A new platform for entrepreneurial executive educationVator on Tuesday launched a new executive education platform, specifically for entrepreneurs. It's called VatorAcademy.

• 11/14/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

CEO Brian Roberts shows off Fancast, a beta service to be rolled out later this yearPretty soon, Comcast subscribers will have access to video nirvana or video on-demand, on steroids. That's according to Brian Roberts, CEO of Comcast, who showed off Fancast, the cable companies on-demand video service that's in beta at the moment but will be formally released by the end of this year.The online service will be "much better than the TV experience because we’re not bound by storage in your box," said Roberts, who was being interviewed by John Battelle, founder of Federated Media, at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco late Tuesday afternoon. "Here’s every episode of Entourage ever," Roberts explained as he walked through the beta version of the Fancast site.It's like "video nirvana," said Roberts."Or video on steroids." ... [http://vator.tv/n/b53 read more]

• 10/23/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

Evan Williams says Twitter traffic may have plateaued, but only temporarilyEvan Williams, CEO and co-founder of Twitter, speaking at the Web 2.0 conference late Tuesday wasn't exactly candid about what's happening at Twitter these days. He dodged just about every question John Battelle, founder of Federated Media, threw his way about Twitter's plans for monetization. Williams also wouldn't comment about reports that both Microsoft and Google are interested in licensing Twitter feeds.

• 10/23/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

Event will highlight 10 hot startups, Mint and Like.com, and a special 'Juice' Box showFor a few months I've been contemplating bringing the VatorNews contributors together for a small gathering. For those who know me, however, you've heard me say that I'm not the type to often host parties, let alone an event.

• 10/22/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

At Juice Pitcher, Mint CEO gives behind-the-scenes look at Mint's internal growth strategyLast night before a crowd of some couple hundred budding entrepreneurs, investors, and professionals in the entrepreneur community, Mint CEO Aaron Patzer presented a step-by-step narrative on how he built his company in three years to $170 million target for personal finance giant Intuit.In a moment of nonchalance, Patzer, who spoke at the Juice Pitcher event, hosted by TheFunded.com and Vator.tv, admitted to Adeo Ressi, the founding member of The Funded, that he sold Mint for cash to Intuit, so it didn't matter to him what happened to Intuit's shares. Nonetheless, it's a great resource for entrepreneurs. Keep this article and video bookmarked and share with your fellow entrepreneurs. Here are some of the highlights of the presentation, in which ... [http://vator.tv/n/b0d read more]

• 10/22/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

CEO Munjal Shah reveals the real strategy behind making money off of visual searchLike.com CEO and founder Munjal Shah was one of the presenters at The Funded and Vator’s Juice Pitcher event last week. Munjal’s presentation, which was a frank and detailed outline of Like’s strategy to generate revenue, was a nice complement to Mint CEO Aaron Patzer’s, another detailed summary of how Mint grew its company and what it cost. Like.com has had great success so far. To date, it’s generating more than $20 million in annual sales with more than $100 million products sold off its platform. The $20 million comes from leads it collects from its retail customers whenever a consumer browsing on Like.com clicks through to the customer’s Web site.

• 10/22/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

TC50 - AnyClip seeks to change the way we watch videos onlineWith so many ways to interact online now, companies are finding new and improved ways to help us find and consume media on the Web.

• 10/3/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

The San Diego-based startup is now a finalist for the $25,000 awardThe votes are finally in for the Summer of Innovation $2k to $25k Competition.Sixty startups joined the competition, which kicked off in early August. The event ended on August 31st, with the Service Jobs Now leading the pack with 67 votes. But as in many of the Vator-hosted competitions, the popular vote is only counted as one vote. (Note: SJN founders - Alex Roizen and Jonathan O'Bierne - are in the video presenting their company.)The other judges - Bernard Slede, HP Ventures, Chris Redlitz, Trans Media Capital, Joy Tang, One Village Foundation, Ed Lambert, Bridge Bank, Tyler Rorabaugh, Semantic Seed, Ed Lucero, IPEVO, David Fleck, Wild Pockets, Quincy Jones Jr, III, Ehustle.com, QD3 Entertainment, Howard Hartenbaum, August Capital and Eghosa ... [http://vator.tv/n/a92 read more]

• 10/3/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

The CTO of the United States is looking for healthcare, smartgrid, and education technologies. On Tuesday night, Chief Technology Officer of the United States Aneesh Chopra told a group of Silicon Valley thought leaders how the federal government plans to work with the high-growth technology sector.The CTO said his top priority is to invest in the building blocks of innovation--primarily by ensuring we have smart, secure infrastructure, focusing the national $150 billion research and development budget towards commercialization, and making sure that we have a 21st-century workforce.Chopra said his second priority was to harness technology to achieve the president’s agenda, focusing on healthcare solutions, energy independence (especially the smart grid), upgrading the education system, and the accomplishing President Obama’s open government initiative, which means bringing “transparency, participatory democracy and collaboration into the DNA of ... [http://vator.tv/n/9cc read more]

• 8/12/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

Robert Scoble goes toe-to-toe with Aneesh Chopra over the impact on innovation.Last night at a Churchill Club event in Mountain View, Aneesh Chopra, the first Chief Technology Officer of the United States, and tech uberblogger Robert Scoble exchanged thoughts on the Marine’s recent Twitter ban as well as new tech companies Aardvark, Mint.com, and the Geeks in Government initiative.Scoble said the Twitter clamp-down “is sending a horrible message” that Twitter is too scary, and that declaring new technologies off-limits to the Marines might discourage innovation more generally. He contrasted the ban with the Washington State Transportation Department’s initiative to enable drivers to tweet the boarder crossing and receive a message back with the wait time.Chopra declined to prescribe any policies for the State Department, but said that the government's plan to ... [http://vator.tv/n/9c6 read more]

• 8/9/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

PE firm Conjoin Group targets underperforming VC-funded companiesThe VC industry is poised for consolidation. A Kauffman Foundation study last month found that the industry must shrink to half its current size to become efficient—that figure has become common knowledge in VC circles. LPs coffers have shrunk and Sequoia’s doomsday slides are looking prophetic.This puts mid-stage companies at risk as VCs shift their shrinking funds to their more mature portfolio companies. While super-angels are picking up more of the early-stage rounds, any startup that raised early-stage rounds in 2006-2007 are under tremendous pressure to find profits or die slowly.While solutions have ranged from a government bailout to an abandonment of the VC model, some investors see opportunity in the stranded assets. The Conjoin Group, combines offshore outsourcing, venture ... [http://vator.tv/n/9c0 read more]

• 8/6/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

From the AlwaysOn Summit at Stanford, Marissa Mayer of Google shares an old company storyMarissa Mayer, VP of Search Products and User Experience at Google, sat on a panel at the AlwaysOn Summit over at Stanford University yesterday.

• 7/31/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

AlwaysOn Summit at Stanford - Polly Sumner on how Salesforce employees get inspired to innovateInnovation writers block?

• 7/30/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

CA Controller says VCs may need to reduce their fees to get CalPERS investment dollars.At a Churchill Club meeting in Mountain View on Thursday, Michael Moritz (Sequoia Capital, two-time Forbes’ Midas List overall winner) had California controller John Chiang in the hotseat for an hour to grill him on the state's finances.

• 7/15/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

An evening focused on engendering change in Silicon Valley draws crowd and shares studiesYou can’t deny that when attending tech events – most of the time, you’ll find a good portion of the audience to be male.

• 7/11/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

Teamed with Google, Fandango, and others, HP hopes to revolutionize printingBooks are quickly being replaced by less expensive digital incarnations released on the Kindle platform.

• 6/22/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

Web video distribution and analytics company sets new standard for online viewing metricsLeading web video distribution and analytics company TubeMogul recently launched TubeMogul 2.0 which "democratizes video metrics" by providing free video tracking capabilities that were once exclusive only to large media companies and advertisers. TubeMogul's powerful InPlay technology, incorporated into their platform from their acquisition of video analytics firm Illumenix, was previously only available to sites hosting their own video, but is now integrated on 15 of the Web's top video sharing sites, including Brightcove, DailyMotion, MetaCafe, blip.tv, Break.com, Howcast, eBaum’s World, Graspr, GrindTV, Sclipo, Webcastr, Viddler, 5min, Streetfire.net and Sevenload -- with more to come soon. TubeMogul says they are in talks with YouTube, who along with Hulu are not among the sites included.So for the first time ever, video ... [http://vator.tv/n/8b9 read more]

• 6/9/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

Bart Decrem, CEO of Tapulous shares some entrepreneurial advice at PACT 2009Today, Tap Tap Revenge is the most downloaded and installed iPhone application with 32% iPhone penetration, 10 million installs, and all users combined, the game has been played 100 million times. Bart Decrem, CEO and founder Tapulous, makers of Tap Tap Revenge spoke at PACT 2009 in Silicon Valley.

• 5/29/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

An inside look at how technology is changing the music industryThis week, more than 650 entrepreneurs, indie artists, music enthusiasts, investors, and technology developers gathered at Hotel Kabuki for the San Fran Music Tech Summit. And, as you'd expect from a music conference, there was a musical performance. This year's draw was Matt Morris, a songwriter from Justin Timberlake's label Tennman Records. There was also a session where I appeared as a host for musical startups' elevator pitches and company demos. "The musical summit's attendance was up from last year, despite the economic downturn," according to event founder Brian Zisk. "A lot of conferences are off but we are on... We are having such a great turn out, but the important part is the quality of these folks. They are ... [http://vator.tv/n/879 read more]

• 5/21/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

Now here's a CEO who knows how to have funWe know many CEOs have a sense of humor. But this is one video in which this particular CEO - Chris Cunningham of appssavvy - shined.

• 5/21/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

Angel investor Conway says Twitter doesn't need a business model this yearOn Thursday, I spoke with Silicon Valley angel investor Ron Conway, who's invested in about 500 startups over the past 15 years, including some high-profile ones like Twitter, Facebook, Google and Digg, to name a few.I conducted a one-on-one interview with Conway on stage at the EconSM event, hosted by contextNext.

• 5/16/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

Joe Kennedy, CEO of Pandora, speaks on Pandora's future mobile implementationsPandora, a personalized Internet radio service, is one of the most popular free iPhone apps, with 5 million downloads since launching an iPhone app in September 2008. After launching a Blackberry app last month, Pandora has 1 million activations. Will we ever see Pandora on the Android platform?

• 5/15/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

Arimaz has created a cute little robot which connects to your favorite RSS feeds and even FacebookFrench-based startup, Arimaz has a neat little product in the works called, Mydeskfriend.

• 5/8/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

Marten Mickos, shares some words of wisdom on how he grew MYSQL from 12 people to a global companyThroughout the history of humanity, people have worked alone.

• 5/7/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

Conference wraps up with award and recognition to NomaDesk Here in Zaragoza, Spain, at the Innovate!Europe conference, startups have gathered to get valuable advice from leading VC's, entrepreneurs and technology industry mentors.

• 5/7/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

Create awareness through Vator and attract a followingWe've come a long way from just being a place to upload videos to pitch an idea for funding. To be exact, Vator was never just a venue for pitching videos. It was always a place where startups could present themselves in their own words. This week, Vator made the ability to communicate what's happening at your company even easier.I'm excited to announce that we opened up our "company updates" private beta program to everyone on Vator.

• 5/6/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

Find music whenever and wherever and easily share with friendsDo you ever have those moments when a tune is stuck in your head, and you wish you had the lyrics? LyricFind is a site with one million lyrics. And, now you can simply find LyricFind's lyrics straight from your iPhone or Facebook.LyricFind announced Thursday that it's released lyric search applications for Facebook and the iPhone. Both of these apps gives access to LyricFind's database. The Toronto, Canada-based startup's database represents over 40,000 artists and 200,000 albums, which LyricFind claims is the largest legal collection available. “We’re excited to be the first to bring lyrics, a key component of the music experience, to the largest platforms available," Darryl Ballantyne, co-founder and CEO of LyricFind, told me. “It’s important that consumers ... [http://vator.tv/n/82e read more]

• 5/6/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0

Amid economic downturn, conference opens with advice on how to manage through recessionSuffering terribly from the economic downturn, Spain's unemployment rate is at 17.4%, twice the amount in comparison with the rest of the European union.

• 5/6/09
• Comments: 0
• Votes: 0