decision “a victory for the Internet and for the people who use it.” Viacom has vowed to appeal the decision.

Was this a just decision? What are the long-term ramifications for content creators? Are there any? Do you agree with the decision?

Yes, it seems YouTube gave the tools to the media companies to shutdown improper use of their content. It showed YouTube was operating in good faith, actually doing probably more than they had to help the situation.

02:02:30 END

If I missed anything please include it in the comments and I’ll integrate it into the post.

Please rate the show in the comments

This week we have Alexis Maybank, Founder & President of Gilt Groupe.   Jason Calacanis hosts This Week in Startups at 1pm PT Tuesdays and Fridays.

00:02:00  TWiST Global Meetup, July 20^th 11am PST, 2pm EST, 7pm GMT

00:04:00  3 years ago started building Gilt Groupe, taking inspiration from sneaking out to the “sample sales” for friends and family.

00:05:15  After family members started asking to look out for certain items they knew that this would do well nationally.

00:05:40  Launched in Nov. 2007, approximately 2.5 million members, hosting about 17 sales daily, 100s of thousands rush in at 9am PST for the morning sale.

00:06:30  Sales do start at different times of the day but most rush in at the same time to get in on the sale the set sales.

Provides fully managed virtual private server hosting with great customer service and amazing pricing. Receive 25% off for life using the code: twist

00:08:00  About 30% of members are guys and are often more competitive to get in on the sales.

00:09:00  Offer is usually 50-70%, however, you need to act quickly. Return policy is they cover return shipping and accept anything that is the improper size and will exchange if available if not credit is given all other sales are final.

00:10:00  How often do the most addicted shopper purchase? A couple times a week buying more than one item.

00:10:50   People pound the refresh button because there is a 10 minute timer to purchase

00:11:30  Over 450 employees, getting great talent is always a challenge

00:12:30  How do you maintain culture? They use current employees to help vet future employees and they are involved in the hiring process, they have a keyword document that helps guide them in every aspect of the company.

Soon launching WebSpy Soho – Easily monitor Home & Small Network bandwidth usage, Internet connection speed and much more – Test Alpha version

0015:30  Culture documents have become key to the success for many companies but it needs to be created organically, you can’t impose the beliefs.

00:17:25  The example has to be set by the leadership to follow the culture document, it makes it easier to be a manager and people know what to expect.

00:20:00  They hired in all areas, developers to help them scale quickly for a few short hours a day, to all different types of merchandising teams

00:21:00  Gilt has become a marketing channel

00:22:20  They are helping brands broaden their market to a different demographic

00:23:30  The products are the same as you get in the store, which is a requirement of Gilt Groupe, it’s generally off season products.

00:24:30  They are now getting involved when orders are being made but hold off on selling till it is off market

00:26:00  How involved is the community? People comment on other channels such as Twitter, people don’t want the comments to slow down purchasing

Provides fully hosted / managed Microsoft Exchange and Google Apps e-mail

00:29:00  The community feels they are curating the best of brands, it’s a daily escape

00:30:30  What did you learn at eBay? Learned a lot about culture and word-of-mouth marketing with incentives.

00:31:45  The incentivise because they give a lot of their marketing budget for word-of-mouth traffic

00:33:30  Many of the big retailers are trying to copy the idea

00:34:15  What do you think of the imitators? Imitation is flattery but it keeps you nimble, it make you think how can I keep improving

00:36:00   As a company they try to continue to focus on the 5 things that will improve their business long term

00:37:10  How different is travel that fashion? Jetsetter, is not last second hotel deal, it’s compelling because it is a great deal and they stay focused on where their community likes to travel.

00:39:40  Is Gilt Groupe all high end? It’s about a lifestyle and unique things

00:41:30  Can you get businesses that don’t need business, how do you get the hard to get seats? We actually do get those businesses because they want to keep the perception that they are busy, all businesses need business because it is an upscale experience.

00:43:20  Most the purchases are an emotional buy

00:44:15  Have you started considering video? They used to have video but it got in the way of the quick purchase, customers didn’t want another click for a purchase.

00:45:25  How is the iPad affecting the business? It is becoming a huge part of the business, especially on the weekends and holidays, the iPad has enhanced the shopping experience in ways that you can’t experience in a store

00:48:15  Store are perfect for the social experience

00:49:15  An IPO has been rumored but it can be a big distraction and you lose focus

00:52:17  End

Ustream is the leader in live video with more than 75 million monthly viewers. The platform empowers any individual, public figure or brand to stream to a global audience of unlimited size. Ustream offers free broadcasting and viewing platforms for theWeb and mobile devices. Follow on Twitter or fan at Facebook.

This week we have Woody Sears, CEO & Founder of FrogDog Media.  This Week in Startups airs Fridays at 1pm PT hosted by Jason Calacanis.

00:22 UPDATES

Moving to a 2 day format with interview on one day and Ask Jason & Shark Tank on another day

The next start up meetup is July 20th for European countries.  We will air the show at 11am PT for more information please go check out the meetup page here.

To pitch your company email askjason [at] thisweekin [dot] com

Open Angel Forum is June 24^th in San Francisco for more info click here.

02:55 INTERVIEW

Woody Sears, CEO & Co-Founder of Frog Dog Media (makers or the iStory Time app) the most popular apps for kids.

Woody talks about current apps: How To Train Your Dragon (iTunes file) and Shrek Forever After (iTunes file). Jason poses the question “is there parental resistance in putting an iPad with these apps in front of your child?” Woody goes in depth on how the apps are not there to replace books but to compliment them, more like a “digital pop up book.”

07:24 Shrek Forever After – demo

Discussion on how app helps early reading skills. What involvement does Dreamworks have, if any? Is the App on Dreamworks radar? 1^st to do a library of children’s books in the app store. How difficult is it to get into the Apple Store with your Apps? How did this venture come about? Will you be doing original books? Suggestion for Call of Duty to become a teaching tool.

32:45   SPONSOR BREAK

33:25  25% off if you use TWiST in promo code

33:47 INTERVIEW (cont.)

Licensing discussion. How do you get your app to rank? “Content is king.” Mommy Bloggers and their clout.  Visit iStorytime and the Shrek Forever After is in the iTunes store.

39:50  Please thank our sponsors on Twitter

00:01:30  This Week In Meetups was a success, 10 cities called in, places as far as Australia had events, email Lon@thisweekin.com with pictures if you went to an event.

00:03:00  The next Startups Meetup will be July 20th @11am PST with a focus on Europe, if you plan to participate please pick and organizer and venue soon.

00:05:20  White House and CBS are using Ustream

Ustream is the leader in live video with more than 75 million monthly viewers. The platform empowers any individual, public figure or brand to stream to a global audience of unlimited size. Ustream offers free broadcasting and viewing platforms for theWeb and mobile devices. Follow on Twitter or fan at Facebook.

00:07:00  DNAmail customer support is 100% US based

00:09:00  Ask Jason – Alejandro Vasquez – I am a programmer but I don’t want to take forever with my idea, where do I find technical co-founders?

Answer – Shows like this, commenters of blogs, a startup event at the event put a name tag on that says “I need a technical co-founder” you’ll definitely meet people, do a blog post, craigslist, comment on Hacker News, try TWiSTStartupEffect, try find people with the same interest as you idea.

00:14:30  The first 100 people to check-in live during a show and tweet “ I can’t wait for TheLaunchConference.com #TWiST” for 10 shows win a free ticket.

00:15:30  Ask Jason – Chris Russell – Pros and cons of a Free vs. Pay business model for GreenJobSpider, sales calls have been resistant and are not familiar with indexing, should he switch from a pay to a free adsense based model?

Answer – The chicken or the egg problem, with no critical mass you should go the freemium model, free to publish job posts but up-sell, for premium placement, offer a video featuring the job where the company gets to keep the video, to get attention create content for people to “feel” you, create powerful editorial, lists are powerful, ask people who found jobs to do a post, come up with data and big sites will pick it up, come up with better ways to sort and expand the listings

Soon launching WebSpy Soho – Easily monitor Home & Small Network bandwidth usage, Internet connection speed and much more – Test Alpha version

00:29:15  Ask Jason – Wes Ramm – How does one vet an idea to see if it’s marketable?

Answer- Find someone with domain experience, many technical people can build feature apon feature but sometimes lack the social skills to reach out to people.  Who would your dream person be to ask advice?  Many established CEOs would be more than willing to give advice, most are so busy they don’t have the time nor the willingness to jeopardize their reputation on a startup but love the challenge and may want to be a mentor of sorts, most ideas come down to execution, not the idea.

Provides fully managed virtual private server hosting with great customer service and amazing pricing. Receive 25% off for life using the code: twist

00:41:00  Ask Jason – Jakov Jenkov – I have 60k viewers a month (Jenkov.com) , how do I monetize my site?

Answer – in order to monetize properly your site needs to scale to reach 100s of thousands unless you are in a tight vertical, since your site is very general in nature try do some custom publishing on specific content for sale, think of what provides value, what would you pay for, talk to potential customers and find out what they’d be willing to pay for.

00:51:00  Ask Jason – Joe Magee – How do you define failure?  How do you know when to cut your losses?

Answer – First get over your fear of failure, people who succeed have failed, Elan Musk prior to Tesla had failed but but he had a “never say die” attitude, fight through any low moments so you know you did everything to make it succeed, if you think  it will fail and have lost your passion, move on quickly, the beauty is you can just start over

Insight From Tyler – “Are Ex-Girlfriends Failures?”

01:05:15  Jason’s Shark Tank – Sterling Hawkins of StorkBrokers – a place for parents to sell old toddler and baby products.  Great pitch you started with a truism and the idea was clear and simple.  Jason P: 10 / I: 9 probably one of the best pitches Jason has heard this year.

**********Warning A Podcast First**********

Jason offers an on the spot Angel Investment, pending due diligence, $25,000 in funding for 20% and he’ll help raise the rest of the angel round and Sterling accepts.

Provides fully hosted / managed Microsoft Exchange and Google Apps e-mail

NEWS

01:24:00  Resigning Up for Facebook – Jason can you explain why your Facebook account was reactivated?  Some of the services signed up for with Facebook Connect restart your account automatically when you sign in.  Jason really wants a delete button and export feature on Facebook

01:36:00  iPad Security Breach – it’s bad but they didn’t get real personal info. like browser history and he has seen a lot worse but it sheds light on an issue that needs to be dealt with.

01:40:15  iPhone 4 – The battery life, a4 chip and video will be important but being only available on AT&T will handicap the product.

01:47:30  Kevin Rose Leaving Diggnation – What is Kevin’s next move?  This might be a negotiation tactic on Kevin’s part or he maybe feelin that he needs to be more CEO like, Jason hope’s that isn’t the case and to just be yourself.

01:53:15  comScore Accuses Yahooo and Microsoft of “Gaming” – Why is Comscore bring this issue to light?  They are correct it should be mentioned it is the right thing to do.

01:55:30  Topguest Will this idea motivate the masses?    This is a good idea and they could be the adsense of teh space but more than likely Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopd are already on this.

01:59:30  Yelp! Checkins – Is this a good idea?  Don’t think Yelp will ever be thought of as a check-in site it will remain a review site.

Jason Calacanis hosts This Week in Startups with a LIVE Global Audience.  The top presenters were chosen by their respective city and Skyped in.

00:00:30  Welcome Global This Week In Startups community

00:01:00  Welcome Syracuse – From Syracuse Technology Garden (35 people) John Litty (organizer)

Pitch – Patrick of Brand-Yourself – Managing online reputations in a proactive building method, recently signed a deal with Syracuse University to provide the service for 4,100 graduating seniors 6 months and closed 2 deals with businesses.  Recently raised $275,000 in funding.

00:12:30  Welcome Chicago – From Sandbox Inidustries (20 people)

Jason Calacanis hosts This Week in Startups with guest Tim Young, Founder and CEO of Socialcast.

0:00:26   Memorial Day 2010

0:00:40 Non –CGI produced bags under my eyes.  I look like Mike Arrington

0:00:55 Going to Power Through the show Great guest, ask jason, shark tank

0:01:14  Discussion on TechCrunch Disrupt

0:02:28  Launch Conference in 2011

0:03:55  Guest Tim Young, Founder and CEO SocialCast

0:04:27  Ask Jason – Foo Yee

Question: Not the expert computer scientist look around for projects and build on other’s project.  Game engines interesting but lack social features….can I build on top of open source game engines?

0:09:55 next week will have details for The  Launch Conference

0:10:10 “Little nuggets that people do not know about”

0:10:20  Sponsor Break

0:10:30   Tim Young “We are a DNAMail customer”

0:12:12  “Tim, this is your 3rd company?  Someone will pitch us in this segment.  Has someone every taken their BlackBerry out during any of your pitches?”

0:12:40  During the Open Angel Forum tell people “do not take your BlackBerry out when someone is pitching their idea, give them 5 minutes.”

0:13:09  Jason’s Shark Tank – Scott Annan from Network Hippo

0:15:47 Feedback from chatroom

0:16:05  Tyler’s rating

0:16:40 Tim’s rating

0:17:25  Jason’s rating

0:21:20  “Don’t pay to pitch”

0:23:05  Jason on DEMO and guerrilla thinking

0:26:15  Sponsor Break

0:27:25  Our guest, Tim Young, Founder & CEO of Socialcast.

0:28:15  Tim:  “We build a real time collaboration for employees, focus around activity stream content.  Streams digitizing human culture.”

0:41:15  World of Warcraft (WOW) as next metaphor?

0:41:25  Game mechanics productivity

0:42:40  Will people get burnt out on game mechanics?

0:45:10  What is Pumpinkhead?

0:48:50  Question from chatroom: “Do you think all these games are ultimately going to hurt the advancement of our society?  Seems like a LOT of wasted time.”

0:49:25  How did you get started as an entrepreneur?

0:54:30  What are you going to do with $8M?

0:56:24  What is the common DNA of your company?

0:57:37  Mastery discussion

0:58:20  Question from chatroom: “When i was at the socialcast HQ (startup pubcrawl) it seemed bit boring compared to other startups. can we get a pitch on why social cast is a good place to work?”

1:01:18  What is your academic background?

1:02:33 MBA’s good employees?

1:05:32  NEWS with Lon Harris

TC Disrupt Discussion

1:09:28  Insights from Tyler – “Eating Tacos in a Tuxedo”

1:10:20 For the Launch Conference will stay true to format of TC50

1:14:57 Carol Bartz to Arrington:  F—k Off

What do you think of her response and was it called for?

1:18:09 Request to speak of new Digg from the chatroom

1:20:42   Fake BP Public Relations Twitter @BPGlobalPR and real Twitter Account @BP_America

Good satire or too dark considering catastrophe still ongoing? Why is Twitter is not taking this down?  Grew out of Ebert Tweeting about it.

1:29:55   BlockChalk Geo Location Company.  Raised $1M in Seed Financing.  Leaves notes (chalks) in your neighborhood.

1:33:40  Jesus has just checked in to Santa Monica Apple Store

1:34:00  Sponsor Break

use TWiST code and Get 25%

1:34:31  Startup Meetup on June 8th at 6 pm PDT.  Please sign up here and also contact lon [at] thisweekin [dot] com to coordinate Skype Call if your group has over 10 people.

1:36:00     Want to be a guest on Ask Jason or the Shark Tank?

This Week in Android: 4pm PDT Fridays (right after this show!)

This Week in Venture Capital: 2 pm PDT Wednesdays

1:36:39  Entrepreneurial tech block Friday & Sunday Entertainment block

1:36:53  Last Saturday we had Open Casting Calls you can watch the videos here and here.

1:37:24  Tim Young congrats on your success!

1:38:15  The  Launch Conference Contest info

1:39:44  Have a Great Holiday Weekend!

00:00:30 Jason: May 21, 2010 is going to be kill Facebook account day, I just don’t trust Mark Zuckerberg, it’s all about trust, it’s a good product, too many missteps along the way

00:02:15 Started as a closed system, switched and tried to dupe us to open, default is now open

00:02:50 Facebook’s blog hasn’t addressed privacy

00:05:30 To Jason the internet represents freedom, democracy, the ability to play on an even playing field with the big boys

00:06:20 Multiple options if you feel the same way about Facebook: Facebook Ghost, suspend or delete your account

00:07:45 Jason had the magical moment of the internet in the 80’s by connecting with people all around the world for the first time, Mark is so young did he have the same experience?

00:12:00 Today is a celebration for leaving Facebook, many stories are surfacing that your clicks are being passed on to advertisers

Soon launching WebSpy Soho – Easily monitor Home & Small Network bandwidth usage, Internet connection speed and much more – Test Alpha version

00:13:00 Jason has 5,000 friends and it’s a great marketing channel and he has realized he doesn’t need Facebook to do that

00:14:00 If you are concerned consider making the account a Facebook Ghost account first, consider how complicated the privacy settings are

00:15:45 Jason’s being playing around the internet since before web browsers and he’s confused

00:16:00 Jason backed up his account with Backupify

00:18:55 As a next step consider deactivating you account, no one will be able to see your info or will they?

00:19:30 Jason trusts Yahoo, Google, Flickr, Smugmug, Twitter, Geni

00:19:45 How people respond when they screw up is important, judge them by their behavior

00:21:00 Jason predicts Mark Zuckerberg will be on a Senate hearing

00:25:45 Try taking a week off from Facebook see what you miss

00:27:20 How to delete your account permanently can’t be found in navigation and must be searched on Google, someone even made a group page

00:32:30 RIP Jason on Facebook

00:36:00 Thank You to BenQ for the SP890 Projector

00:38:00 ASK JASON – Mark Carras – Heavy As Hell – How do you vet angel investors and is Go Big Network for real? Look for somone who has done this before or loves the vertical, you need a value proposition and it might be tough at the moment. Thpughts on Go Big Network, it doesn’t look legit, it feels scammy, go to Venture Hacks and look at their list of angel investors

00:48:30 Good chance of getting into Boston, Open Angel Forum

Provides fully hosted / managed Microsoft Exchange and Google Apps e-mail

00:51:30 JASON’S SHARK TANK – Jay Decker – OnTheSpot = Mobile + Ustream + Mahalo Answers with a vertical advertisement business model, pitch was solid, the hard part is video you can’t SEO which is less efficient, even Ebay Motors doesn’t have a lot of video

00:58:50 This idea is you are out and about and you shoot video of your problem it is no necessarily you asking a question and the subject matter experts answer or solve the problem. I points system will incentivize people to answer questions similar to the Mahalo Store.

01:05:00 Jason’s advice for when being pulled over

01:11:00 The Launch Conference, watch 10 episodes of TWiST check in with “ThisWeek” in chat and tweet “http://thelaunchconference.com #TWiST”

Provides fully managed virtual private server hosting with great customer service and amazing pricing. Receive 25% off for life using the code: twist

01:12:30 INTERVIEW – Keith Lee – CEO of Booyah creator of MyTown, their company has worked on World of Warcraft, Diablo, shooters, RPGs and they focus on interactive entertainment

01:14:00 Is MyTown Farmville + Gowalla? “Check-in” is the only thing in common and it’s basically playing real world Monopoly and they have over 2.2 million users

01:16:45 Demographic is iPhone and iTouch users, 60% male / 40% female and they are expanding to 34 countries

01:18:20 they launched 41/1 months ago and are focusing on the entertainment utility, they spend a lot of time on the virtual economy
01:20:50 The average user spends 70 minutes a day on the game

01:21:50 Real life call to actions can be built into the game

01:22:00 Raised $20 million and are focused on hiring good people and are looking beyond the “Check-in” it’s all about offline validation and conversion

01:24:30 Where did the concept come from are you big into Sci-fi? We are all into hard core Sci-fi, Game of Thrones, we play a ton of video games and are excited about the experience

01:26:00 Will you become a multiple product company? We will announce our strategy in a couple months, our goal is for every product to have a great experience and long life cycle

01:27:45 Excited about Android but expanding to it cannot take away from our current game development

01:30:00 What is the most insane behavior from a user? We held a contest and a user set an alarm for every 27 minutes for 3 weeks to play the game

01:31:50 Have you looked at the gaming madness in Asia? yes, it has huge potential, freemium is a big business and the west has a lot to learn

01:33:00 How did the funding process go? It was confidential, they made a small window, filtered people and moved the process along quickly so they could focus on the product

01:37:30 Focus on engagement and retention not the business model

01:38:00 How will the iPad change things? Excites, we will focus on the experience, their are differences, screen size, no GPS

01:41:30 Lon’s first week producing TWiST, trying to make each show better

01:42:30 THE NEWS

01:43:00 Google TV – Is this a game changer? Yes it’s real, has Boxee feel, independent content creators will be side by side the big boys, MythTV like. Google does need to finish the product 100% it seems like they go 80% most of the time.

01:51:50 Android FroYo – Is this the iPhone killer? If executed properly, if it can be a hot spot and tethered but I don’t think Apple is in trouble

01:56:30 Mainstream Media on Facebook – How significant is that? It is bringing a huge spot light on Facebook, the movie Social Network might hurt Facebook, more than like tarnish their IPO

02:03:50 Twitter for IPhone – What do you think? It’s a way to get a good team member on for the right price, looks good to the community, prediction it will have 80% of the market share

02:11:25 Toyota / Tesla Partnership – Who is the big winner? Tesla shareholders, going into the IPO this is a big boost, it ensures the cars will be bought

02:14:25 Y Combinator Closes $8.25 Million Fund – What do you contribute to the success? Paul Graham is legit, a down market is good for startups, these programs never existed before, it’s a big deal and every city should have an incubator

02:17:30 SumZero – LinkedIn meets a wiki for investors, what do you think? I wouldn’t trust the info if it’s given from a competitor

INSIGHT FROM TYLER – It’s like opening a hardware store next to a tire store

02:22:20 Want to be on a segment use these links to request a spot ASK JASON or JASON’S SHARK TANK

02:24:30 End

Ustream is the leader in live video with more than 75 million monthly viewers. The platform empowers any individual, public figure or brand to stream to a global audience of unlimited size. Ustream offers free broadcasting and viewing platforms for theWeb and mobile devices. Follow on Twitter or fan at Facebook.

00:00:30 Jason: May 21, 2010 is going to be kill Facebook account day, I just don’t trust Mark Zuckerberg, it’s all about trust, it’s a good product, too many missteps along the way

00:02:15 Started as a closed system, switched and tried to dupe us to open, default is now open

00:02:50 Facebook’s blog hasn’t addressed privacy

00:05:30 To Jason the internet represents freedom, democracy, the ability to play on an even playing field with the big boys

00:06:20 Multiple options if you feel the same way about Facebook: Facebook Ghost, suspend or delete your account

00:07:45 Jason had the magical moment of the internet in the 80’s by connecting with people all around the world for the first time, Mark is so young did he have the same experience?

00:12:00 Today is a celebration for leaving Facebook, many stories are surfacing that your clicks are being passed on to advertisers

Soon launching WebSpy Soho – Easily monitor Home & Small Network bandwidth usage, Internet connection speed and much more – Test Alpha version

00:13:00 Jason has 5,000 friends and it’s a great marketing channel and he has realized he doesn’t need Facebook to do that

00:14:00 If you are concerned consider making the account a Facebook Ghost account first, consider how complicated the privacy settings are

00:15:45 Jason’s being playing around the internet since before web browsers and he’s confused

00:16:00 Jason backed up his account with Backupify

00:18:55 As a next step consider deactivating you account, no one will be able to see your info or will they?

00:19:30 Jason trusts Yahoo, Google, Flickr, Smugmug, Twitter, Geni

00:19:45 How people respond when they screw up is important, judge them by their behavior

00:21:00 Jason predicts Mark Zuckerberg will be on a Senate hearing

00:25:45 Try taking a week off from Facebook see what you miss

00:27:20 How to delete your account permanently can’t be found in navigation and must be searched on Google, someone even made a group page

00:32:30 RIP Jason on Facebook

00:36:00 Thank You to BenQ for the SP890 Projector

00:38:00 ASK JASON – Mark Carras – Heavy As Hell – How do you vet angel investors and is Go Big Network for real? Look for somone who has done this before or loves the vertical, you need a value proposition and it might be tough at the moment. Thpughts on Go Big Network, it doesn’t look legit, it feels scammy, go to Venture Hacks and look at their list of angel investors

00:48:30 Good chance of getting into Boston, Open Angel Forum

Provides fully hosted / managed Microsoft Exchange and Google Apps e-mail

00:51:30 JASON’S SHARK TANK – Jay Decker – OnTheSpot = Mobile + Ustream + Mahalo Answers with a vertical advertisement business model, pitch was solid, the hard part is video you can’t SEO which is less efficient, even Ebay Motors doesn’t have a lot of video

00:58:50 This idea is you are out and about and you shoot video of your problem it is no necessarily you asking a question and the subject matter experts answer or solve the problem. I points system will incentivize people to answer questions similar to the Mahalo Store.

01:05:00 Jason’s advice for when being pulled over

01:11:00 The Launch Conference, watch 10 episodes of TWiST check in with “ThisWeek” in chat and tweet “http://thelaunchconference.com #TWiST”

Provides fully managed virtual private server hosting with great customer service and amazing pricing. Receive 25% off for life using the code: twist

01:12:30 INTERVIEW – Keith Lee – CEO of Booyah creator of MyTown, their company has worked on World of Warcraft, Diablo, shooters, RPGs and they focus on interactive entertainment

01:14:00 Is MyTown Farmville + Gowalla? “Check-in” is the only thing in common and it’s basically playing real world Monopoly and they have over 2.2 million users

01:16:45 Demographic is iPhone and iTouch users, 60% male / 40% female and they are expanding to 34 countries

01:18:20 they launched 41/1 months ago and are focusing on the entertainment utility, they spend a lot of time on the virtual economy
01:20:50 The average user spends 70 minutes a day on the game

01:21:50 Real life call to actions can be built into the game

01:22:00 Raised $20 million and are focused on hiring good people and are looking beyond the “Check-in” it’s all about offline validation and conversion

01:24:30 Where did the concept come from are you big into Sci-fi? We are all into hard core Sci-fi, Game of Thrones, we play a ton of video games and are excited about the experience

01:26:00 Will you become a multiple product company? We will announce our strategy in a couple months, our goal is for every product to have a great experience and long life cycle

01:27:45 Excited about Android but expanding to it cannot take away from our current game development

01:30:00 What is the most insane behavior from a user? We held a contest and a user set an alarm for every 27 minutes for 3 weeks to play the game

01:31:50 Have you looked at the gaming madness in Asia? yes, it has huge potential, freemium is a big business and the west has a lot to learn

01:33:00 How did the funding process go? It was confidential, they made a small window, filtered people and moved the process along quickly so they could focus on the product

01:37:30 Focus on engagement and retention not the business model

01:38:00 How will the iPad change things? Excites, we will focus on the experience, their are differences, screen size, no GPS

01:41:30 Lon’s first week producing TWiST, trying to make each show better

01:42:30 THE NEWS

01:43:00 Google TV – Is this a game changer? Yes it’s real, has Boxee feel, independent content creators will be side by side the big boys, MythTV like. Google does need to finish the product 100% it seems like they go 80% most of the time.

01:51:50 Android FroYo – Is this the iPhone killer? If executed properly, if it can be a hot spot and tethered but I don’t think Apple is in trouble

01:56:30 Mainstream Media on Facebook – How significant is that? It is bringing a huge spot light on Facebook, the movie Social Network might hurt Facebook, more than like tarnish their IPO

02:03:50 Twitter for IPhone – What do you think? It’s a way to get a good team member on for the right price, looks good to the community, prediction it will have 80% of the market share

02:11:25 Toyota / Tesla Partnership – Who is the big winner? Tesla shareholders, going into the IPO this is a big boost, it ensures the cars will be bought

02:14:25 Y Combinator Closes $8.25 Million Fund – What do you contribute to the success? Paul Graham is legit, a down market is good for startups, these programs never existed before, it’s a big deal and every city should have an incubator

02:17:30 SumZero – LinkedIn meets a wiki for investors, what do you think? I wouldn’t trust the info if it’s given from a competitor

INSIGHT FROM TYLER – It’s like opening a hardware store next to a tire store

02:22:20 Want to be on a segment use these links to request a spot ASK JASON or JASON’S SHARK TANK

02:24:30 End

Ustream is the leader in live video with more than 75 million monthly viewers. The platform empowers any individual, public figure or brand to stream to a global audience of unlimited size. Ustream offers free broadcasting and viewing platforms for theWeb and mobile devices. Follow on Twitter or fan at Facebook.

Jason Calacanis hosts This Week in Startups with guest Andrew Mason, CEO of Groupon

Ustream is the leader in live video with more than 75 million monthly viewers. The platform empowers any individual, public figure or brand to stream to a global audience of unlimited size. Ustream offers free broadcasting and viewing platforms for theWeb and mobile devices. Follow on Twitter or fan at Facebook.

00:02:25  Message to Gen Y part 2: If you choose to work at a startup bring something of additional value to the table

00:04:00  Aspergers discussion

00:05:45  Too much word policing going on

00:07:45  Insight From Tyler – Trust is a big issue if you are running a social network

00:10:00  Temple Grandin

00:10:20  Chat question – Jason are you interested in talking at TED?  No, he doesn’t feel like he needs to change the world

00:10:45  Chat Question – Will you ever go HD?  depends, tricaster has 6 out puts and we need them all the HD unit only has 3 but they are working on one with more

00:12:00  Sarah Silverman TED

Soon launching WebSpy Soho – Easily monitor Home & Small Network bandwidth usage, Internet connection speed and much more – Test Alpha version

00:16:00  Buckingham Palace uses WebSpy

00:16:20  Insight From Tyler “Underwater Scuba Diver”

00:16:35  Ask Jason – John Meneses – How do you start a business with bad credit?  You should start a service based business or a client backed company.  Solve a companies problem and let the company license the product to use it, previous employers work best they know you and work backwards

00:25:30  Shark Tank – Raphael Morozov – Ucubd – a mashup service for bloggers, you take an object and wrap it into our ad network and we create a simple widget and it works automatically, it adds revenue with little work

00:27:00  (Tyler) reminded him or micromachines he was barely able to make out most of it because of the speed, pitch 5.5 idea 8, (Jason) pitch 6, idea 7.5

00:28:30  Jason simplifies the pitch

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00:31:00  Andrew Mason of Groupon, the same company everyone is talking about, “Groupon is synonymous with success”

00:32:50  When did you start?  we started as The Point and pivoted in Nov. 2008 and quietly launched Groupon

00:36:15  Did you get any resistance from the team when you pivoted from The Point to Groupon?  no, it was a gradual shift

00:37:40  How do you get the deals?  Businesses see it as an alternative to advertising, merchants don’t pay anything unless someone buys the service/product and they get huge exposure

00:40:00  Editorial process of emails?  they have stuck with their original motto to keep things fun

00:42:10  Explain your company culture?  we hire great people, give them freedom to be awesome and they are a very humble group, they are all equal

00:44:30  You have the same investors as Facebook and Zynga how did that happen?  They were introduced by someone from Facebook

00:45:30  The investment was a way to get liquidity for early founders and build the company

00:46:00  Is Groupon going to compete with companies like Amazon?  No they will stay local for the time

00:47:20  What do you think of the Groupon clones?  he’s over it and focuses on his company

00:48:30  Was The Point backed by an investor?  Yes, Andrew was new to the startup scene, he didn’t even consider himself and entrepreneur but yes it was backed by Eric Lefkosky

00:49:45  Will you look for a professional CEO?  No but all he wants to be is useful, the board doesn’t want to fire him

00:50:30  Is thier a new direction for Groupon?  they will continue to expand and will be in Europe soon

00:51:00  What is the key to your success?  solving a problem in a way that entertains and stays focused on the long term goals

00:53:00  Are you seeing a saturation from clones?  no the knock-offs tend to kill each other, they have far more demand than supply

00:55:00  They try to balance a win win for business and customer

00:55:50  How do you deal with high end restaurants?  If a particular business doesn’t need customers they don’t need Groupon

00:57:00  What worries you?  A lot, but nothing seems overwhelming, “how do they not suck?” worries him

00:58:20  How many employees?  300 and they are adding 40 a month but he is not worried about the core editorial team

00:59:30  Who do you respect as an entrepreneur?  Eric Lefkosky, people on the Groupon board, Jason Fried

01:03:00  How you like the Skype interviews?

01:04:00  The News – Special Announcement – Lon is now the Creative Director at ThisWeekIn, he will be focusing on content and quality of shows, best practices.  Working at Mahalo is like business school, everyone does multiple things and you have the chance to learn a lot

01:10:10  Jason will be on TWiT, Sunday at 3pm PST

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01:12:40  Leo Laporte deativated his Facebook account along with others, why haven’t you?  Jason uses his for marketing purposes, JasonNation and TWiST are his primary means of communicating with the world, their is no viable competitor at the moment, Open Message To Mark Zuckerberg video was created in Dec. he just noticed a pattern that doesn’t look honorable.  Facebook is now associated with Farmville and no privacy, people are starting to think Facebook is weak

01:19:30  Diaspora – Do you think this could be the Facebook replacement?  Would you invest?  Kickstarter is the real story here, people want trust and reliability, open source projects are generally not good for customer facing businesses, he does wish them the best and hopes they succeed, people want an alternative, it is telling when people donate their own money in an idea.  Jason thinks their are sleepers out there who think this is the moment.  Defaults matter, it says something about you, Facebook’s are way too complicated

01:26:10  Facebook’s Continuing Woes – Is it rash to make something out of IM chat?  Jason believes the transcripts are real and are being leaked by the lawsuits from discovery documents and believes more will be leaked

01:31:25  RIP TechCrunch50 – It was over how to split proceeds, Mike and Jason had a different opinion and Mike stepped away, Jason is sad it ended this way

01:34:30  The Launch Conference – How do I make it more accessible?  It will be affordable, it may change a bit, Jason doesn’t need the money from it, all profits will be reinvested in demo pit and presenting companies, new business model for conferences, it’s about his reputation, they want to build a different conference and celebrate the entrepreneur

01:44:30  Anyone who watches 10 TWiST shows live and tweets the weekly message and checks-in with ThisWeek (in Ustream chat will) at the end of the show will get a free ticket

01:47:00  Deadpool Radar – why did it fail to get traction?  Photosharing is a tough space and is too featurized

01:49:25  Hulu Changes – Is their a way out for Hulu?  he doesn’t think they are in danger of dieing but will never reach their full potential, watching a movie on the iPad is delightful

02:01:40  ThisWeekIn casting call May 22nd

02:03:30  END

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Jason Calacanis is interviewed by Ryan Carson for his show 100 Things.

Jason’s guest this week is Joel Spolsky, Co-Founder and CEO of Stack Overflow, Founder of Fog Creek Software

00:00:38  Ask Jason – Craig Muir – Reloom – Should I consider a co-founder that can only do part time work?

00:02:00  Generally speaking in the speculative stage yes but once money starts to be invested you need 100% effort.  Part time businesses are “Dude Businesses”.  You need to be very open and upfront and discuss the a vesting and equity fit.

00:03:50  (Tyler) From the macroscopic perspective their is little precedent for it working, YouTube maybe on example

00:05:00  Jason had to vest 4 years for his own campany Mahalo, let your partners know you vest in the same manner as they do

00:06:00  What if the part-timer has clout and prior success?  You may want to consider him as an advisor not a founder

00:08:30  Reloom will be an augmented reality site

Soon launching WebSpy Soho – Easily monitor Home & Small Network bandwidth usage, Internet connection speed and much more – Test Alpha version

00:10:45  Shark Tank – Shane Snow (blog) – Dino.sr – social site like GDGT for gamers and the site itself is a game with features such as game boss, beta keys, etc. monetized through affiliate programs, data, hosting events, special virtual game items

00:16:30  (Tyler) spoke too fast, pick your word battle carefully pitch a 5-6

00:17:00  Don’t say you are like everything

00:17:50  (Jason) pitch 7 -7.5, the idea can be huge, execution will be hard

00:19:00  How are you going to market the site?  Leverage his experience as a Journalist (Mashable, Gizmodo, the Next Web, Fast Company), they will recruit a young group to seed the community

00:20:00  How many people do you have right now?  Just Shane and one other, they both code and the other co-founder is also a designer

00:21:15  Shane has already turned down jobs to do this fulltime

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00:23:20  Joel Spolsky Program Manager on Microsoft Excel team, Founder of Fog Creek Software, Jason has always thought they were kindred spirits

00:24:15  Raised $6 million for Stack Overflow

00:25:30  He took Jason’s advice (Ask Jason call) and tlaked to 20 VCs in 2 weeks

00:28:30  New vs. Old generation venture capital firms

00:29:30  Yahoo Answers has good numbers but it is just a chatroom that doesn’t monetize well

00:30:00  Virtual currency an interesting driver

00:30:30  Getting good questions is the most important thing for an answer site

00:31:15  They have pivoted away from a whitelabe model to letting the community decide which answer site should be built next, To discuss and submit a vertical go to Meta Stack Exchange

00:35:00  What do you think of routing a question to the right user?  VC’s used the term liquidity (when the market clears, all questions are answered) they have never worried about that because all questions do get answered, it works because it is a niche site

00:37:10  Pitch Sandhill Road what was it like?  Joel wasn’t nervous and he wasn’t completely prepared, he told his story but many already knew about him through the back channel, he did at time want to laugh at tier 4 VC’s who asked for financial projections

00:39:45  They should be looking at the team not some made up numbers

00:40:15  Worked on Stack OverFlow for one and a half years before looking for money

00:41:50  Joel will be CEO and Jeff Atwood will be CTO one team will work remotely will the other will be in NY and have a total of 15-20 people

00:43:50  How do they deal with working remotely?  Campfire solved that problem along with Skype and email, the best senario would be to have everyone in one place but working remotely allows them to get the best programmers, they will have the team all head to NY multiple times a year

00:46:10  iPad thoughts (Joel) heavier than expected, prefers the Kindle for reading, it feels like iPhone 1.0 but he is very bullish on the product

00:49:00  Thoughts on Adobe and Steve Jobs? Adobe is being punished and most people will move toward html 5

00:51:20  What is the point od creating an App when we have html 5?  Connectivity issues with phones, html5 version will be slower than the native app

00:52:50  News with Lon Harris

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00:54:15  DIGG LAYOFFS – Is Kevin doing a good job as CEO?  Too early to tell, the business has gone sideways a bit, the news now comes to you, he is pivoting

00:56:00  (Joel) Young companies tend to hire the wrong people and this is a good time to clean house

00:57:30  (Tyler) Will he still have to appeal to the publishers?  it’s a demographic site, they will need to decide if they should do something similar to IGN and buy other sites

00:59:50  DUELING LOCATION / CHECK-INSERVICES – privacy & stealing issues will be Facebook’s downfall, brands need to be specific, if you have too many you won’t be known for any

01:01:00  Insight From Tyler

01:02:00  Joel doesn’t “get” the location based sites, Foursuqare and Gowalla are doing great though

01:03:55  ZYNGA VS. FACEBOOK – Will Zynga get out of Facebook?  Yes, Twitter and Zynga could tag team to kill FB, make an instant messenger that brings gamers together

01:06:10  (Joel) reminds him of cable contract negotiations

01:09:45  STOCK MARKET CRAZINESS – Stories tend to break on the web and create a magnitude of traffic, people are still learning how to write highly scalable sites.  However, the people who need the real time news are paying for it and getting it

01:15:15  KWEDIT SEEMS TO BE WORKING – is it sustainable?  the absurdity is rediculous

01:17:50  Lon is leaving Mahalo and will be working fulltime at ThisWeekIn

01:19:00  Jason participated in a TV Poker game that will air Jume 14th

01:19:30  End

Ustream is the leader in live video with more than 75 million monthly viewers. The platform empowers any individual, public figure or brand to stream to a global audience of unlimited size. Ustream offers free broadcasting and viewing platforms for theWeb and mobile devices. Follow on Twitter or fan at Facebook.

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Jason Calacanis hosts This Week in Startups for his 50th episode!

00:00:30  Welcome to the Twistees Award

00:02:50  Best Pitch
Nominations
-MusicTrainer
-Timeshare Juice
-OneLogin
-Ming.ly
-MarroonDoor

Winner: MusicTrainer

00:05:00  Best Story
Nominations
-Jason’s anecdote about stealing from his father’s bar
-Jason not getting on the real Shark Tank
-The entire story of his life on the Penn State show
-Shaking hands with Woz

Winner: The entire story of his life on the Penn State show

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00:08:20  Best guest story next year

00:08:35  Best Comment
Nominations
-Gary V: “Get off the bitch train”
-David Heinemeier Hansson: “The only thing that matters in the end, is profit. Market share doesn’t matter. It matters if it leads to profits, otherwise it doesn’t matter.”
-Jason, Never get High on your own supply
-Jason, Starting is easy, finishing is hard
-Jason, the best equity, sweat equity

Winner:  Gary Vaynerchuk. “Get off the bitch train”

00:12:10  Best Question
Nominations
-Jason asking Roelof what did he likes and dislike about Jason
-How do you defend yourself against a big competitor?
-Help my PC repair business is failing
-Joel Spolsky, should I shop around after I have a top tier VC interested?

Winner:  Help my PC repair business is failing

Soon launching WebSpy Soho – Easily monitor Home & Small Network bandwidth usage, Internet connection speed and much more – Test Alpha version

00:15:10  Best Tyler Insight
Nominations
-Google is now a content company
-It’s like Rocket Surgery
-It’s like a deer farm
-It’s like a wheelchair at Disneyland
-It’s like Japanese Jazz
-It’s like a homeless hottie in a hip hop club
-It’s like shaking hands with Woz
-It’s like betting against the Mayans

Winner:  It’s like a wheelchair at Disney

00:18:20  Best Jason Rant
Nominations
-Memo to Apple fanboys
-Gen Y speech
-Facebook privacy issues
-Keiretsu Forum
-Lower Merion School District privacy invasion

Winner:  Keiretsu Forum

00:23:15  Best Guest
Nominations
-Brad Feld
-Gary Vaynerchuk
-Mark Suster
-Ryan Block and Peter Rojas
-David Sacks
-Dr. Goulston
-Michael Robertson
-Brandon Kessler

Winner:  Gary Vaynerchuk

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00:26:50  PowerVPS and DNAmail, cake

00:29:00  If you would like to have a chance at winning a TwiST 50th Commenmorative t-shirt, go to PowerVPS’s Facebook page for details

00:31:00 Staff Favorite moments, Best SFX award goes to JMac and Krute

00:32:40  Cory – Gen Y rant

00:33:50  Mike Bracco – when John Humphrey pointed out Tylers insight at SxSW “It’s like going out for drinks and not going back to her place”

00:36:00  Lon, TWiST #16 – How to use a telephone to call info

00:38:00  Learned helpless rant

00:40:00  News with Lon Harris

00:41:00  HP buys Palm will it be successful?  No others in the space are guggernauts (Android and iPhone OS)

00:43:00  JasonNation to sign up for newsletter

00:44:20  Jason’s been offered to do a book but is unsure he wants the book to be timeless if he writes one

00:45:30  iPhone Seller Identity Discovered, who is at fault, the phone seller or buyer? The seller

01:01:00  How does this relate to the Twitter documents? no payment was given, TechCrunch called Twitter and gave them back, they didn’t publish everything

01:03:00  Lon, usually stolen items you keep, the iPhone is journalistic in nature in that they gave it back, sellers fault

01:08:35  Principle Bans Social Networks, young kids should not be on the internet unsupervised

01:10:20 Worst part is they will still probably see some disturbing things, computers should be in the family room, you need to trust them and discuss the internet use and privacy  settings, Zuckerberg has no morals, the default privacy settings tell something about a person

01:12:30  A drivers license should be required when driving a car and under a certain age you should only be able to go only 5 mph over the speed limit

01:14:30  Are we going to value the annonymous comments or not, which provides more value?

01:18:20  When Tyler was in 7th grade he and a friend were caught picking on someone and all the parents involved had to go into a meeting at the school to straighten it out, not a social network issue then, kids will be kids but social networks have more reach.

01:20:10  Steve Jobs vs. Adobe, he is brilliant and well written, he made a case against Adobe and every point is correct, but if anyone else wrote the same letter people would go nuts, the argument fails by not giving people a choice.

01:24:00  Industry needs to decide on a standard, internet is at a cross roads

01:26:50  Jason is considering breaking the show up one show with only a guest interview the other being a show of “Ask Jason”, “Jason’s Shark Tank” and “The News”

01:28:00  End

Ustream is the leader in live video with more than 75 million monthly viewers. The platform empowers any individual, public figure or brand to stream to a global audience of unlimited size. Ustream offers free broadcasting and viewing platforms for theWeb and mobile devices. Follow on Twitter or fan at Facebook.

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Jason Calacanis hosts an interview with Nathan Lasche, a student at the Harvard Business School.

01:00  Nathan Lasche is a 2nd year Harvard Business School student doing a project on entrepreneurship

01:30  How do you discover the business idea?

02:00  It’s a process but as you get more experience as an entrepreneur the process changes and many ideas are brought to you and you get access to many inspired people

02:30  Silicon Alley Reporter started because he met Esther Dyson (Release 1.0) and observed many friends and famous people in the industry

04:00  He originally dismissed blogs as personal journals but after observing a past employee making double what he was paying him he realized the opportunity which started Weblogs, Inc

05:00  In terms of Mahalo he was at AOL and watching Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers and Search become powerful

05:30  Their are themes you realize you are good at and he realized he was good at creating a brand, naming a brand, finding talent, developing talent, creating systems, monetization and raising capital

06:20  Knowing what you are good at is a layer and then apply it

06:45  How has the process changed now that you are more successful?  Jason gets about 400-500 emails a day and many include a pitch, he started OAF and TechCrunch50 which gives him access to many ideas and gives him direct contact with entrepreneurs.

09:00  Traveling allows you to see trends for example Jason witnessed virtual currency in Asia long before it made it’s way to the US

10:00  It’s important for a CEO to explore things outside their own company.  He joined the board of Savings.com to diversify his experience.  He believes their is more opportunity today than when the internet started

10:50  Entrepreneur in Residence – no formal program at Sequoia, he wasn’t paid, it’s a title everyone wants but it’s a way for VCs to develop a relationship with entrepreneurs who have a track record.

12:50  What benefits did you find while being a EIR?  You can get meetings when others might not, people think you are the next big thing, helps with recruiting team members and getting press.

14:30  The irony in life is when you could really use it you don’t have it

15:15  Is their anything VC firms can do with an EIR better?  It’s a nebulous position, you brainstorm, share information, it’s not a rigorous process, it’s like an honorary degree

17:00  Is their a systematic way you evaluate ideas?  He looks for a theme such as blogs, social network, media and puts them into a metric and compares the result to see what you get.  i.e. social network + casual games = Zynga , social network + photos = Flickr However, it doesn’t always work

19:00  He always had the idea of ThisWeekIn for Weblogs, Inc. but it was too expensive 5 years ago, sometimes you have the right idea but the conditions around it don’t work.

20:00  What advice do you have for entrepreneurs who haven’t found the idea yet?  “You miss 100% of the shots, you don’t take”, so take a lot of shots, if it doesn’t work move on, most successful businesses are not doing what they started out doing, where you start is not where you will end, people underestimate how much work it will take and over estimate the downside risk.  The beauty of starting a business in the USA ia you can fail one day and start a new business the next.

Jason’s guest this week was Sky Dayton, Founder of Earthlink, co-founder of eCompanies, Founder and Chairman of Boingo

00:00:20  Next weeks show will be the big 50th show celebration in San Francisco held at a secret location, with a secret guest.  If you’d like to sign up for tickets (limited seating) please fill out this form (April 30th, doors open at 6pm, show starts at 7pm, PST)

00:02:00  Intro Sky Dayton, Founder of Earthlink, eCompanies, Boingo

00:03:30  Ask Jason – Craig Tataryn congrats on being a father

00:04:30  Craig writes for FunctionalFather and has written about sleep deprivation

00:05:00  How formal show market research be when considering a startup?

00:05:30  For jason’s past ideas on 10-20% of friends understood is idea, 50% didn’t understand at all, he tends to look early adopter trends

00:06:00  Focus on what inspired you to the idea, what problem are you solving

00:07:00  He uses 0% market research but looks at what ways to position it and how to price

00:08:00  Fast fail

00:08:30  Web based companies should only take about $100-200K to get started and see if the idea will work

00:09:00  OAF, must have a product to apply

00:10:00  The market is your market research

00:10:30  Craig’s idea is an iPhone app for men/husbands to help them decide what to buy for their wife or girlfriend

00:11:30  Think like the consumer

00:12:00  You may want to leverage your wife’s social network to help the idea succeed

00:14:00  Think big act decisively

00:15:00  Think of an app as an extension of a website

00:15:50  Niche is the new mainstream

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00:18:30  catering a box of Cheezits

00:19:20  Shark Tank – Corey Stanford – Blazetrak – the first online resource that puts you directly in touch with top professionals in the areas of music, fashion/design, screen/stage, sports, business and many more and get a video response

00:23:00  Jason, pitch was very clear understands pain point 7.5-8

00:23:30  Will have to be careful, this may sound like a scam

00:24:00  Tyler, 8/8 like the music vertical

00:25:00  People do pay consultants

00:25:30  You submit to specific people

00:26:00  For advice ok but for anything artistic in nature isn’t that against the nature process

00:26:50  Celebrity or expert solicited for videos

00:27:30  Idea is being done by folks trying to sell head-shots

00:29:00  You get a video response

00:29:15  Does the pitching person have rights to the video response? both parties have to agree for public use

00:30:15  OAF gives feedback they feel it is their obligation

00:30:40  Integrating charity may work, it is more powerful for celebrities

00:32:30  @BlazeTrak

00:33:00  Corey’s first time watching, partner is a fan

Soon launching WebSpy Soho – Easily monitor Home & Small Network bandwidth usage, Internet connection speed and much more – Test Alpha version
00:33:30  Jason at times would love to do a 3 hour radio show with Tyler and Lon

00:35:00  Interview Segment

00:35:45  Sky has been an entrepreneur since 10 years old, window washing business

00:36:45  Jason at a young age was fascinated about acquiring money

00:37:30  Cafe Mocha (you have to look at the pics in that link), second business, idea was to meet girls, irony is he never met any he was too worried about running the business

00:38:30  They went some tough times, they did flyers to drum up business

00:39:00  It paid off and they got extremely busy and were featured on MTV, Melrose Place

00:39:50  Overnight success over 10 years

00:42:00  Earthlink idea conception, he remembers driving home at midnight, listening to New Order, on the 101

00:42:50  Incredible struggle to get success

00:43:30  Valentines Day 95′ database completely crashed

00:44:30  IN 94′ “internet” did not exist in directories

00:44:45  Fill an unmet need and do it well

00:45:00  Focused on customer service

00:45:15  Brought in a professional CEO

00:45:45  Disney Internet Group

00:47:45  Icebox Cartoon Network

00:48:45  Back then no advertising model

00:49:00  It was a try here (internet) and then bring to TV

00:50:00  JAMDAT sold to EA

00:51:00  Boingo $9.95 a month domestic

00:51:00  Actually costs money to have WiFi removed from your motherboard

00:52:30  Multiple sign-ins is an incredibly fractured model, Boingo solves that and has 130,000 hotspots

00:53:30  They have a lot of partnerships and focus on big airports

00:54:10  Won rights for WiFi in all UK airports

00:56:30  Average data use on mobile device Blackberry 30MB on iPhone 1GB

00:58:10  Rule of thumb if you are outdoors 3G and 4G service if you are indoors WiFi

00:59:00  iPad a game changer

01:00:35  Users will continue to need more bandwidth

01:00:50  WiFi a core function of the internet

01:01:25  Agreements must be very complicated

01:02:10  Helio, a great learning experience

01:03:15  Needed to reach scale and never met that point

01:04:00  In mobile distribution is king

01:04:20  Apple has stores and distribution

01:04:50  Tesla must have a showroom

01:05:20  Great thing about web based businesses is the customers go directly to you

01:05:50  How do you deal with failure?  Sky stayed with it to the end, did sell to Virgin and feels he got to fist base

01:07:40  entrepreneurs don’t have reverse or neutral they only have forward

01:08:20  Will you start a company?  He has ideas, when the time is right he’ll jump in

01:08:55  Amazing time to be an entrepreneur

01:09:20  Competition is fierce for any idea

01:11:40  News with Lon, he broke his foot by slipping off a curb while talking on his iPhone

01:14:00  Facebook Open Graph

01:15:30  Very powerful for SEO

01:16:00  Should be replaced by an open source global system, Apple and Facebook don’t play nice with data

01:17:05  Insights From Tyler – “Feels like shaking hands with Steve Wozniak”

01:17:40  Jason’s story about meeting WOZ, thay had lunch and WOZ was eating a big sandwich and making a mess, licked his fingers and later gave Jason the double hand handshake, Jason has concerns about germs

01:20:10  Jason had to do the double wash

01:22:00  The feature will be a powerful and instant endorsement

01:22:30  Will you lose privacy?

01:23:50  This is a dangerous precedent and their will be lawsuits

01:24:40  Zuckerberg’s position is wrong with regard to privacy

01:25:00  It s innovative and will provide value and it forces privacy issues

01:26:10  Business Insider Transcripts

01:27:20  Success brings attention, you will eventually step on someones toes

01:30:20  Blippy Credit Card Issue

01:31:40  How big of a PR problem is this?  Phil did a good job handling the issue, very serious PR issue but as an actual threat not so much

01:33:30  When you slip up it’s your job to educate

01:34:20  He was transparent

01:34:30  Job Hopping

01:35:25  Is it fair to dismiss an employee based on his resume?  Did not ask Mark to write the post, Jason asks for 3 years when you are hired and he will be very loyal to you

01:37:00  Loyalty is important in life

01:37:30  Jason probably wouldn’t interview based on a job hopping resume

01:37:50  If you only work for one year you look like a flake

01:39:30  Gen Y trophy, Excellence in showing up

01:40:25  Sky would ask why, it may not be hopping and compares it to failing fast if the person wasn’t right for the job

01:42:40  What kind of loyalty should employers show employees?  They should help develop the persona and provide a job

01:44:05  Two of Jason’s former bosses are his best friends

01:44:30  Gratitude Exercise

01:46:30  Background, one of Jason’s employees left for a larger company, he liked the person

01:48:45  Treat employees how you would want to be treated

01:49:30  Foursquare Sale?

01:50:00  Would you sell for over $100M?  very personal decision, no one answer, depends on circumstances

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01:55:30  Sign-up for tickets for 50th show

01:57:00  End

Ustream is the leader in live video with more than 75 million monthly viewers. The platform empowers any individual, public figure or brand to stream to a global audience of unlimited size. Ustream offers free broadcasting and viewing platforms for theWeb and mobile devices. Follow on Twitter or fan at Facebook.

If I missed anything please include it in the comments and I’ll integrate it into the post.

Click here to vote for this interview on Hacker News

Please rate the show in the comments

Jason Calacanis takes your questions on a special Ask Jason edition of This Week in Startups.

00:30  Mark your calenders in 2 weeks (April 30th) Episode #50 in SFO at Microsoft

02:00  Fan Bi asks, what is your formula for marketing?  make a good product and you will get a good up tick from social marketing.

03:40  Seth Godin, Purple Cow element may work as a strategy, do something unique in marketing and attach your product

04:30  Zappos created excellent customer service with shoes

05:30  TWiST Challenge, call Zappos (1-800-927-7671) and do a funny prank call, be outrageously, ridiculous, add a timer and let’s see how long you can keep them on the phone.  We’ll play them in show.

06:20  How would you market / distribute Blank-Label?  call in to podcasts like this one, have a great site, try connect with influencers (give them a free shirt) and get them to endorse your product.

09:20 Marketing vs Distribution, marketing is for creative types and distribution is a bizdev solution ie. revenue share deals

Provides fully hosted / managed Microsoft Exchange and Google Apps e-mail

10:15  Example, Virgin America and the flight attendant attire (Banana Republic) and sunglasses giveaway

11:00  Create specialty lines like the Forbes line

11:30  Tyler Crowley he’s the man

12:30  John Humphrey (DomainNoob) asks about the ThisWeekIn controversy with Leo Laporte and his TWiT network

13:00 Jason is disappointed in Leo’s change in position, he bought the domain for $18-20K and has invested $100k so far in the ThisWeekIn network

13:30  His goal was not to compete with Leo he believes their is plenty of room for both networks

13:50  He originally offered the domain to Leo

14:50   He will offer future show ideas to Leo before moving forward

15:10  Leo doesn’t use This Week In … for all his shows

15:30  Jason’s very saddened by the situation

15:50 This is not a fight

16:30  If someone has a This week In show and would like it listed on the ThisWeekIn network contact us

Soon launching WebSpy Soho – Easily monitor Home & Small Network bandwidth usage, Internet connection speed and much more – Test Alpha version

17:30  The goal is in 3 or 4 years the network will be bought

20:00  What is a good VC firm for a medical device?  Jason doesn’t know but suggests you work backward from another product that was funded and see where it leads

21:00 Interactive TV will be for set top boxes

21:30  A lot of group purchasing sites (Groupon) are popping up is their a future?  The first to market sites will probably win because they have funding, an alternative would be to go very niche.  The more interesting idea is would this work for Google?  It would work better for Yahoo or AOL, pretty good idea

23:45  Pat Kenneally asks, how do you value a business?  we operate a small web development business, we need a salable price.  Bankers can easily look as past transactions and analyze your business and give you an idea.  A service based business has complications because usually the talent is included, you may want to spin up the new idea and while you spin down the existing business. Gowalla did something similar

27:30  Will one big client help with Goodwill and the valuation?  Ask the bankers it depends

29:00  When dealing with bankers remember to incentive the deal

31:25  Jamie asks, how live video services such as Ustream will affect conferences

32:30  People will always want to attend to network

Provides fully managed virtual private server hosting with great customer service and amazing pricing. Receive 25% off for life using the code: twist

33:15  Start with small conferences, limit your expectation, go very niche, do a 1 day show for 75 people and sell out and strive for extremely high quality then grow

34:50  Their maybe a way to monetize, Ustream does provide value to sponsors

36:20 For the attendee, events help identify industry trends

37:30 Jason comments on going to the Laker game and being invited to the private area for execs, he chatted with Phil Jackson for 30 minutes

38:00  Chatroom asks if you were to do a startup right now what would it be?  He comments their are a lot he likes but will angel invest because he feels he has value to offer, however, he is focused on Mahalo.

39:30  Dan, dropped out of college to pursue his startup and will soon get an exit, should he go back to school and get a degree?  No, once you have an exit under your belt the worlds perception of you will change, Jason describes it a a game changer.

41:30  He wouldn’t leave if this is your best idea, for example if you created Facebook then that is different.

42:20 Charles calls in and compares VC funding to rocket fuel and asks how do you know when to raise capital?  First off VCs expect you to burn through some not all startups succeed but once you have a great team in place, an excellent product and traction and at least an idea on how you will monetize start seeking funding

44:40  All startups will take a few years to build out and VC money helps

45:30  Andrew Hurst launched a very niche search engine of sorts, what is the best way to monetize?  Don’t try recreate the wheel the current model works, cost per click and consider working in lead generation

47:45  Ads are looked at as content, it works for a reason

49:00 Tyler’s new favorite show is next This Week In Venture Capital

49:30 End Of Show

Ustream is the leader in live video with more than 75 million monthly viewers. The platform empowers any individual, public figure or brand to stream to a global audience of unlimited size. Ustream offers free broadcasting and viewing platforms for theWeb and mobile devices. Follow on Twitter or fan at Facebook.

That was an extremely fast show and on top of that a lot of content if I missed anything, add it to the comments and I’ll insert it in the appropriate spot.

Jason’s guest this week was Niel Robertson, Founder and CEO of Trada a PPC marketplace that allows agencies and in-house advertisers to leverage the skills of hundreds of the best PPC experts in the world, who in turn earn money risk free by generating low-cost clicks and conversions for advertisers.

00:00:45  Emergency dinner in SFO was the reason for no TWiST last week

00:01:00  Apology goes out to Ethan Anderson of Redbeacon, the only two show we have had to cancel he was the guest

00:02:40  Jason apologizes to all the fans who missed the show last week but it was necessary

Provides fully hosted / managed Microsoft Exchange and Google Apps e-mail

00:04:15  Jason expresses his concern with Generation Y and feels they lack the killer instinct to succeed and that participation doesn’t count.

00:10:40  Tyler mentions that Japan has gone through the same problems

00:13:40  Jason believes that Generation X will be considered the best generation along side “The Greatest Generation“

00:14:50  Generation Y technology knowledge is great

00:17:30  Not referencing the Hacker News crowd or the entrepreneurs crushing it but all the others

00:18:40  Gladiator clip

00:21:30  If you are Generation Y you need to get your friends to watch This Week In Startups

00:22:30  Ask Jason: Jeff Lunt calls in to ask, what is the best way to register your business an online service or a lawyer?

00:28:00  Legal formation and accounting two of the most important issues, if not set up properly from the start it is expensive to correct

00:30:00  Niel shares that he has had more trouble not having a good accountant

Soon launching WebSpy Soho – Easily monitor Home & Small Network bandwidth usage, Internet connection speed and much more – Test Alpha version

00:34:33  50th episode will be at the Microsoft campus in Mountain View

00:35:20  Shark Tank, Thomas Pedersen pitches OneLogin, an enterprise SSO the securely connects you to all your apps with one click, rating Jason (8:7-8), Niel (8-9:7-8), Tyler (7.5:8.5)

00:46:55  100 applicants for Open Angel Forum, NYC

00:48:00  Virgin America

00:53:00  Denver / Boulder startup scene and what got it going

00:57:00 What Brad Feld meant to the movement

00:58:00  The benefits of being in a 2nd tier tech startup city

01:00:00  VigLink affiliate program

01:02:00  Problems with being in SFO as a startups, money goes twice as far in Boulder

01:04:00  Talent in Boulder just as good but less opportunities

01:05:00  Trada, launched 2 weeks ago but have been working on it for 18 months, paid search campaigns are time consuming to do well and they have figured out a way to expertsource projects

01:06:00  Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the paid search results on the side and top of Google search results

01:08:00  SEM is challenging because a seperate auction is used for each keyword

01:10:00  Trada approach bring experts to you and the marketplace, you define what you want to spend and the wisdom of the crowd prevails

01:13:00  Pay for performance model, businesses recieve feedback on how to improve their site

01:16:00  What motivates people, Richard Bartle study

01:21:00  Trada “Hat Trick”

01:27:00  Trada, Hack-a-thon and walk in others shoes program

01:29:00  S-Curve discussion

01:33:00  What You Got Here You Won’t Get You There

01:38:00  Why Google changed box size

01:39:00  Insights From Tyler, It’s Like A Deer Farm, produces dough and brings in all the bucks

01:40:00  News with Lon Harris

Provides fully managed virtual private server hosting with great customer service and amazing pricing.  Receive 25% off for life using the code: twist

01:50:00 iPad App Store

01:55:00  Tyler a late adopter of tech toys

01:56:00  Is iPad a mainstrem device?

01:55:00  Message to Apple Fanboys and girls, don’t walk and use the iPad

01:58:00  If Old Spice made ads for Apple, video

02:00:00  iPad Reviews

02:03:00  Message to Arthur Sulzberger

02:09:00  WSJ app cost $17.29/month

02:14:00  Postling

02:16:00  Social Media discussion

02:19:00  ZenDesk, CEO tweeted Niel’s post and he was amazed at response.

Ustream is the leader in live video with more than 75 million monthly viewers. The platform empowers any individual, public figure or brand to stream to a global audience of unlimited size.  Ustream offers free broadcasting and viewing platforms for theWeb and mobile devices. Follow on Twitter or fan at Facebook.

If you would like to add to the timestamps leave your work in the comments and I’ll insert.

]]> http://thisweekin.com/thisweekin-startups/twist-47-with-niel-robertson/feed/ 20 episode Jason's guest this week was Niel Robertson, Founder and CEO of Trada a PPC marketplace that allows agencies and in-house advertisers to leverage the skills of hundreds of the best PPC experts in the world, This week we have Neil Robertson, CEO & Founder of Trada. For more information, show notes, and an upcoming schedule, go to www.thisweekin.com. ThisWeekIn.com no http://thisweekin.com/thisweekin-startups/twist-47-with-niel-robertson/http://cdn.thisweekin.com/startups/itunes/TWiST-E047.mp4 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/twistvid/~3/iXIvzDbvyeY/ http://thisweekin.com/thisweekin-startups/twist-46-with-david-heinemeier-hansson-2/#comments Sat, 20 Mar 2010 15:06:23 +0000 contact@thisweekinstartups.com http://thisweekin.com/?p=4106

Jason’s guest this week was David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails and partner at 37signals.  This show will go down as one of the epic shows, two great entrepreneurs both with often what appeared to be differing opinions but similar in many way.  You’ll have to watch to understand that comment, not to mention 2 great insights from Tyler “he’s back!”.

Insight From Tyler, “Going out for drinks and not going back to her place”

00:05 Ask Jason, Angela Benton (Black Web 2.0) calls in to ask, Do you think the Weblogs, Inc model will work today, in a specific vertical or niche?

00:18 It’s all about solving pain points

00:23 Jason’s Shark Tank, Devrim Yasar calls in to pitch Kodingen, a cloud development environment

Insight From Tyler, “Homeless Hotty At A Hip Hop Club” you’ll have to watch to understand

00:47 Interview, How David got started in tech.

He Got his first computer at 6 years old, his friends became programmers and he had no interest in C++

His first interest was in gaming and he ran a gaming review site (1997) about the upcoming launch of Quake 3

He worked an incubator in Denmark but quickly realized it wasn’t working which led to an interesting discussion about Europe vs the US and that in Europe you are accountable for VC money.

00:50 David isn’t a swing for the fences guy he believes in singles and base hits as a way to run your company

Jason shares his progression from the base hit approach to swinging for the fences through his three companies

Freemium vs premium discussion (Facebook vs 37signals)

David is not a believer in getting eyeballs = money

00:56 David believes market share doesn’t matter it’s all about profit

If offered an absurd amount of money he wouldn’t sell 37signals, he enjoys the work

01:02 David thinks that you should be working on your best idea at any given time

It’s all about profit not revenue
01:06 How “the exit” has changed the game

01:10 How the system is set up to benefit the entrepreneurs

Build a profitable business

Money taken from (Jeff Bezos) went to the founders and wasn’t to grow the company

01:14 David’s delusion’s of granger

01:16 David would not trade 37signals for Salesforce

David may believe in an older form of capitalism

01:22 News with Mike Bracco

• Google Vs Viacom
• Kindle App for Mac Released
• Spotify User Data Released

Jason’s guest this week was Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos and author of the soon to be released book Deliverying Happiness (June 7, 2010). Highlights of the show included 2 points of advice from Tony to entrepreneurs, a bunch of giveaways and multiple mini-guest segments.

00:03 Surprise guests include:
Brian Alvey
Don Dodge
Matt Coffin
Shel Israel

00:13 Tony Hsieh interview

* Book discussion (why, what’s in the book)
* Delivering Happiness Bus
* How to motivate employees

Ask Jason
00:19 Rob May, CEO of Backupify asks, How much focus should I place on competitors?
00:23 Don Dodge, Developer Advocate at Google asks, If you took Tony out of Zappos would Zappos be successful and follows up could Tony turn around an old company like General Motors? This is one of the things I love about Don Dodge, he’s not afraid to ask questions. This is the second time he has asked a question on the show, last question was on TWiST #10

Jason’s Shark Tank – Contest
00:27 Scripped, eBay for scripted content, helps producers find content
00:31 Youphonics, a tool to let musicians jam online together
00:34 Throwboy Pillows, custom pillows (winner)

The winner receives:

* One year of VPS service from PowerVPS
* One year of Email service from DNAmail (up to 10 mailboxes)
* One year of High Speed Internet from DSL Extreme
* One hour of business strategy consulting from IKANO team
o The IKANO team will provide up to one hour of strategy consulting to Startup via conference call. Jason or anyone from Mahalo/TWIST team can join if they would like. The startup can ask IKANO team for advise on any business related questions including social media, marketing, technology or general business questions and the IKANO team will provide insight and feedback. IKANO services and interacts with tens of thousands of business and can provide guidance based on our experience.
o Team
+ Doug Pollei (@dougpollei)
+ George Mitsopoulos (@gmitsopoulos)
+ Tom Kiblin (@tomatvirtacore)
+ George Naspo (@georgenaspo)

00:41 Tony Hsieh interview continued

* When Tony joined Zappos
* Zappos culture and it’s development
* Paying employees to quit
* Zappos sale to Amazon and how things have changed
* Tony’s advice to entrepreneurs
* What Tony reads

00:56 News with Lon Harris

* SXSW Blowback
* Sonos Receives Funding
* Stickybits
* Chatroulette Creator

Special thanks to our title sponsors this week: Bing and Sonos

Additional sponsors this week include: Loopt, Redpoint Ventures and Youphonics

Jason’s guest this week was Howard Morgan, Co-Founder of First Round Capital and a 30 year veteran of the technology industry. Highlights of the show this week include: biggest passes that did great, incubator programs and what they offer and who are the greatest tech. entrepreneurs of the 80s, 90s, 00s.

Announcements: next week’s show will be live from SXSW with Tony Hsieh of Zappos on Saturday the 13th at 2pm (Pacific), 5pm (Eastern), 10pm (London), March 14th 9am (Sydney)

Ask Jason

00:11 Pablo Fernandez of Hear a Blog calls in to ask, when pitching to investors do I pitch the necessary intermediate stage of the idea or the big vision idea?

00:27 Stephen Young calls in to ask, what salary range should founders be in when taking an angel investment and follows up with how do you raise your salary once you have investment?

00:35 Shark Tank

Andrew Watson calls in to pitch Othernum a virtual phone system for small businesses.

Interview with Howard Morgan

00:47 Topics:
Biggest company Howard passed on that was great
Investing in competitive companies
Location based companies
Franklin Electronic Publishers business cycle
Mint.com and how being a part of their founders network help them scale their infastructure
How First Capital supports their companies
Idealabs, why it’s successful
Greatest Entrepreneurs of the 80’s, 90’s, 00’s

01:38 News with Lon Harris

Call of Duty Lawsuit

Bing Ad on Framville

01:48:28: Microsoft gains 400,000 users by advertising on farmville.
lon’s Question: is this a way to get users or just click
Jason: Good Idea, social games are massive

01:51:28 Social game advertising is going to be a massive advertising portal, mini cooper being launched through the movie italian job.

01:51:55 Tyler gets scolded

01:52:33 Companies advertising to free samples in magazine.

01:54:00 A large percent of facebook revenue coming from social games, zynga worth more then facebook?

Microsoft’s Project Pink Phones

01:54:35 Microsoft’s Pink Phone
lon’s question: What’s the strategy for Microsoft for releasing these phones?

01:56:00 Jason: Microsoft has a legacy and needs to start from scratch and create a long lasting mobile os.

01:58:00 xbox gets complemented

Sony’s PSP Phone

01:59:21 sony to launch a playstation themed phone, maybe a competitor to ipad.
Question: will this hit a mass audience and what will they need to hit a mass audience.

02:00:00 Sony should use the google OS
02:01:00 Sony has lost it’s relevance

iPad Release Date

02:02:50 Ipad will release late april
Question: are you planning to buy an ipad?

02:03:40 Jason: yes – the ipad without the 3g may not sell as well. Maybe ipad is too expensive for a recession.
02:05:40 ipad needs a USB
02:05:50 Howard Morgan: Overpriced Kindle

02:08:00 Steve Job too controlling

02:08:15 What will happen to apple after steve jobs?
02:09:00 Howard Morgan talks about meeting steve in person.

Fiverr

02:10:51 fiverr job board for jobs worth $5

Jason’s guest this week was Andy Smith, CEO and Co-Founder of DailyBurn a social networking fitness site, that allows you to track what you eat, record your workout, join a challenge and find like minded people for support in your fitness goals.  Highlights this week include an in-depth discussion concerning TechStars and worst VC experiences and the winner of the Bing Perfect Pitch Contest.

Announcements:

• Jason will be taking the show on the road to SXSW, March 13th.
• We have a new CDN NetDNA to deliver the show to the iTunes feed, we think you’ll be happy.
• Microsoft Bing Map Augmented Reality TED talk.

00:19 Ask Jason: Sean O’Connor calls in to ask, how do I research market size in preparation for investment discussions?

00:28 Initial Interview with Andy:
Andy’s experience with TechStars
What it took to get in
An explanation of the program
How the TechStars community help each other
The TechStars program application is open.

00:37 Jason’s Shark Tank: Steven Schofield calls in to pitch Fidgetstick a social network site aimed at bringing like minded adventure sport enthusiast together.

00:51 Bing Perfect Pitch Contest, congratulations goes to Erick Arndt of Timeshare Juice.  Jason adds to the winnings in about 6 months Timeshare Juice and Propadoo (community choice) will come into studio to showcase their work.

00:56 Interview:

• What’s next for DailyBurn
• Fund Raising goals
• Bringing the team together
• Health issues in the US
• VC stories (Jason and Andy’s worst experience)

01:28 News with Lon Harris:

• Facebook Patent
• Palm in Trouble
• Shamu and Social Media
• Sexy App Ban by Apple
• Yammer Communities
• Yelp Lawsuit

Jason’s guest this week was Michael Robertson, CEO and Founder of MP3Tunes.  This was an incredible show, highlights include a guest that has an incredible amount of experience, battling big corporations, lawsuits and how to deal with them, interesting predictions for the music industry and how MP3.com got started.

00:07 During “Ask Jason” we get to hear Josh Nielsen ask “How do I value equity when being offered a job at a startup?” the question doesn’t end there without spoiling things, be sure to see where this one ends up.

00:25 We get to hear from Erick Arndt of Timeshare Juice pitch how he plans to change the timeshare exchange experience.  He gets some incredible feedback from Jason and Michael regarding his business model and distribution.

00:44 Highlights of the interview include:

• Michaels story of rags to riches
• What motivated him to succeed
• How he started MP3.com and fought the music industry, winning and losing in some cases.
• How independent label artists helped him succeed.
• 6 months to IPO
• Why he gave $15 million to his employees
• Michael’s opinion on why Spotify will go out of business.

01:49 News with Lon Harris include:

• Microsoft and Yahoo
• Tesla Plane Crash
• Lower Merion, PA Privacy Invasion
• Sex.com
• YouTube Embedding Survey
• Please Rob Me
• Scribd
• Hulu on the iPad

Download the MP3 Here!

Jason’s guest this week was James Segil of EdgeCast a content delivery network.  Highlights of the show include an interesting discussion of TED and why he is banned from attending, a celebrity Ask Jason call-in and how companies distribute their content.

Things of note:

• Open Angel Forum announces two new cities: New York and San Fransisco, to be competitive to pitch be sure to have a working product (beta is ok).
• This Week In Twitter, hosted by Lon Harris had their second show, please check it out.

During “Ask Jason” we get to hear Joel Spolsky (Joel on Software and Stack Overflow) call in to ask some advice on closing a deal with a VC and Jason follows up with a question for Joel regarding how to help developers experiment and learn new things.

We get to hear two different companies pitch during Jason’s Shark Tank the first is Rob Leclerc pitching Babbleflix a language learning tool basically Rosetta Stone meets Netflix.  Our second caller is Shawn Edmondson pitching thereNow an innovative approach to continuing education for teachers.

Highlights of the interview include:

• How content delivery networks work
• Why EdgeCast decided to compete with Akamai
• A short discussion about the backbone of the internet
• Is the internet ready and capable to grow exponentially
• International implications of the internet
• Debt vs. Equity and Warrants

News with Lon Harris discusses:

• Google Buzz (Jason’s Buzz Profile)
• Google Buys Aardvark
• Deadpool: Veoh
• Free Kindle
• Shakeup at MySpace

Rate the show in the comments 1 – 10 (10 being best)

Today Jason had the opportunity to speak to 55 seniors at Penn State who will all be working on the University’s “Idea Pitch” contest.  All the students are part of the Information Sciences and Technology school and will be pitching their ideas to the business school.

I really liked this interview it was not your normal TWiST episode.  While it had the same sense of humor and casual tone we get to hear Jason tell his story and how he learned and what motivated him.  You can even see the passion coming through at one point where I sensed emotional satisfaction in proving the naysayers wrong.

He starts off by asking how many people want to be an entrepreneurs and who wants to be a drone worker bee (about 6%).  Throughout the interview he motivates the class and opens many eyes about work life, later in the show he asks the same question to find a very different answer.

Entrepreneur core qualities:

• Entrepreneurial parents
• Recklessness gambling personalities
• Resiliency
• Focused
• Won’t take no for an answer
• You will disproportionately be rewarded if you succeed
• Work harder
• Must believe in yourself

Questions from the class:

• Do you stir the pot on purpose (Twitter)?
• What is your relationship with your employees?
• In the early stages do you worry about intellectual property?
• Can you be someone who is an entrepreneur within a company?

Who wants to be a rice picker and who wants to be a Samari?

This week’s guest was Scott Morrow, CEO of ThisNext a social shopping search/discovery site that uses crowdsourcing to bring the best products to the top.  Highlights of the show are a live surprise call to a superfan and interesting discussion about arbitrage.

The show starts off with a great behind the scenes video (by Colorado Tech TV) of the Boulder Open Angel Forum event.

During “Ask Jason” we hear Denny Ferrassoli ask, what are the pros and cons to bringing real money vs. virtual currency to a social community.

Anibal Damião calls in for “Jason’s Shark Tank” and he pitches Influads an advertising alternative, where one advertisement is place on a website.

During the interview we learn about what it’s like to come in as a President for a startup with a founder still in the mix, the ins and outs of crowdsourcing methods and a detailed discussion about pay per click, arbitrage and paid search.  Scott brought up one ThisNext feature that was pretty interesting “Explore” a map that allows you to watch people shop live around the world.

Another contest was held on the fly, Charles Goffnett (ShirTeeapp.com) , a superfan, sent in four “Insight’s from Tyler” inspired t-shirts that were given to four fan’s chosen at random who thanked our sponsors.   Charles will soon be launching a site if you’d like to purchase one on your own.  I’ll be sure to post details once they are available.

Please rate the show in the comments, 1 – 10 (10 being best)

This week’s guest was Stefan Weitz, Director of Bing Search at Microsoft.  Not only was the show insightful as always but I think this was one of the funniest shows I’ve seen in awhile.  Not to mention Jason’s recent Twitter iPad joke, shame on the journalists who fell for that, Jason and Loren Feldman of 1938 Media put them in their place.  One last comments about the iPad, No USB No iPad.

In the “Ask Jason” segment we hear from Dewayne Carel, who asks “How do I keep momentum with my blog (Modders Inc), the uniques spike then plateau back to original values?”.

During “Jason’s Shark Tank” we get to hear Andrew Hillman pitch MaroonDoor a solution for sometimes sticky Home Owners Association politics.

During the interview we hear a great discussion about, why Bing turned out so well.  Stefan’s past with Microsoft and his vision for search.  One interesting feature that was brought up was Bing and Twitter information.  If you go to Bing.com/twitter you can search Twitter content, I urge you to try it I thought it was interesting, try searching #TWiST.  Lastly Stefan mentioned the theme for the Bing Friday T-Shirt contest “Airports” if you’d like to win a Bing T-shirt simple @Bing with a query that exemplifies the theme and the team randomly picks a winner.

Rich DeMuro finishes with the news:

• Facebook and a Foursquare killer
• Roku seeks private funds for engineering and marketing
• AT&T to launch Yelp competitor Buzz
• iCurrent know available to everyone
• Square announces Angels
• Startup raises $230,000 using only LinkedIn

Please rate the show in the comments : 1-10 (10 being best)

This week’s guest was Phil Kaplan co-founder of Blippy.  Highlights of the show included a great discussion with Phil about what it’s like to work as Entrepreneur in Residence, another great Tyler quote and multiple giveaways (5 Jawbone ICONs, 1 Nexus One, $500 MicroSoft prize pack (congrats Erika)).

Announcements:

• A new show This Week in Android (@TWiAndroid) hosted by Mark Jeffrey showcasing everything android will follow TWiST each week.  To catch it live stay on the same Ustream page for TWiST.
• A new Bing Shark Tank contest is announced, I’ll post all the details in a blog post, needless to say submit your ideas for Jason’s Shark Tank, that is step one.

In the Ask Jason segment, Wayne calls in to ask, what is more important to investors being in a hot sector or having a proven revenue model?  Jason follows up with a good question asking Phil how he chose who would be an investor in Blippy due to the large interest.  In Shark Tank we get to hear pitches from Propadoo and Brand-Yourself, two great ideas who received a ton of feedback.

In the news:

• Digg overhall
• 2009 a bad year for VC deals
• YouTube movie rentals
• ComScore overhall
• Zocdoc

I would like to start compiling Tyler quotes can you help me by adding them in the comments.

Please rate the show in the comments: 1 to 10

Following TWiST 35 with Brad Feld, Jason had a special bonus show with some of the Open Angel Forum (OAF) inaugural presenters.  Jason starts off by explaining what OAF is “it is a forum to help entrepreneurs raise Angel investment” and then goes on to talk a little bit about the  structure of the event (the audience consists of Angel Investors and five service providers).  The next OAF event will be held in Boulder, CO and hosted by TechStars in February.

A few of the companies that presented were interviewed and we get to hear a firsthand account of their experience.

• Eric Lagier, CEO and co-founder of TigerTag the world’s first free lost and found service.  The core of our service is the TigerTag – a small, neatly designed tag that you apply to all your valuables that you would like to safeguard.
• Arun Gupta, co-founder of WakeMate a bluetooth cell phone accessory that will analyze your sleep to find the optimal time for you to wake up and analysis of your sleep pattern.
• Jason Kiesel, co-founder of CitySourced a real time mobile civic engagement tool. CitySourced provides a free, simple, and intuitive tool empowering citizens to identify civil issues (potholes, graffiti, trash, snow removal, etc.) and report them to city hall for quick resolution; an opportunity for government to use technology to save money and improve accountability to those they govern; and a positive, collaborative platform for real action.

For those interested the two companies we do not get to hear from are:

• Backupify is a service that backs up your online accounts: WordPress, Facebook, Basecamp, Google Docs, Gmail, Flickr and many more.
• Postabon where people upload and vote on in-store discount recommendations in your area.  The result is a comprehensive list of relevant, user-tested discounts happening at brick and mortar stores in your area right now.

Jason’s guest this week was Brad Feld, co-founder of Foundry Group and mentor for TechStars.  Highlights of the show include the appearance of Sith Lord Calacanis and a great discussion about startup team dynamics.
The show starts off with a recap of the inaugural Open Angel Forum event consisting of “Power Angels” such as Chris Sacca, Ron Conway, David Cohen and many more.  Jason has one special announcement, the next Open Angel Forum will take place in Boulder, CO hosted by TechStars in February, details will be posted at the Open Angel Forum website.  After pleasantries we get to hear a bit about Brad’s experience in Alaska and Boulder and how he has helped cultivate the Boulder startup community and what it is like to be part of TechStars.  Things progress to Ask Jason and we get to hear about the necessity of have a developer as part of your team.  Tyler Koblasa calls in and pitches Ming.ly a CRM tool for social contacts.  During the interview segment Brad and Jason discuss: startup visas and their importance, what is important to his firm when investing  and what is important for your startup team.  The news segments highlights: Haiti, Yahoo’s Shopping API, MyTown, Google China and Apple acquisitions.

Here are a couple blog posts highlighting the Open Angel Form inaugural event:

Mark Suster: Both Sides of The Table

Brad Feld: Feld Thoughts

David Cohen: Colorado Startups

This week was an all “Ask Jason” show, present to help Jason with questions and advice is the ever insightful Tyler Crowley and Mahalo technical advisor Mark Jaffrey.  We have the pleasure of hearing four great questions and a news segment with Lon Harris that touches on all the tech stories of the week.

The show starts off with a highlight of Open Angel Forum, 100+ people applied to pitch at the Los Angeles event alone (Jan. 14^th) and for the other cities combined an additional 100+.  Tyler says on average these applicants are better than TechCrunch50, 5 companies were chosen pitch.   Hopefully, they will be on a special TWiST next week.  Four more cities will be launching next week, Jason sees this going worldwide.

In the “Ask Jason” segment we get to hear from the youngest caller to date Max Salmeron a 15 year old blogger.  Jason explain how blogging is a great medium and how