February, 2009

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Layoffs Hot Keyword for Second Half of January 2009

SoCal CTO

Last month we Launched Los Angeles Tech and in the announcement we provide the Hot List for the first half of January 2009. This hot list is based on various social signals of what people are writing about, reading, bookmarking, searching, etc. You can go to the Hot List post to see what was hot then. But, in running it now for the second half of January, the keyword that popped to the top was: Layoffs And this is definitely a sign of the times.

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SOMARK Innovations Sets Up Shop In San Diego

socalTECH

SOMARK Innovations , a firm which is developing chipless, RFID tattoo technology used for animal identification, is setting up shop in San Diego, the firm disclosed earlier this month. The company--which also landed a venture capital round from Finistere Ventures and T2 Venture Capital--said the new location will be based at the Center for Emerging Technologies.

San Diego 167
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SCVN Monthly Networking Mixer

SoCal Tech Calendar

Tuesday, February 24, 2009 -- SCVN Monthly Networking Mixer. The Southern California Venture Network (SCVN.org) invites you to a professional networking event. See [link] (more).

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Building and Developing an A++ Team

Frank Addante

Recently, I was asked to present my philosophy and methodology toward building what I call A++ teams at the Startonomics conference. Below, you'll find the video recording of the presentation and the actual presentation itself.My apologies for the lack of posting to my blog -- I broke my arm snowboarding six weeks ago which makes it hard to write. :-)A Plus Teams - Frank Adante Startonomics LA.

Develop 45
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Can You Ask for Office Rent Relief? How to Manage Your Lease During COVID-19

Office leases are one of companies’ largest expenses, and if your whole team is working from home with no clear end in sight, you may be wondering what to do about your lease.

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Startups Uncensored #5 - “Raising Money from Angel Investors”

Jason Nazar

This month’s “Startups Uncensored” will be on “ Raising Money from Angel Investors ”. It will be an open and frank town-hall conversation revealing how to meet, build relationships over time, and attract angel investment for your start up. Our “real life&# Angel Investor guests for this month’s event include Brett Brewer , co-founder of Intermix/MySpace, Matt Coffin , founder of LowerMyBills, and Rick Smith, Managing Director of Crosscut Ventures (a los angeles based angel fund).

Startup 44
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Excerpt from "What I learned in a new support group for CEOs"

CEO Flow

By Connie Loizos, of peHUB (Thomson-Reuter’s private equity blog). “A New Support Group for CEOs Emerges&#. I spent Friday morning at the Sand Hill Road offices of Battery Ventures, where a dozen CEOs took up temporary residence to discuss what to do about sales cycles that have grown longer every month since September, why most no longer discuss sales leads with their VCs and some of the surprising differences between selling to a new customer versus getting an existing customer to

Sales 40

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Geni Connects With Facebook

socalTECH

Hollywood-based Geni , the venture-backed firm which has developed an online, Web 2.0-style genealogy and social networking web sites for families, has connected the company's service with the popular Facebook social networking web site. Geni said that users can now connect their Facebook account to Geni, allowing users to use Facebook's standard invite tools to invite relatives to join Geni's family tree serviecs.

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Getting Real About Revenue

SoCal Tech Calendar

Thursday, March 5, 2009 -- Getting Real About Revenue. Dealmaker. Monetization strategies for web companies, from the startups to tycoons, has proven to be hard.really freakin' hard. Let's face it - it's put up or shut up time when it comes to turning eyeballs into dollars. See [link] (more).

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Building and Developing an A++ Team

Frank Addante

Recently, I was asked to present my philosophy and methodology toward building what I call A++ teams at the Startonomics conference. Below, you'll find the video recording of the presentation and the actual presentation itself.My apologies for the lack of posting to my blog -- I broke my arm snowboarding six weeks ago which makes it hard to write. :-)A Plus Teams - Frank Adante Startonomics LA.

Develop 45
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Docstoc DocShots: A Better Way to Preview Documents Online

Jason Nazar

Docshots has been a feature we have had in our “que&# for months now and finally got out. I think this is an awesome way to preview documents online, instead of having to open or download.pdf,doc,ppt, or.xls files from websites just to preview them. I can try to explain DocShots with a bunch of text, but a picture is worth 1000 words, right? So check out this document: 2009-lakers-schedule.

Doc 40
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Excerpt from "What I learned in a new support group for CEOs"

CEO Flow

By Connie Loizos, of peHUB (Thomson-Reuter’s private equity blog). “A New Support Group for CEOs Emerges&#. I spent Friday morning at the Sand Hill Road offices of Battery Ventures, where a dozen CEOs took up temporary residence to discuss what to do about sales cycles that have grown longer every month since September, why most no longer discuss sales leads with their VCs and some of the surprising differences between selling to a new customer versus getting an existing customer to

Sales 40
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My Web Lockers Looks To School File Sharing

socalTECH

San Diego-based My Web Lockers is launching a new file sharing service today--targeted at K-12 schools. The site said that the new service will make it "easier and more affordable" for schools to use the Internet to store projects such as homework and class assignments. My Web Lockers is charging $5 per user per year for the service, which is an extension of educational web collaboration and storage service School Web Lockers, a school-wide and district-wide service for storing school data.

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Interview with Steve Pelletier, FatTail

socalTECH

Late last year, we had the chance to talk with Velocity Interactive's Ross Levinsohn about their investment in Woodland Hills-based FatTail (www.fattail.com). At the time, the firm was working on--but not talking about-- their next generation product, which the company announced yesterday. We spoke to Steve Pelletier , the firm's Founder and CEO, about the new product: Tell us a little bit about your new product?

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DTS In Deal With Intel

socalTECH

Agoura Hills-based DTS , a developer of audio technology for the home theater, car audio, and personal computer market, disclosed Thursday that the firm is in a strategic co-marketing agreement with computer chip giant Intel. DTS did not detail the terms of the agreement, but said it would "significantly expand" the firm's presence in the PC space. DTS said it will bring a suite of its technologies to Intel's Mobile Platform.

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Report: ManiaTV Axes Staff

socalTECH

Los Angeles-based ManiaTV has reportedly laid off 15 of the firm's 33 employees, according to a report in The Deal, as the firm prepares to sell the company. The Deal said Revision3 is rumored to be a possible buyer for the firm. ManiaTV is a producer of original online content, which it distributes entirely online. The firm moved here in 2007 from Denver.

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Internet Brands Sees Quarterly Boost, Buys Three Websites

socalTECH

Los Angeles-based Internet Brands announced its fourth quarter and fiscal 2008 results, reporting that--despite the recession--the firm saw an increase in its fourth quarter revenues of 8%, or $27.0M versus $24.9M a year ago. The company also disclosed that it has acquired three more websites, as the firm continues to acquire web properties in various vertical markets.

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Nexsan Ships iSCSI Product

socalTECH

Thousand Oaks-based storage equipment provider Nexsan announced today that the firm has shipped its first iSCSI product, a new product targeted and small and medium sized companies. According to Nexsan, its new iSeries products provides up to 1 petabyte of storage, virtualized storage, and support for SAS and/or SATA disk drives. Nexsan is a developer of storage arrays used by companies for their data storage.

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Interview with Vince Bianco, Newsforce

socalTECH

San Diego-based Newsforce (www.newsforce.com) is a startup which is looking to take advantage of the hunger of the newspaper and media business for revenue, and has created a product which takes press releases and commercial content, and inserts them onto news sites in "sponsored content" blocks. We spoke with Vince Bianco , the firm's CEO, about the company and its services.

News 124
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Report: Ingram Micro Lops 8 Percent

socalTECH

Santa Ana-based Ingram Micro , an electronics distributor, has reportedly laid off about 8 percent of the firm's North American workforce, or 300 employees, according to a report from ChannelWeb. ChannelWeb quoted an executive at Ingram, who said that the layoff occurred Tuesday, with as many as 150 cuts in the firm's Orange County offices. Ingram Micro distributes technology products, including electronics, computer accessories, and other products.

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Interview with Dave Newmark, Bid4Spots On Google, Radio, and more

socalTECH

Yesterday, Google announced that it was shutting down its Google Audio efforts--the search engine giant's efforts to try to sell radio advertising. We happened to be talking at the time with Dave Newmark, CEO of Encino-based Bid4Spots (www.bid4spots.com), about how the firm's reverse auction service for remnant radio was going, and Dave us gave his insights into Google's moves, how it affects his company, as well as an update on how things are going for Bid4Spots.

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AeroVironment Gains $16.8M Order

socalTECH

Monrovia, California-based AeroVironment , which develops unmanned aircraft systems for the military, disclosed Monday that the firm has raised $16.8M in a contract with the U.S. Army. AeroVironment said that the $16,758,776 order came for fifty of its Raven unmanned aircraft systems. The firm said the order also includes digital data retrofit kits for 206 existing Raven systems.

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X PRIZE Foundation Gives $25K To UCI Students

socalTECH

Two UC Irvine Students, Kyle Good and Bryan Le, have scored $25,000 from the X PRIZE Foundation and Prize Capital, in a competition which invited ideas for green energy projects for the group. The X PRIZE Foundation reported today that it has given the two a $25,000 check for their idea for an "ultra capacitor" prize, which they submitted on YouTube.

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Connect3 Acquisition Completes

socalTECH

Cerritos-based Connect3 , a developer of advertising, merchandising, and promotions software, is now officially part of DemandTec, a Bay area firm that develops promotional planning software. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. DemandTec originally announced the acquisition in January. Publicly held DemandTec said Connect3's product suite is being incorporated into its End-to-End Promotion Management suite.

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Move Loses President

socalTECH

Westlake Village-based Move , which operates a number of real estate sites, including REALTOR.com , and Move.com , announced late Wednesday that the firm's President, Lorna Borenstein, is leaving the company. Move did not give a reason for Borenstein's departure, however, did say that new CEO Steven Berkowitz will take over Borenstein's duties. Berkowitz was appointed CEO in late January by Move's board of directors, replacing Michael Long, who retired from the firm.

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HireRight Inks Deal With SAP

socalTECH

Irvine-based HireRight , a provider of online employment screening and job applicant tracking software, said today that the firm has inked a joint marketing agreement with software publisher SAP America. According to HireRight, the agreement calls for HireRight and SAP America to deliver HireRight's screening services through an integration with SAP's E-Recruiting software.

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Global Fitness Media Names CTO

socalTECH

Los Angeles-based Global Fitness Media , which is developing a number of fitness-related online web sites, has hired on a new Chief Technical Officer, according to the firm's search agency, NeoHire. According to the firms, Daniel Auld has been appointed to the position. Auld was most recently Senior Operations Architect at Yahoo, and has also served at IBM Corporation and Alchemy Communications.

CTO Hire 113
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Our Survey: Corporate Spending, Not Stimulus, To Drive Recovery

socalTECH

We've just released the results of our first non-scientific survey of our readers and others on the economy and business conditions, and found that the majority of our survey respondents believe that corporate spending--not the government stimulus--is what will drive a recovery in business conditions. Our survey--conducted from January 19th to January 30th for us by the David James Agency--had 150 respondents, 40 percent of whom thought that it will take longer than on year for business to impro

Sales 113
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Xirrus Rolls Out Wi-Fi Software

socalTECH

Thousand Oaks-based Xirrus , a developer of Wi-Fi networking hardware, said today that it has released a new, free Wi-Fi software which will allow users to search for and locate Wi-Fi networks, and manage their Wi-Fi connections. According to Xirrus, its new Xirrus Wi-Fi Inspector tool runs on Windows Vista and XP and requires a Wi-Fi adapter, but does not require Xirrus hardware to run.

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CampusExplorer.com Gets $2.25M

socalTECH

Santa Monica-based CampusExplorer.com is announcing this morning that the firm has raised $2.25M in a Series B funding round, for the firm's online service for searching for colleges. The firm said the new round was led by OCA Ventures, and also included Origin Ventures and Rincon Venture Partners. CampusExplorer.com said the funding will go towards product and technology development at the firm.

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TotSpot, Cogi Get Spotlight

socalTECH

The Los Angeles technology crowd turned out in full for last week's Twiistup 5 event--a showcase for startups looking for exposure and funding--with over 1,000 attendees at a private aircraft hangar at the Santa Monica airport. The winner of the judge's choice award was Cogi , a Santa Barbara-based firm which develops a service for transcribing conference calls and meetings; TotSpot , which operates a social networking site that allows families to create private sites for their children, was awa

Twiistup 113
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SodaHead.com Swizzles Site

socalTECH

Encino-based SodaHead.com , the venture backed, online questions-and-answers site, has swizzled its web site, saying this week that it has redesigned its site to make it easier for its users to find topics. Among updates to the site are new category links to make it easier to find questions and answers, and a way to link and share news articles on the site.

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SoCal Firms Head To Demo

socalTECH

A number of Southern California firms are on the list for DEMO 09, the technology conference which has been one of the traditional launching ground for new products and startup firms. DEMO disclosed Friday that San Diego-based Avaak , Goleta-based Citrix Online , Huntington Beach-based HowSimple , San Diego's Qualcomm MEMS Technologies , and Santa Monica-based Vokle are among the list of firms who will be presenting at the event.

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Verdezyne Names VP

socalTECH

Carlsbad-based Verdezyne, which was formerly known as CODA Genomics, said Thursday it has named Damien Perriman as Vice President of Business Development. Verdezyne said that Perriman joins the firm from The Dow Chemical Company, and has previously served as Deputy Trade Commissioner to the Americas for the Queensland Government of Australia, along with working at Miritone.

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Helixis Adds Illumina's Flatley To Board

socalTECH

Carlsbad-based Helixis, which develops tools for nucleic acid analysis, said Thursday that it has added Illumnia CEO Jay Flatley to the firm's board of directors. The company, which is venture backed by Domain Associates and Okapi Venture Capital, was founded out of technology developed by Nobel Prize winner David Baltimore and Axel Scherer, both at the California Institute of Technology.

Tool 100
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Interview with Dipanshu Sharma, Kadonk

socalTECH

This morning's interview is with San Diego-based Kadonk (www.kadonk.com), a startup which is creating project management tools that work with Microsoft Project. We spoke with Dipanshu Sharma, Chairman of the firm, to learn more about the company and its products. Sharma is also one of the founders of V-Enable. Thanks for sitting down with us. For our readers who aren't familiar with Kadonk, what's the story behind the site?

Startup 100
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Marketing Idea Clinic/Workshop

SoCal Tech Calendar

Thursday, March 5, 2009 -- TCVN invites you to attend its Marketing Idea Clinic/Workshop. Bring real-world issues and your own business problems before experts and watch in real-time as they slay your marketing challenges. See [link] (more).

Ideas 100