Nearly 2,000 interactive marketers, IT executives, entrepreneurs, digital/new media strategists, venture capitalists and technology professionals will connect at the Raleigh Convention Center for the 2011 Internet Summit Nov. 15-16 to hear more than 120 speakers delivering over 80 presentations and panel discussions about today’s hottest business trends.
Topics include social media, mobile applications, e-commerce, SEO/paid search, Internet usability, analytics & measurement, streaming/interactive video, cloud computing/virtualization and online advertising/branding.
New York Times best-selling author, brains behind the Wine Library, Internet celebrity and social media king Gary Vaynerchuck will deliver the keynote presentation that promises to be enlightening, inspiring and engaging.
A strong business case for for social media
Gary Vaynerchuk
“I want to come at you practical, not theory or buzzwords,” says Vaynerchuck. “I guarantee, if you come in skeptical about social media, I will bring a strong B2B and B2C (business case) to the table.”
The conference and exhibits opens Tuesday, Nov. 15 at 1 p.m, with a keynote panel discussion: “The Future of Digital Media & Marketing” with executives from Google,Gannet Company, Inc., FormSpring, and Discovery Communications.
Participants will choose from over 25 80-minute sessions featuring more than 75 presentations tailored to their interests and needs, as well as get a glimpse into some of the industry’s newest Internet entrepreneurial products and tools in the Demo Showcase and Startup Lounge.
To wrap up day one, award-winning video DJ Mike Relm performs at the opening reception from 6-8 p.m.
Doors open day two at 7 a.m. for a networking breakfast, followed by presentations from featured thought leaders Marc Cendella, CEO, TheLadders.com, and Marshall Brain, founder of HowStuffWorks.
Register for what is sure to be a sold out event and get the latest about the Internet Summit 2011.
Here’s what some said on Twitter about the 2010 Internet Summit:
blairgraham: Congrats to @Internet_Summit founders @EricGregg and @Scott_Hedrick of @TJ_South! I hear you are crushing it again! Well played.
Cybersig55: @Internet_Summit great job #isum10!! This has been an informative and well organized event. I look forward to attending again next year!
Huddy: Super excited to have been at the #iSum10. Great people, great sessions, great lessons… everything you want from a great conference.
invitecottage: Great 2 days @Internet_Summit #isum10. Lots of ideas for the new year!
DH_David: Not sure if there is enough coffee to get me through the day as I recover from two great days at Internet Summit 2010 in Raleigh. #isum10.
Did you read the piece I wrote back in May about Tech Jobs Under the Big Top? Click on it so I get the credit and I’ll boil it down for you here.
The brainchild of former Launchbox Executive Director Chris Heivly, Big Top purported to create a job fair strictly for startups and, in doing so, turn the concept of a job fair completely on its head.
Underwear joke.
It succeeded, and the event drew 15 companies pitching over 85 jobs to over 250 job-seekers in an atmosphere that resembled an actual circus, down to the clowns, jugglers, and free peanuts and cotton candy.
No wait, I know I just blew your mind, so you might have missed where I said 15 companies pitched 250+ job seekers — not screened, but pitched – with each company giving a three-minute presentation on why their startup was the place you wanted to work.
We’re Changing the World Plus We Have a Ping Pong Table
I loved that concept. A lot. I was there with one of the companies doing the pitching. So I sat down with Heivly as he was gearing up for Big Top 2.0, which is taking place Thursday, October 20th at Bay 7 in the American Tobacco Campus. You can find out more at BigTop.IT or just go register at: bigtop.eventbrite.com.
If you’re looking for a job and/or have ever thought about working for a startup, there is no better way to amplify your job search. Even if you’re gainfully employed, as about half of the job-seekers at Big Top are, you may want to drop by (although if you’re unprepared to be swayed by the magic and the majesty and the long hours and the low pay of Startup Nation, save the ticket for someone who needs it).
In my own view, the concept was a smash hit for a lot of reasons. As I pointed out in my last column, the Big Top event succeeded at removing the stigma of unemployment by turning the tables and having the potential employers sell themselves. Finding a job is hard enough. Finding a job at a job fair is like getting a root canal. Finding a job at a job fair during a recession is like getting a root canal from someone who works in Human Resources.
This is why Heivly had us pitch the job seekers, and I can tell you firsthand that each company got on board and produced presentations that ranged from gut-bustingly funny to eye-opening inspirational. You couldn’t help but have a smile on your face by the second or third pitch.
Do You Have Any Idea Who I Am?
The Big Top jobs event
But this is not the kind of endeavor you undertake a second time just because you made people feel better. Believe me, if I had a nickel for every time something I wrote made someone laugh, I’d make even less money writing than I do now.
You’re welcome.
One thing Heivly pointed out that I wouldn’t have put together is that Big Top and the resultant hype also dropped the names and identities of many local, working, hiring startups into the lexicon of 250 potential employees.
A lot of feedback from the first event centered around the fact that the job seekers just didn’t know there were this many of this kind of company in the area. You may not think this possible, I sure didn’t, but those of us who are immersed in the ecosystem, especially those of us shouting from the rooftops about how awesome this ecosystem is, can easily forget that the vast number of people out there have never heard of any of us.
But most importantly, Big Top succeeded as a job fair, resulting in a vast amount of connections, many useful relationships, and of course, several filled positions.
So What’s New?
Here we are just under half-a-year later and the outlook really hasn’t changed all that much. The silver lining on the cloud is that there are still at least a dozen smart, passionate startups who need smart, passionate technologists.
This time around, Heivly tells me, there will be more focus on the networking. One easy solution is that there are three fewer companies, so they still get the three minute pitch, but it won’t take as much time.
Heivly is also sending out an email to all registrants with all 60+ jobs that the startups need filling, so both sides can get right to the point.
In an additional effort to make the discussions more efficient, Big Top 2.0 will feature 12 tables, one for each company, instead of three tables, one for each discipline (technology, marketing, general business).
You Have To Be Crazy To Work Here
Overall, Heivly admits he’s done a little better job talking about the companies. Correspondence with the registered job-seekers is about making sure that the right people are there – because these are early-stage tech companies, and the jobs are more than 50 percent software development.
Last time, he says, about 20 percent of the crowd realized they didn’t belong there. Why? They just weren’t the special kind of crazy you need to be to work at a startup. Again, it’s high risk, long hours, low pay, and so glamorous that the vast majority of people out there will never have heard of you.
But it’s the other 80 percent that the startups need to reach. As Heivly jokes, and I agree, every developer we get from IBM is a win for the ecosystem.
One thing that won’t change, thankfully and rightly so, is the tone. There will still be jugglers and acrobats and the tent and the straw and the free beer and carnival snacks. All of this lends to a very comfortable networking environment.
At some point, Heivly wants to see this expand out of software and into life science and other startup disciplines. I told him I think gaming would be huge, and he agreed. But regardless of whether we’re talking about a BigTop 3.0 for web, mobile, biotech, gaming, clean & green, or craft brewing, as long as we’re talking about the RTP startup ecosystem, we’ll reach more people who have never heard of companies like Adzerk, EvoApp, Shoeboxed, HEALTHeME, ReverbNation, Argyle Social, and so on.
Mort importantly however, the more those companies keep finding smart, passionate technologists (like you), the less we’ll need to talk about it, because it will speak for itself.
Joe Procopio heads up product engineering for tech media startup Automated Insights (formerly StatSheet). He also owns consulting firm Intrepid Company and creative network Intrepid Media and runs the startup social ExitEvent. Joe can be reached via Twitter @jproco and read at joeprocopio.com.
TechMedia’s Internet Summit is bringing 120 digital media, marketing and business thought leaders to the Raleigh, NC, Convention Center Nov. 15-16, but discounted early registration for the event, which is shaping up as the largest ever, ends today, Friday, Oct. 14.
With more than 75 individual presentations, 5 forward looking panels, and keynotes by NY Times best-selling author & ‘Social Media King’ Gary Vaynerchuk andGowalla co-founder Josh Williams the event promises to give your business savvy a boost.
Over 120 industry innovators and thought leaders from prime brands like Google, Microsoft, ESPN, StumbleUpon and many more, will be on hand to share their insight, spark new ideas, and expand your understanding on issues and topics that matter to you.
The Internet Summit expects nearly 2,000 attendees at Internet Summit 2011 making it the largest Digital, Media & Tech Conference in the Southeast — offering you unparalleled opportunities to connect and network with your peers and business colleagues.
TechMedia’s Internet Summit is bringing 120 digital media, marketing and business mavens to the Raleigh, NC, Convention Center Nov. 15-16, but discounted early registration for the event, which is shaping up as the largest ever, ends this Friday, Oct. 14.
With more than 75 individual presentations, 5 forward looking panels, and keynotes by NY Times best-selling author & ‘Social Media King’ Gary Vaynerchuk and Gowalla co-founder Josh Williams the event promises to give your business savvy a boost.
Over 120 industry innovators and thought leaders from prime brands like Google, Microsoft, ESPN, StumbleUpon and many more, will be on hand to share their insight, spark new ideas, and expand your understanding on issues and topics that matter to you.
The Internet Summit expects nearly 2,000 attendees at Internet Summit 2011 making it the largest Digital, Media & Tech Conference in the Southeast — offering you unparalleled opportunities to connect and network with your peers and business colleagues.
TechMedia’s Internet Summit 2011 at the Raleigh, NC Convention Center Nov. 15-16 is jam-packed with top level content focused on the latest digital trends, online marketing techniques and IT best practices at the largest digital event in the Southeast.
The Internet Summit features two full days of learning mixed with awesome parties, great networking and entertaining keynotes. Here’s a sampling of topics that will be addressed:
Online Video
Cloud Panel
Ecommerce Trends
Reputation Management
Security/Risk Management
Startup Strategies
Enterprise 3.0 Panel
Email Marketing
Mobile Analytics
Advanced SEO
Big Data
Measuring Social
Design
Paid Search
CIO/CTO Panel
Online Advertising
Location Marketing
Marketing Through Facebook & Twitter
Virtualization
Social Media Marketing
Internet Entrepreneurship Panel
and much more.
Hear from the founders of companies like Gowalla, TheLadders, Twitpic & HowStuffWorks! Not enough? How about a Keynote from Top rated SXSW keynote and ‘Social Media King’ Gary Vaynerchuk? That’s just a sampling of the over 120 speakers and presenters that will be on hand.
Early confirmed presenters include:
Gary Vaynerchuk, Co-Founder, VaynerMedia
Josh Williams, Co-founder & CEO, Gowalla
Mac Cendella, Founder & CEO, The Ladders
Marshall Brain, Founder, How Stuff Works
David Perry, Business Development Executive, Google
Liz Strauss, Co-founder, SOBcon & LizStrauss.com
Noah Everett, Founder, TwitPic and Heello
Jack Krawczyk, Sr Product Marketing Mgr, StumbleUpon
Tower Cloud Inc., a wireless backhaul services provider, has secured $49 million in additional equity to fund its expansion into new markets throughout Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama.
The latest round of funding was led by two of Tower Cloud’s existing investors, The Burton Partnership and Knology Inc. Tower Cloud’s other existing institutional investors include: Sutter Hill Ventures, El Dorado Ventures, Ballast Point Ventures, Kinetic Ventures, ITC Partners Fund and Noro-Moseley Partners.
For this round, two new investors joined the consortium, The Florida Growth Fund and CLR Investors. The funding was done in two phases with $13 million completed in January and $36 million completed in July. This funding follows a $20 million equity commitment by the same investor group in October 2009.
“If you build it, they will come” no longer works for online retailers: heading into the holiday shopping season, a new survey reveals that active online shoppers increasingly rely on online product reviews as a key element in their buying decisions.
The survey also found they’re increasingly interacting directly with vendors through social media sites like Facebook and Google+, and shows that deal sites such as Groupon and LivingSocial soared in popularity.
The fourth annual Global Consumer Shopping Habits Survey was conducted by ChannelAdvisor, a global e-commerce platform provider that enables retailers to sell more across online channels. The survey included responses from participants throughout North America, Europe and Australia.
With the global economy in a continued weakened state, the company noted that consumer preferences are more important than ever for retailers to take into account as they work to stay profitable during the all-important holiday season and beyond.
Peer-based product reviews are one of the most important factors in the buying decisions of online shoppers, according to the ChannelAdvisor survey. Ninety percent of shoppers around the world who answered the survey said they read product reviews from other shoppers before buying, with 83 percent saying the reviews affect whether they actually purchase an item. In the United States alone, almost half of the respondents (48 percent) said they have posted an online review as well.
“Consumers are increasingly diversifying the places they shop online, which is reflected within this survey and further highlights the need for retailers to expand their reach on every e-commerce channel, including mobile and social,” said Scot Wingo, ChannelAdvisor’s chief executive officer.
“The development of emerging channels within the past year is staggering, supporting our belief that these channels are more than just passing trends. The survey reveals how influential social networks have become, as well as their potential to drive e-commerce moving forward.”
Customer sentiment has increasingly migrated as well to social media sites in the last year, with more than half (53 percent) of those responding to the survey saying that product comments posted to retailers’ Facebook and Twitter pages play a role in their buying decisions.
Increasingly, those retailers are aware of the sites’ growing importance in their efforts, and are seeking to engage potential and existing customers online; the survey indicates their efforts are taking hold. More than one-third of the respondents (34 percent) said they have become “fans” of retailers on Facebook; that number is much higher in the United States, where 46 percent said they have done so.
In addition, 83 percent said they are likely to visit a retailer’s website if it’s been recommended by a Facebook friend.
Other findings from the ChannelAdvisor survey include:
Google continues as the clear number-one choice globally among online shoppers as a starting point for product searches;
Purchases made via mobile phone have more than tripled in the past year, to 31% of those responding to the survey (but online shoppers say using tablet computers, like the iPad, is far easier);
Thirty percent of shoppers worldwide say they are using barcode scanning applications (like eBay’s RedLaser) as an element in their buying decision; and
“Deal of the day” sites, like Groupon and LivingSocial, have leaped in popularity, with about half of all respondents in the United States saying they use both sites frequently.
Johan Wibergh, Sony Ericsson EVP, head of business unit networks
A new report shows that doubling the broadband speed for an economy increases GDP by 0.3 percent.
The report was conducted jointly by Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC), Arthur D. Little and Chalmers University of Technology in 33 OECD countries, and quantifies the isolated impact of broadband speed.
A 0.3 percent GDP growth in the OECD region is equivalent to USD 126 billion. This corresponds to more than one seventh of the average annual OECD growth rate in the last decade.
This Ericsson study also shows that additional doublings of speed can yield growth in excess of 0.3 percent (e.g. quadrupling of speed equals 0.6 percent GDP growth stimulus)
Both broadband availability and speed are strong drivers in an economy. Last year Ericsson and Arthur D. Little concluded that for every 10 percentage point increase in broadband penetration GDP increases by 1 percent.
Growth stems from direct and indirect effects
This growth stems from a combination of direct, indirect and induced effects. Direct and indirect effects provide a short to medium term stimulus to the economy. The induced effect, which includes the creation of new services and businesses, is the most sustainable dimension and could represent as much as one third of the mentioned GDP growth.
“Broadband has the power to spur economic growth by creating efficiency for society, businesses and consumers,” says Johan Wibergh, head of Business Unit Networks, Ericsson. “It opens up possibilities for more advanced online services, smarter utility services, telecommuting and telepresence. In health care, for instance, we expect that mobile applications will be used by 500 million people.”
During a keynote speech at Broadband World Forum 2011 in Paris, Wibergh said: “We expect a huge increase from the current estimate of around 1 billion people with broadband access to about 5 billion in 2016, most of whom will have mobile broadband. Connectivity and broadband are just a starting point for new ways of innovating, collaborating and socializing.”
Erik Almqvist, director at Arthur D. Little, says: “Until now there has been an absence of hard facts investigating the effects of broadband speed on the economy. This unique empirical study may help governments and other decisions makers in society make more correct tradeoffs and policy choices.”
Results support polices that recognize broadband importance
“These results have been derived using rigorous scientific methods where the direction of causality, data quality and significance levels have been appropriately tested,” says Erik Bohlin, Professor at Chalmers University of Technology.
“The results of this study support governmental policies that recognize and promote the importance of broadband.”
Unfortunately, many states have restricted the efforts of municipalities to create their own, higher-speed broadband networks due to lobbying by commercial providers, which make substantial contributions to state legislature political campaigns that seem to have paid off. It paid off most recently in North Carolina, where the Republican controlled state legislature passed such a bill restricting municipal broadband efforts despite the fact that seven NC cities had the lowest download speeds vs. price nationally.)
This study is the first of its kind in that it quantifies the economic impact of increases in broadband speed in a comprehensive scientific method using publicly available data.
Texas, North Carolina and South Carolina are viewed as having the best business climates among the 50 states, according to a new survey of U.S. corporate executives.
The poll pinpointed California, New York and Illinois as the U.S. states with the least favorable business climates.
Conducted by Development Counsellors International (DCI) every three years, the “Winning Strategies in Economic Development Marketing” survey has tracked trends in economic development since its inception in 1996.
“With the battle for business more intense than ever, states and their economic development organizations need to pay close attention to the results of this survey,” said DCI President Andrew T. Levine. “Whether accurate or misguided, perceptions about a location’s business climate often play a crucial role in site selection decisions and where companies invest money and create jobs.”
Half the firms to make relocation decisions
Nearly half (46%) of the 322 corporate executive who responded to the survey indicated that their firm would make a location decision in the next 24 months – whether a move, expansion or consolidation of a manufacturing plant, offices, distribution center or other facilities. More than half (51%) said that they would outsource a portion of the site selection process to a real estate broker or site selection consultant.
Texas was the clear-cut favorite among the respondents to the survey, with 49.4% naming the Lone Star state as having one of the most favorable business climates in the nation. North Carolina ranked second with 27.8%; South Carolina has 14.3% of the votes.
Texas and North Carolina have consistently landed in the top spots since the survey began more than a decade ago.Texas has held the #1 ranking since 1999, while North Carolina has been #2 since 2002. South Carolina, Tennessee andFlorida have frequently traded top positions in the survey and 2011 marks the return of South Carolina to the #3 slot.
Low operating costs a top concern
When asked why they selected the states they did as being best for business, the corporate executives frequently cited low operating costs and a pro-business climate. In the 2008 survey, more executives pointed to the availability of a strong workforce than they did in 2011.
For the fourth consecutive time, California was deemed as having the least favorable business climate, with 70.5% of the responses. New York was named second most frequently with 46.5%, followed by Illinois (24.4%) Taxes, high costs and “anti-business climate/regulation” spurred most of the negative opinions.
The comprehensive survey also asked a series of questions to divine the most effective economic development marketing tools, the leading sources of information that influence executive perceptions of a community’s business climate and the most important factors in business location decisions.
DCI conducted the survey online, polling a random selection of C-level executives at U.S. companies with annual revenues of$25 million or more. The survey was augmented by 250 location advisors/consultants.
Windows 8 is grabbing good press across the net for the features disclosed at the Windows Build Conference earlier this week. With the exception that it still doesn’t work right with the drivers for some of our equipment, Windows 7 was certainly an advance over Vista and XP. We particularly appreciate its fast loading time compared to Vista, which, it sometimes seemed, would grind on and on for interminable lengths.
Windows 8 will boot in about 8 seconds, due to a new method that puts the kernal session to sleep rather than shutting it down completely so that it needs to completely reboot. Eight seconds! Now that’s an improvement we like.
Here’s a video demo of the quick startup:
Other features in Windows 8: it provides an Android like touch and swipe method with a picture password for unlocking your PC, as opposed to the text password used now.
The lock screen will display your battery information, time, instant messages and email you missed while away, and upcoming calendar events. Here’s a slideshow Windowof all the changes.
UNC Chapel Hill launching Virtual Digital Humanities Lab
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will launch a new virtual Digital Innovations lab that will encourage collaborative, interdisciplinary and innovative digital humanities projects.
Brett Bobley, director of the Office of Digital Humanities at the National Endowment for the Humanities, will give a free public talk Oct. 10 to celebrate the kickoff of the Digital Innovation Lab, which will be affiliated with the American studies department in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences. Bobley will speak at 2 p.m. in the University Room of Hyde Hall, home of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, located off East Franklin Street.
The Digital Innovation Lab will encourage the production of digital “public goods”: projects and tools that are of social and cultural value; can be made publicly available; are scalable and reusable; and/or serve multiple audiences. One immediate focus will be the use of large-scale data sources – maps, newspapers, city directories, public records – by scholars and the public in understanding the history of communities. The lab, accessed at http://digitalinnovation.unc.edu,
was created with a startup grant from the college.
“Digital technologies have the potential to transform how our faculty in the humanities ask questions about the world, engage with local communities, create learning environments for our students and collaborate with partners within and beyond the University,” said William L. Andrews, Ph.D., senior associate dean for the fine arts and humanities in the College.
The lab will build on the nationally funded digital humanities work of its UNC co-directors and co-founders – Robert Allen, Ph.D, and Richard Marciano, Ph.D. Allen is the James Logan Godfrey Distinguished Professor of American studies, history and communication studies. Marciano is a professor in the School of Information and Library Science and affiliated professor in American studies and director of Sustainable Archives and Leveraging Technologies (SALT).
Cloud storage firm Zetta lands $9M round
Sunnyvale, CA-based Enterprise cloud storage provider Zetta today announced that it has raised $9 million in its third round of funding, bringing the total funding to $31.5 million. Both existing investors Foundation Capital and Sigma Partners participated. Funds from this new investment will be used for sales, marketing and product development that will help the company increase market share of its award-winning cloud backup services in the small-to-medium business (SMB) market.
DURHAM, NC -The company that may put at least some journalists out of work, StatSheet, which sells real-time content automation, has raised a $4 million round of funding led by Court Square Ventures and OCA Ventures, with participation from IDEA Fund Partners and other existing investors.
In conjunction, the company changed its name to Automated Insights to reflect the broad applicability of its innovative technology to data-intensive verticals beyond sports where high content generation costs can make comprehensive coverage prohibitively expensive. The company’s sports offerings will continue to grow under the StatSheet brand.
“We believe this new corporate branding better reflects the long-term potential of our company, and underscores the value of our technology to any vertical with large amounts of structured data,” said Robbie Allen, the company’s CEO and founder.
Automated Insights’ technology transforms vast amounts of raw data into compelling narrative content and powerful visualizations. The content is written entirely by software and can be formatted as headlines, summaries, and long-form articles. In addition, the content can be published cost-effectively at just about any scale via the web, mobile applications, and all types of social media.
“Our technology has worked extremely well with sports, but it is also well suited to verticals such as finance, real estate and weather, or even sales productivity and business intelligence applications. In essence, our technology humanizes big data by automating knowledge and insight so the new name is a perfect fit” added Allen.
Automated Insights’ technology can be seen in action in its StatSheet sports content network. StatSheet currently powers fully-automated, real-time coverage of all 375 Major League Baseball (MLB) and NCAA Division I College Basketball teams via dynamically updated team-centric websites, iPhone and Android applications, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and e-mail newsletters. In September, the company will also launch team-centric sites and mobile apps for all 32 NFL and 244 NCAA Division I College Football teams.
“Automated Insights is revolutionizing the creation of compelling high-quality content and they have proven they can do it at scale through their StatSheet sports content network,” commented Randy Castleman, General Partner with Court Square Ventures. “We are excited to help them continue to grow their sports coverage and apply the technology to new verticals.
“We are thrilled to team up with such a strong management team and experienced investors,” noted Jim Dugan, CEO and Managing Partner of OCA Ventures. “We believe the timing is ideal for Automated Insights’ highly scalable content development solutions.”
With Hurricane Irene bearing down on the East Coast, Time Warner Cable is taking steps to prepare for the impact of the storm. Time Warner Cable has more than 5.9 million residential and business customers from the Carolinas to New England.
Time Warner Cable has Business Recovery Unit trailers in place in key locations along the East Coast so restoration efforts can begin as soon as it is safe to enter potentially impacted areas. The trailers hold everything from fiber, generators and chainsaws to emergency supplies for crews, such as tents, flashlights and water.
“By positioning equipment in strategic areas before the storm, Time Warner Cable is able to quickly respond to those communities that sustain the most damage,” says Mike Munley, president of residential services, Time Warner Cable East. “We know our residential and business customers rely on our digital phone, Internet and cable services to stay connected to information and each other, particularly during severe weather and we are committed to getting customers back on line as soon as it is safe to do so.”
With more than 17,000 employees throughout the East, Time Warner Cable takes the following proactive measures to ensure that we are ready to help customers in the event of severe weather:
• Technicians have extra equipment and fuel on hand
• Generators have been tested and backup power equipment is prepared for deployment
• Additional technicians, maintenance, construction and customer service representatives are scheduled around the clock
• Call center employees up and down the East Coast are ready to answer customer calls, online chat and Tweets from impacted areas
• Work-from-home representatives will take customer calls from their living rooms
• Technicians across the East can be quickly mobilized to provide support to the impacted areas that need the most help. In addition, Time Warner Cable can call in employees from other states to help if needed.
Time Warner Cable’s 24/7 robust automated phone system tells customers if we know about an outage in their area. If the customer hears information about the outage, customers don’t need to take any action. If they don’t hear about the outage impacting their neighborhood, they can report it by telling the system their services are out. They can also follow the steps to talk to a customer service representative. The number for residential customers to call is 1-866-4-TWCNOW.
In addition, outage information is available at www.yourtwc.com/storm. You can also follow the latest developments on Twitter, @TWCCarolinas.
For customers of Time Warner Cable Business Class, the 24/7 support team is available to assist by calling 1-877-892-2220.
RALEIGH, NC – You can still get the Early Bird rate of only $195 to attend the Internet Summit 2011 in Raleigh, NC, Nov. 15-16, but only until August 31.
The Summit promises to be the biggest and best yet. It features:
Keynote by Gary Vaynerchuk, “Social Media King” & NY Times bestselling author
The recent round of UK rioting and violence provided further evidence of the way technology is changing the nature of video broadcasting and journalism. Technology is used to get a stronger sense of reality.
Gone are the days where ‘going live’ necessitated uplink trucks, satellite dishes, frantic calls to satellite coordinators and high costs. Now both professional and ‘DIY’ / citizen broadcasters are taking to the air and getting their stories out live, equipped with little more than their mobile phone and access to a 3G or Wi-Fi network and doing this at a very low cost.
US journalists are only starting to use live streaming sites like Bambuser to broadcast some behind the scenes footage, report live from a sports event, engage with viewers or use live streaming sites as part of a drive to find user generated content.
Hurricane Irene
WECT, an NBC-affiliated TV station for the Cape Fear area of North Carolina, meteorologist Colin Hackman is using Bambuser to respond to viewers’ questions and concerns regarding hurricane Irene.
College Football Season
Currently, Len Clark, a mobile journalism specialist, is preparing to report live from the Notre Dame Football Game on September 3rd. He will be using a variety of emerging media technology to cover the game.
Amongst those are Bambuser – to capture live video, which will then be archived on the Irishmojo.com website, for the audience to watch even after the event. In addition, VeriLocal and Hyperlocal network tools will be used to host “Irishmojo.com”. And Cover It Live – a web based Live Blogging service as well as Twitter and Facebook are part of the tools to communicate with viewers and respond instantly to questions.
Many other media outlets still haven’t been as quick to leverage the advantages offered by emerging media. “In order to be competitive in the future all media outlets need to equip their reporters with services like Bambuser to ensure that every reporter can submit live and exclusive video content instantly,” says Len Clark.
“It’s apparent the modern mobile phone is changing the nature sharing live broadcasts – and will continue to do so. But only some early adopting journalists and the general public are leading the charge, how long will it be before the broadcasting industry catches up?” asks, Hans Eriksson, chairman, Bambuser.
A few months ago, I was sitting in John Austin’s office at gaming incubator Joystick Labs with Austin and John O’Neill, president of Spark Plug Games). I was mostly there trying to score free games, or at least cheat codes, and I also wound up accidentally writing about the North Carolina Gaming Roundtable they were about to take part in.
As we were killing time playing Dr. Mario, I nonchalantly asked if either of them had an exact figure on the number of gaming startups in the RTP.
While Austin reached into his desk and pulled out a stack of spreadsheets, lists, and what looked like a Simon, O’Neill whipped our his smartphone and started going through his contacts.
I give them huge credit for taking that random question so seriously, but the truth is no one really knows how many there are.
But we’re going to find out. Or at least Ben Moore is going to give us our best guess.
Gamers Unite!
Moore does marketing and PR for Mighty Rabbit Studios , an independent game development shop in Raleigh, currently working on the Saturday Morning RPG series, which is exactly what it sounds like and better have a Harlem Globetrotters mystery level. I sat down with Moore and Matte Wagner, founder of Pangolin as well as an audio engineer at Red Storm.
Moore is one of the drivers, along with Mighty Rabbit co-founder Alan Youngblood, of Raleigh Game On, a first-ever get together of local independent developers to show off their wares, celebrate independent gaming, and hopefully cement a community that has a lot of members, a lot of camaraderie, a lot of promise, but very little cohesion.
Game On is Monday, August 29th at 7:00 p.m. at the Hive in downtown Raleigh. It’s free to attend, and I suggest you do. I’m telling you this because I know a little something about this kind of event.
They Stole My Idea!
About six months ago, I was at a reception that followed some kind of investor or tech startup conference, and I was half-joking that the reception, that’s the part at the end with beer and no Powerpoint, was what I most looked forward to.
Hey, I know a brewery owner, I thought. I should start an event and have it just be that part at the end where everyone is having fun. I made that joke in a column, someone read it and relayed it at a dinner a week later, whereupon someone else immediately said I should do it for real.
Fast forward to September 12th, which will be the fifth iteration of this event, now called ExitEvent, a free beer, loud music, no-nametags monthly social exclusive to RTP entrepreneurs and their employees. Within six months, it’s grown from a bad joke to 200 people from 85 startups.
Shameless Plug Over
Did you know there were 85 startups in the RTP?
Yeah, me neither, and I definitely should have. My point is the reason why ExitEvent blew up so quickly had nothing to do with me or the free beer. I just lit the match. It exploded because the entrepreneurs were out there and they wanted something like this.
So back to the question: How many gaming startups are there in the RTP?
Trick Question
The question is probably unanswerable, at least for now. A good guess is: Tons.
Thanks to mobile and social, there are lots of opportunities for smaller games, smaller budgets and smaller companies to be successful right out of the gate. Wagner says that these companies didn’t have the option of the mass mobile market until very recently, not 5 years ago, not really even two years ago.
Yes. In the world of mobile gaming, 2009 was like the dark ages.
Developers have also been taking notice of success stories like Rovio and the amount of reward achieved for the pittance of resources spent. Today, hobbyists are getting serious. Cogs at big companies are jumping ship to helm their own. It’s almost stupid that it’s not more of a gold rush than it already is.
But a lot of these little companies are working in a vacuum. When they get to a certain point, they all tend to run into the same obstacle: They can’t find the right person to join the team. They need a network, at least a central cortex, to bring about what Moore calls the “I know a guy” syndrome.
So, You Know, Game On
This is the purpose of Game On. Moore says that for the smaller developers, there really isn’t a central get together beyond the once-a-year East Coast Game Conference. I’ve been to that conference since its inaugural, and I’m always surprised by two things.
One. There is literally almost no connection between the RTP tech startup ecosystem and the RTP gaming ecosystem. It’s there, but it’s thin. I can count on one hand the number of people I run into at both the startup events and the gaming events. This should not be and I’ve sort of made it my goal to try to build that bridge.
Out of Legos, of course.
Two. The RTP startup ecosystem, as open and helpful as it is, could probably learn a few things from the RTP gaming ecosystem. These folks are tight, always helpful to each other and to outsiders like me. In this sense, the gaming ecosystem is a lot like the music ecosystem, where they’re willing to introduce, cross-promote, and even sit in on a project just because they love doing what they do.
They Want to Reach Your Grandmother
And it isn’t like the community has no structure at all. Alex Macris’ awesome Escapist magazine and Triangle Gaming Initiative (which also has a monthly social), is a very good start.
But the ECGC and the TGI are by developers for developers. In order to get the local gaming community to grow, they not only need to connect and reconnect with the developers, but also reach out to the developer wanna-bes and, ultimately, the gamers themselves.
This is more difficult than it was two years ago. Wagner points out that with that same mass mobile market as the distribution method, all sorts of people are now exposed to games and have an idea of how a game should play, casual vs. hardcore is dying down, if not almost irrelevant.
Plus smart phone penetration is still relatively small, compared to other delivery media – televisions, for example, or even PCs/Laptops. In other words, gamers are everywhere, they’re everyone. They’re pretty much you’re grandmother.
Well, they don’t want to reach your grandmother, but the point is the universe is expanding.
Here’s Your SETI
Moore hopes to at least diagram that expansion with Game On as a first attempt. He wants to grow Game On to be a central hub for the independent community of local developers to collaborate and trade ideas. If it works, they bring more people in, and the result is more ideas and more collaboration.
But there’s an added competition element to Game On. Companies will give a two minute intro on who they are and what they’re working on, and there will be stations set up for attendees to give the game a try. At the end of the evening, a Best in Show will be chosen and a trophy awarded, which the winner keeps until the next Game On (TBD).
Battle of the Bands!
The trophy is named the Ben G. Russell Cup, after a friend within the gaming community who passed away before he had the chance to take off. Again, this shows that the community is there, it just needs cohesion.
And this initial Game On is only the first step. Moore and Wagner don’t yet know what they don’t know, in terms of what’s out there that they’re not taking advantage of.
But while they’re counting new companies at the first Game On, they’ll figure this out too
DURHAM, NC – Thirteen companies were selected to participate in The Durham, NC, Bull City Stampede 2.0, including companies from Washington, D.C., Durham, Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Morrisville.
The Stampede, which runs from Sept. 16 to Nov.18, offers 60 days of completely furnished, free space at 201 W. Main St., a Self-Help building. Participating companies will have access to technical assistance from startup experts as well as opportunities to network with founders of successful Durham startups.
This is the second time this year that the Stampede has been offered to startup companies. The Stampede is part of the Chamber’s broader economic development strategy focused on job creation through business recruitment and retention, workforce development, and startup growth.
Fifty-five startups from across the southeast and North Carolina applied for the Stampede. Applications were received from companies in Georgia and Connecticut as well as from cities such as Washington, D.C., Charlotte, and Wilmington. Concepts ranged from technology and software to cleantech and social entrepreneurship.
The companies that were not selected for the Stampede have already been connected to the many business resources available in Durham such as Bull City Forward, N.C. Institute for Minority Economic Development, Durham Technical Community College Small Business Center, CED, LaunchBox Digital, Joystick Labs, and the Small Business and Technical Development Center.
“This group of participants builds on the economic clusters and strengths of the Triangle,” said Klein. “We have companies in the cleantech and sustainability space, companies in technology and media as well as unique product concepts. These startups are all eager to grow and scale in North Carolina.”
Company descriptions are listed below:
CityFabric: CityFabric is a civic-minded design and apparel company set out to inspire people to talk about their place.
CleanHatch: (http://cleanhatch.com/) CleanHatch serves as the premier matchmaker for clean tech and renewable energy projects, leveraging a web-based clearinghouse platform to make it easy for projects to find the capital, developers, and incentives they need to launch quickly and efficiently.
DiscoverLit: DiscoverLit provides on-the-go readers with an engaging, innovative experience in literature.
GreenSky Wind Systems: (http://www.greensky-windsystems.com/) GreenSky Wind Systems delivers innovative, efficient and silent wind turbine solutions for commercial facilities dedicated to our planet.
iBuzzn: iBuzzn is a software platform designed to disrupt the restaurant industry by introducing a customer focused mobile application that will enhance the overall dining experience.
MotiveLogic: Constant Coaching™ is the culture created by the use of High Octane Business Performance Dashboards™ from MotiveLogic to achieve maximum efficiency and productivity from automobile dealer service departments.
Organic Transit: (http://www.organictransit.com/) Organic Transit designs pedal/solar Hybrid Vehicles that produce zero carbon, fill the space between bicycles and cars and are intended for commuting and local deliveries.
Pluribus: Pluribus makes it safer and easier to shop online with your debit or credit card.
RxAnalytics: RxAnalytics is developing a web and mobile tool that will identify critical drivers of performance in individual athletes as well as weaknesses and biases, allowing the athlete to train smarter and maximize performance.
Sqord: Sqord is a social gaming website where kid users can earn points and rewards through real-world play.Vybee.com: (www.vybee.com) Vybee.com is a way to find, share, and keep up with what’s going on in your local interests.
Zeek: Zeek has digitized the coupon book, providing non-profits, schools, churches, and groups everywhere with a 21st century fundraising solution, all accessible from a smart phone.
For additional information and updates about the Stampede, go to www.startupstampede.com or follow the Stampede on Twitter @StartupStampede.
Dr. Anthony Atala, director, Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, will participate in the COMS event
GREENSBORO, NC – North Carolina is one of a handful of developing major centers for nanotechnology commercialization, a fact highlighted by the state’s hosting the annual Commercialization of Micro-Nano Systems Conference (COMS) in Greensboro, NC, Aug. 28-31, says Scott Bryant, executive director of MANCEF, the industry trade organization sponsoring the event.
The state of North Carolina is one of the few regions “with a general density (of nanotechnology activity) that’s impressive, Bryant told the TechJournal in an interview.
Bryant says nanotechnology could generate the same kind of money as the more advanced field of micro-tech already is. “Lots of companies are making money on the micro side and nanotechnology has the same potential,” he says.
Nanotech, however, is finding many of its potential uses in the life sciences rather than electronics, “But there is lots of nascent stuff that’s going to be fabulous,” he adds. That includes such things as regenerative medicine, which has a firm footprint at Wake Forest University in Greensboro under the direction of the internationally known Dr. Atlala.
Bryant says Fortune 500 firms are already using nanotech to redesign products, but “It gets missed because it’s just not visible.”
The future for nanotech is bright, though, he says. The famed physicist Richard Feynman once said of nanotechnology, “There’s lots of room at the bottom.”
Bryant says such technologies as carbon nanotubes may “Redefine the paper and steel industries with composites and other materials.”
Nanotechnology does present problems to researchers. Physics and formulas are different at the ultra-tiny level of nanotech and that requires relearning or unlearning some things. It’s also, Bryant points out, “A multidisciplinary field.” So it presents a challenge in workforce development. “We need to break out of the silos of education,” he says.
Conferences such as the upcoming COMS event helps advance the field, Bryant says. “The world comes to you and deals get made.”
That’s certainly true of this event. Jim Roberts, director of business development at North Carolina’s Center of Innovation for Nanobiotechnology (COIN), local host of the event, tells us that it has people attending from Argentina, Brazil, Singapore, the UK, Netherlands, Norway, Germany, Korea, Australia, Switzerland, France, Finland, Japan, and Canada. — Allan Maurer
AT&T U-verse services include AT&T U-verse TV, AT&T U-verse High Speed Internet and AT&T U-verse Voice. AT&T premises technicians are responsible for service installation and customer care, working both inside customer homes and outside on AT&T’s advanced network.
“We are expanding the availability of our award-recognized AT&T U-verse services and signing up new customers every day, and we have to hire more U-verse technicians to keep up with the growing demand,” said Cynthia Marshall, president, AT&T North Carolina. “We’re proud to serve so many local communities in North Carolina with our advanced U-verse services and proud of the quality jobs our U-verse investment has created.”
AT&T is one of the largest employers in America and the nation’s largest private employer of full-time union employees. With highly competitive wages and benefits, AT&T jobs are among the best in the U.S., the company says.
In 2009 and 2010, AT&T U-verse added more TV subscribers than any of the major TV providers reported. In 2010 alone, AT&T gained nearly a million subscribers to reach almost 3 million, while the major reporting cable providers lost more than a million subscribers combined.
AT&T U-verse customer success is driven by an all-Internet Protocol (IP) service. AT&T continues to use its IP platform to further integrate TV, broadband, home phone and wireless services in new ways for customers.
As if businesses didn’t already face a world of trouble, many are now fighting a costly civil war. It’s Boomers versus Millennials in conference room skirmishes everywhere, with Gen X and the so-called Silents firing at the flanks.Four generations now go to work — and war — with each other. The American office has seldom, if ever, seen such age diversity. And while generational differences aren’t trivial, the toll of battle is worse — like Seal Team Six squabbling en route to a raid. Fortunately, there are ways to pull the troops together, as we discovered recently when we ran a session on generations at a corporate retreat. But first, let’s inspect the Furious Four:
The Silents, born between ‘33 and ‘45, survived the Depression and World War II. Loyal and dutiful, the Silents make up about 15 percent of the work force.
Boomers, ’46-’64, 34 percent, the boundary-breaking makers of modern American — as they’d be the first to tell you.
Gen X, ’65-’76, 18 percent, shaped — or perhaps misshaped — by Watergate and the dawn of our Computer-in-Chief culture.
Millennials, ’77-’98, 33 percent, born with joy sticks instead of opposable thumbs and coddled by overzealous parents.
These warring camps lob volleys over technology, lifestyle preferences and career opportunities.
But technology is really the key flash point. Millennials march about with their heads down, hurrying to send another text. Boomers, meantime, shake their heads in disbelief. If values divided the generations during the ‘60s, technology is just as vexing today.
Silents and Boomers are rooted in face-to-face ways of getting things done, with a phone conversation taking a distant second. They go nuclear upon hearing a junior colleague report, “Yes, I talked to the client; I just emailed him.”
Millennials and X-ers, meanwhile, grew up so steeped in technology, it’s their primary tool for solving most problems. They wonder why the grey beards can’t make peace with a future that arrived a long time ago. Hey, half a billion Facebook-users have!
Technological tensions range from the minor — is ‘U’ for ‘you’ OK in a text? — to D-Day confrontations on work-life balance. Born multi-taskers, Millennials tend to manage several screens at work, from spreadsheets to Twitter. And if the Tweeting is sometimes more personal than professional, well, the occasional break is refreshing. After all, they fully expect to keep their work screens open and active after hours.
To older generations, much of this looks like disorder in the ranks — even mutiny. The office is the front lines, and they never stopped to play Tic Tac Toe in the trenches when they were young. If you’re not constantly surveilling your clients, foes and workload, you’re losing.
To many a Boomer boss, Millennials are unfocused slackers. And to many 20-somethings, their seniors are didactic workaholics — with all the seemingly mandatory divorces and estranged kids.
See how easy the conflict escalates? The tensions often come to a head during job reviews, with salaries and promotions at stake. The only common ground many find is an equal degree of alienation.
A truce depends on everyone’s willingness to punch past stereotypes. Research suggests that Boomers, X-ers and Millennials all logged about the same amount of work time in their 20s. “I don’t think this is a generation of slackers,” a Rutgers economist recently told The New York Times. “Today’s young people are very focused on trying to work hard and to get ahead.”
And while they may make use of different skills and tools, Boomers and Millennials share an impulse to do good. Boomers gave us the Age of Aquarius. Millennials are giving us a massive amount of community volunteerism and social entrepreneurship.
Detente depends on making the most of such commonalities and mutual interests. A little more work-life balance, for example, wouldn’t hurt anyone. And everyone wants to grow up to be a rainmaker. In both cases, learning how may depend on that alien army down the hall.
Billy Warden (Gen X) and Greg Behr (Gen Y) combined their generational mojos to create a Raleigh-based marketing firm, GBW Strategies. But they’ll never agree on who made up the best British Invasion: the Clash or Radiohead.
CHARLOTTE, NC – People don’t just sit in front of a TV and passively watch whatever broadcasters offer any more. They watch sitting in front of an open laptop or iPad while surfing the web, or checking email on a smartphone. “Whatever that other screen is,” says Garth Moulton, president and co-founder of OtherScreen, “It takes away from their engagement level, which is something terrifying to broadcasters and advertisers alike.”
Previously, Mouton was a co-founder at Jigsaw.com and helped build the company’s database to over 22 Million business contacts and 4 Million company records while managing their community of over 1.5M content generating members from day one through the company’s recent sale to Salesforce.com (for $142M) in April of 2010.
More than 80% of mobile device users report using their phone, tablet or computer while watching TV and, ordinarily, that Internet usage is uncorrelated to the broadcast event they’re watching. The OtherScreen team thinks this represents a large business opportunity.
OtherScreen, founded in December 2010 by Mouton and CEO Chris Halligan, and Andrew Gertig, pushes content to that “other screen” that converges with the live broadcast a user is watching.
Making broadcast TV more fun and stickier
The company, which started development in February, recently launched in beta. It received an innovation grant from NC Idea earlier this year. At the time, Halligan said, “Our product pushes what we call ‘companion content’ to a consumer’s Internet device along side live televised events like sports games, award shows, news programs and reality shows. The results of small alpha test groups over the last few months have shown us that using OtherScreen significantly changes the way people interact with television.”
“By providing highly relevant ‘companion content’, we make normal broadcast events more fun, social and sticky,” said Gertig. “We also generate unique metrics regarding user behavior and reaction to selected broadcast content. In some ways, we’re like a real time AC Nielsen.”
Right now, says Moulton, the company is creating that companion content itself, but expects to quickly convert to a community/crowd-sourced model. “Our first channel for sports has a fanatical base of users,” he says. Sports, he notes, is the “last bastion of of live events that people don’t use a DVR to timeshift.”
The content includes polls, quizzes, information, and user comments.
He says he expects OtherScreen to tap into the same “Tom Sawyer thing” that Jigsaw did, “Where people come in and paint the fence and love doing it. We think we can prime the pump, then get people who are experts – the kid at Arizona State who knows all the key people in State basketball and wites a blog – not because we’re paying him but because we put his name up in bright lights.”
User provided content is a highly marketable product if you can get it. Facebook certainly is doing will with it. It’s still experimenting with how much content to push at users.
Advertisers can also use the OtherScreen technology to ask users questions about commercials (will the word “pizza” appear in any of the ads?). “We had people cheer because they guessed it might be,” says Moulton. People not only sit through the ads using the OtherScreen technology, “They comment on them,” he says.
The company will monetize selling subscriptions, virtual goods, and customized channels, Moulton says. The company wants to raise a venture round by the end of the year.
Nearly 2,000 interactive marketers, IT executives, entrepreneurs, digital/new media strategists, venture capitalists and technology professionals will connect at the Raleigh Convention Center for the 2011 Internet Summit Nov. 15-16 to hear more than 120 speakers delivering over 80 presentations and panel discussions about today’s hottest business trends.
TechMedia’s 
TechMedia’s 
TechMedia’s 
Tower Cloud Inc., a wireless backhaul services provider, has secured $49 million in additional equity to fund its expansion into new markets throughout Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama.
Texas, North Carolina and South Carolina are viewed as having the best business climates among the 50 states, according to a new survey of U.S. corporate executives.
Windows 8 is grabbing good press across the net for the features disclosed at the Windows Build Conference earlier this week. With the exception that it still doesn’t work right with the drivers for some of our equipment, Windows 7 was certainly an advance over Vista and XP. We particularly appreciate its fast loading time compared to Vista, which, it sometimes seemed, would grind on and on for interminable lengths.
DURHAM, NC -The company that may put at least some journalists out of work, 
RALEIGH, NC – You can still get the Early Bird rate of only $195 to attend the Internet Summit 2011 in Raleigh, NC, Nov. 15-16, but only until August 31.
Game On is Monday, August 29th at 7:00 p.m. at the Hive in downtown Raleigh. It’s free to attend, and I suggest you do. I’m telling you this because I know a little something about this kind of event.
DURHAM, NC – Thirteen companies were selected to participate in The Durham, NC, Bull City Stampede 2.0, including companies from Washington, D.C., Durham, Raleigh, Chapel Hill and Morrisville.
By Billy Warden & Greg Behr
By Allan Maurer
