For those of us who subscribe to the ‘cluster’ theory of startup success, the latest story could be music in Atlanta (and Athens, of course). Beyond a thriving local music scene across many genres, Atlanta is the unofficial home of urban music. And with industry heavy-hitters like BMI also in town, the time is proving right for a new crop of music-related startups.
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Put three economists on a panel nowadays and you are likely to get four completely different predictions of our economic future. Such was the case on February 18, 2010 when Gregory Miller, the chief economist with SunTrust, Michael Scotto, the Chief Investment Strategist for the Private Portfolio Group at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney and James Walling, COO of SVB Analytics gathered at the MIT Enterprise Forum event in Atlanta. At times entertaining, at times downright frightening, and frequently containing political commentary, the predictions of these three left us with a lot to think about.
Michael Scotto was the optimist of the group, stating that “we are in tough economic times . . . but we are far from a depression.” Scotto basically believes that the system works. Controls, he said, that were put in place after the Great Depression have stopped this recession from becoming a depression. For example, the FDIC prevented runs on the banking system. Yet even though the system did work, people are still questioning it. “Capitalism isn’t perfect, and the investment cycles have been extreme with vast implications globally.”
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Brian Solis is bringing his globally-recognized expertise on new media and the convergence of public relations, marketing, traditional media and social media to Atlanta tonight. Solis is principal of the award-winning public relations and new media agency FutureWorks, the co-founder of the international Social Media Club, published author, top-ranked blogger, #6 on Ad Age’s Power 150 index of top marketing bloggers and a frequent contributor to TechCrunch, Mashable and many other influential blogs. In addition, Solis is a keynote speaker and panelist at numerous conferences and events annually including SXSWi, BlogWorld, 140conf, and Le Web.
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Here’s a fast-moving video of scenes from Startup Riot 2010 produced by in-kind/media sponsor TechDrawl. Thank-you, Sanjay, for organizing another first rate Riot! If you missed it this year, get on the mailing list for Startup Riot 2011.
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There have been many blogs and tweets from the audience viewpoint of Startup Riot 2010, which have collectively covered the details of the presenting companies and many other aspects of the event. We are editing a mashup of video segments featuring many of the participants, but I thought I’d throw in a few quick comments from my perspective while the topic is still hot.
First, Sanjay Parekh did a superb job taking care of the interests of the presenters. He provided templates for press releases and got the press to turn out, including the AJC, 11Alive, and WABE. His justifiably rigid rules put everyone on the same footing and made our missions quite clear. The venue was ideal for this event. I appreciated being invited to present, and I join with the many others who are congratulating Sanjay on another Riotous success. Read More…
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Russell Jurney Interviews Jason Shellen for TechDrawl. Shellen is CEO & Founder of Thing Labs in San Francisco, CA. Thing Labs makes things so you don’t have to such as Plinky, a “content encouragement site” that prompts you with questions for your blog, Twitter or Facebook page, and Brizzly, “a fun way to use Twitter and Facebook” said to make it easier and simpler.
Shellen hails from Pyra Labs the creator of Blogger which was acquired by Google in 2003. He spend 4-1/2 years at Google working on the Atom feed, Google Reader and on the acquisition of NYU’s Dodgeball, Read More…
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The latest video game conference to hit Atlanta was The Art History of Games. Produced by Georgia Tech and SCAD, this conference ran from February 4-6, 2010 at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA. Its primary purpose was to explore the connections between video games and art. It featured several speakers from both the game design and art community including John Romero, Ian Bogost, Brenda Brathwaite, Michael Samyn, Auriea Harvey, Henry Lowood, Eric Zimmerman, Christiane Paul and Celia Pearce. To see all Read More…
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In the fifth segment of the six-part interview series with Lenny Stern of SS+K, Jon Birdsong interviews Stern about the effect online engagement had on the election outcome in the Obama ‘08 campaign.
Did the online engagement have quantifiable results?
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Recently, TechDrawl contributing reporter Marisa Sharpe interviewed startup founders at the inaugural #OnStage, a startups demo launched by Mike Schinkel’s organization Startups Atlanta held at Ignition Alley co-working space in Atlanta, GA. #OnStage is an event for selected entrepreneurs to demo their startups followed by a Q&A with public or DM voting on Twitter.
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When you survey the landscape of Atlanta startups, what’s missing is the proverbial “acorn from the oak tree.” Often there’s little relationship between the Fortune 500 behemoths in town and the entrepreneurial exploits happening at the grassroots. And rarely do Fortune 500 execs break out to form small startups designed to sell back to their previous employers.
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