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.  Last night was a different story when checking out Pascale Diaine’s, Women in Technology event, organized through SF Mobile Meetup.  Diaine created the meet-up to bring together women working in the tech industry and women looking for jobs in the industry.  She also presented ‘Her Code,’ a 20 page publication showcasing findings on where women currently stand in the industry.  Diaine conducted the studies through Orange Labs.  The evening began with a short film produced by Diaine encouraging women to take on harder sciences, a key line from it being, “I think the world would look ... [http://vator.tv/n/953 read more]

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Co-founder AJ Asver shares fundraising tips and why Y Combinator is a good home for startupsScoopler is a graduate of the Y Combinator program in Silicon Valley. The real-time search engine, which came together in 2008, is currently in the process of closing its seed round. In this segment, John Bautista talks to Scoopler co-founder AJ Asver about how he and his co-founder Dilan Jayawardane raised their initial round of funding, and why they chose to do a debt round rather than an equity round. He also talks about why being backed by Y Combinator is like "being put into a bazooka and shot out." Y Combinator is a high-profile and respected venture capital company focused on investing no more than $20,000 at the earliest stages of a company's life cycle.  

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"Our goal is not just to build a publishing platform but to build a personal media platform."In part two of my interview with Ooyala CEO and Co-founder Bismarck Lepe, he talks in more detail about how his company is expanding their offering within the online video platform market with a key focus on personalizing the consumer experience and at the same time helping their content owners build a real business. In the previous post, he described that in the new media consumption world of today the consumer is the new brand manager and is in control of what they see when they want to see it. Ooyala has analyzed where the industry is headed, based on data collected by Quantcast, and believes that the current market for online video platform is roughly of 300,000 customers who are people who are ... [http://vator.tv/n/947 read more]

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Pandora CEO Joe Kennedy shares a history lesson about radio, and current subscription modelsIn this segment, Bambi Francisco interviewed Joe Kennedy, CEO of Pandora, a personalized radio station that creates music stations based on personal preferences. BF: You've been the CEO of Pandora for five years so you've become a student of radio. Give us a brief history lesson on the evolution of radio since the 1920's, some milestones and how the Internet is taking it to the next level.JK: Radio does go back to about 1920 in the U.S. Back then, picture people in their homes listening to the World Series or listening to an address by the President or HG Wells' "War with the world." Fast forward, TV comes along, grabs entertainment off the radio and so radio becomes more about music and continues to grow right ... [http://vator.tv/n/943 read more]

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How will books evolve? Vook CEO and founder Brad Inman gives us his visionIn this segment, Bambi Francisco interviewed Brad Inman, CEO and founder of Vook, a startup that brings life to books in a new way. They discussed how the digital book is changing the industry and the way people consume knowledge and entertainment.  BF: I'm going to ask you to talk about what's happening in the publishing industry and why publishers and authors are drawn to the concept of combining video and Twitter dialogue with the written word.BI: Sure. One thing that's happening generally in this industry is that book sales are down and so the industry itself is struggling with that. Some of that is economic conditions but also we're in a transformative period in this industry. It's really changing ... [http://vator.tv/n/921 read more]

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...and why owning properties to nurture publishing partners is a considerationIn this interview, John Battelle, CEO and founder of Federated Media, talks to Bambi Francisco about his search for a new CEO, and why he'd consider owning properties to have a deeper relationship with publishing partners.Here are some highlights from the interview, partly edited.BF: How's the CEO search going? Do you have a short list? And, what qualifications are you seeking?JB: Not yet. We’re still early in the process. There’s a lot of people we want to talk to. As for the person we're seeking, FM has gotten to a certain size and scale. There is a set of skills you need to have in order to grow a business from where we are mid-eight figures to where we want ... [http://vator.tv/n/92e read more]

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Andrew Tomkins, Chief Scientist of Yahoo Search on how semantic technology has improved searchBambi Francisco was recently at the 2009 Semantic Technology Conference where she interviewed Andrew Tomkins, Chief Scientist of Yahoo Search. Among the questions asked was how is Yahoo's search positioned against the newcomers WolframAlpha and Bing?Here's the interview, partially edited. BF: At the end of the day, the purpose of semantic technology within Yahoo Search is to really improve search results and the search experience. So how has it really improved Yahoo Search?AT: It's been pretty dramatic so far. Yahoo has been pretty aggressive in doing semantic technology through a couple of programs. The primary one in terms of getting data in is something that we call "Search Monkey." What we have been doing is developing a set of vocabulary ... [http://vator.tv/n/903 read more]

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But what is the real-time search beyond Twitter? With the effluence of Tweets over Michael Jackson's death and the Iranian presidential election, Twitter was once again vaulted to the spotlight as the communications medium unmatched by no other. Its search engine has spawned a number of real-time search engine copycats, trying to solve the problem of how to find what's happening about you and your interests now! Scoopler, backed by Y Combinator, is one such real-time search engine. In this segment, we offer our views on Scoopler, its opportunities, challenges and the market overall. Once again, Jeff Smith, CEO and co-founder of Smule, was our guest host. We're excited to have Smith once again.  Smith is one of those rare breeds who can deliver substantive comments and out-of-the-box insights ... [http://vator.tv/n/901 read more]

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'You just keep failing enough, and not giving up.""Vision is great, especially when you can do it with 20/20 hindsight," said entrepreneur-turned-venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, who last night received a "Visionary" Award, an honor bestowed annually to industry leaders chosen by the SDForum, a Silicon Valley non-profit organization. Khosla, whom I met while he was a partner at blue-chip venture firm Kleiner Perkins, co-founded Sun Microsystems back in the 80's, upon graudating Standford University. In 2004, Khosla founded Khosla Ventures.  In 1986, Khosla was asked about his vision for Sun Microsystems. He responded by suggesting that having vision is as much as about being lucky. "The best  thing to do to have vision is to pray to Lady Luck because frankly, you never know vision when you see ... [http://vator.tv/n/915 read more]

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CEO Joe Kennedy on monetization of the personalized Internet radio stationJust this month, the Senate passed a bill extending the time for Internet radio stations and music owners to agree on royalty payments. It's now up to President Obama to sign this bill. At stake is millions of dollars that can make or break the leading Internet radio station, Pandora. While Pandora expects to rake in $40 million in sales this year, double last year, more than half is expected to go toward royalty payments. Currently, Pandora pays 3 cents per listener per hour, said CEO Joe Kennedy. But he expects the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) - which has historically pushed for higher fees - won't prevail in driving them higher. In this second part of a three-part interview ... [http://vator.tv/n/909 read more]

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Yahoo slims down; You Tube's Journalism school; No one is a visionaryAfter being bloated with under-performing assets, Yahoo is definitely going on a strict diet. CEO Carol Bartz has been shutting down units left and right. The latest is its video advertising unit, which was created through the acquisition of Maven Networks for 160 million dollars last year. Seems Bartz is sending a message to the world:Yahoo time to slim down.See: Yahoo shutters video ad network YouTube launched an online Journalism school of sorts for anyone wanting to learn how to be a reporter. The “YouTube Reporters Center” has tips from CBS Katie Couric, Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, and other top journalists, sharing their wisdom on what it takes to get a good story out or do a good interview. It’s a great idea – a repository ... [http://vator.tv/n/936 read more]

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Former president of IAB, Greg Stuart, says semantic technology isn't close to improving targeting"The promise of semantics is to bring a level of intelligence [to advertising]," said former Interactive Advertising Bureau President Greg Stuart. "It’s not quite there... advertising based on semantic technology isn't even close to improving targeting."I ran into Stuart at the 2009 Semantic Technology conference. Stuart was on a couple panels discussing semantics as it applies to advertising and publishing. Stuart also headed the IAB, an organization that creates standards for the online advertising industry.  So, who better to talk to about whether advertising was getting smarter - in other words better targeted - with the integration of semantic technology?   In software, semantic technology essentially provides a layer of meaning-centered code on top of existing technologies. In other words, ... [http://vator.tv/n/926 read more]

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