Chrystal City, VA: From Concrete Jungle to Thriving Tech Hub

Haven’t heard of Chrystal City, Virginia, yet? You will.

Whether you’re a startup founder, investor, innovator or just looking to make your next move, Chrystal City is a budding tech ecosystem ripe for the taking.

My latest piece appears on the singular Women 2.0 website (if you haven’t checked out their site, Meetups and media platform, do it now… great insight shared for women and men alike). Check out the article and, as always, let me know what you think!

Why Chrystal City Just Might Be the Perfect Place to Launch Your Startup

 

MyBreastCancerTeam: leveraging lessons of consumer internet for women battling cancer

One in eight women will develop invasive breast cancer at some point during her lifetime, and MyBreastCancerTeam aims to alleviate many of the common dilemmas that these women face by leveraging the power of many in a unique social network…

Read more of my latest piece on Examiner, featuring insight from MyHealthTeams co-founder Mary Ray.

Chat: Luminate CEO Bob Lisbonne on the Future of Images Online

If a picture is worth a thousand words, images should be recognized as leading conduits for online information sharing and advertising. Yet this has been anything but the case on the web, where algorithms determine advertisements through the use of text and wordy links while failing to capture the attention of most readers.

Enter Silicon Valley-based Luminate, an image platform intent on proving the power of pictures and revolutionizing the way we interact with them online. I have covered Luminate several times previously (like this piece for Examiner.com back when the startup was called Pixazza). A lot has happened for Luminate in the 2 years since, with serious wallet padding thanks to Google Ventures and an ever-expanding repertoire of publishing partners.

For an inside look at the company’s latest news and features, I caught up with CEO and co-Founder Bob Lisbonne in a Q&A for SocialTechnologyReview. Check out what Lisbonne had to say about the future of interactive images online.

Moonfruit’s Answer to Cross-Channel Commerce

Moonfruit is a proven leader in all things DIY for websites, helping hundreds of thousands of small businesses with limited time and resources get their websites up and running painlessly. Drawing from its extensive experience as the UK’s number one site builder, its latest ShopBuilder tool seamlessly integrates cross-channel commerce into their mix of social tools.

I spoke with co-founders (and husband-wife duo) Wendy Tan White and Joe White about what keeps Moonfruit so fresh after more than a decade, the lessons they’ve learned and how easy it is to use ShopBuilder. The article can be found at this SocialTechnologyReview link.

Democratizing Data: DataSift

Intent on democratizing data, DataSift crossed the Atlantic November 16 to much anticipated applause for its US launch. The platform offers real-time social media data filtering in a disruptive and digestible way thanks to its unique relationship with Twitter. DataSift, sprung from Nick Halstead’s genius (the same guy responsible for TweetMeme) was in fact founded four years ago in the UK and has been busy perfecting and growing its social data arsenal so that the rest of us don’t have to…

You’ll find Bonnie’s piece on DataSift, featuring insight from Founder Nick Halstead and CEO Rob Bailey, on SocialTechnologyReview.

Are you Doing it Right on LinkedIn?

We all have a LinkedIn account by now. Some of us have even racked up hundreds of connections. But if you’re loathe to update your profile, reach out to new people or use a few apps, you might be missing out.

I rounded up a list of 15 ‘Must Do’ actions on LinkedIn. You may be surprised how easy they are to implement and leverage. Check them out on SocialTechnologyReview.com.

Monetizing Social Media w/ Social Annex

For my weekly Q&A on SocialTechnologyReview, I interviewed Al Lalani about what he learned as a director of eCommerce for Teleflora and applied to his latest venture, Social Annex.

Check out the Q&A on SocialTechReview here.

Q&A with Social Strategist Tracy Sestili

Recently, I spoke with social media consultant Tracy Sestili for the latest Q&A appearing on SocialTechnologyReview.

To hear Sestili’s thoughts on understanding your target audience in the social space, common mistakes made and how Facebook’s latest round of revisions is affecting social strategy, read the full piece here.

VatorSplash SF: 10 Startups Pitch to Leading VCs

Last night, San Francisco’s Cafe du Nord once again played host to Vator.tv’s VatorSplash competition, which offers 10 carefully selected tech startups the chance to pitch to a robust panel of VC and angel investors.

I’ve covered this event before, and while the venue, great company and stellar after-event musical night cap is to be expected, the startups themselves differ each time. Mobile, gaming and crowd sourcing themes are still going strong judging by the 10 finalists who presented on stage.

Also evident were the number of young entrepreneurs and target markets spotlighted on stage. Despite this trend, the overall Splash winner came from Colorado-based FrontDoorSoftware, whose founder and CEO Carrie Hafeman draws from her considerable experience in the computer security and burglar alarm industries to create laptop security that prevents, protects and recovers stolen devices.

The crowd was swayed towards the youth and awarded the People’s Choice Award to fresh-faced college graduates from Kentucky who founded BuildingLayer, a crowd sourced indoor mapping system. What youth doesn’t account for, their strong engineering backgrounds and sheer determination to scale their new company do (attractive M&A for Google, perhaps?)

To read more about the evening, check out my article for Examiner.com at this link. 

Twitter Tips w/ Kelly Kim: Give to Receive

The last of my 2-part Q&A series for SocialTechnologyReview with Twylah’s founders was published on Sept 2, 2011. Kelly Kim is a veteran industry thought-leader who leverages her knowledge of social media with her people-savvy attitude. The result? Great tips for Twitter-verse and a new mantra: why you must give to receive.

http://www.socialtechnologyreview.com/articles/twylah-co-founder-kelly-kim%E2%80%99s-twitter-tips-why-you-must-give-receive