6/12/12

6/12/12

Good morning, All,

First, on the lighter side, the next SOS event is July 9th, and it also happens to be my birthday! We are hosting in conjunction with DoItInPerson, so hope you can join us for an evening of drinks and networking with business owners and entrepreneurs. Thank you, DoItInPerson, for making it happen. To RSVP for the early bird rate:  http://bit.ly/LnJuAT Gifts not necessary. Donations always happily accepted (see donation button above).

Last week was a bad one for online security: LinkedIn, eHarmony, last.fm and Amazon all reported password breaches. Forest through the trees: we also learned that linkedin’s smartphone app sucks up all of your calendar information – and sends it back in the clear, without the benefit of encryption, although the company denies that. Yes, the service is opt-in (buried in fine print), and while we all readily surrender a lot of information in our linkedin profiles, how much more do they need and what business does the company really have in our calendar app? Marc Andreesen wrote a piece not too long ago about why software is eating the world (http://on.wsj.com/rqCmOn). It may be time for a follow up about how software is also eating our privacy. In case you missed it this past weekend, Apple and Google use spy planes with military grade cameras that are so powerful they could potentially see into homes right through skylights and windows (Beware the spy in the sky: After those Street View snoopers, Google and Apple use planes that can film you sunbathing in your back garden: http://bit.ly/MnaJO4). You know, the kind of tech intelligence agencies used to identify terrorist targets in Aghanistan. The U.S. technology giants are racing to produce aerial maps so detailed they can show objects just four inches wide. With video cameras on every street corner, we already live in a surveillance society. This takes us another leap forwards toward that and do we really need that much of a street view? We’ve heard it before: information just wants to be free. But at what cost to personal freedom, privacy and security? Onward and forward.

Deadlines:

New York Venture Summit Call for Top Innovators. If you are a Startup seeking capital and/or partnerships submit your plan for the opportunity to present at The 2012 New York Venture Summit, the premier venue connecting emerging growth companies with active Venture capitalists, Angel investors, Corporate VCs and Investment Firms. Presented by youngStartup Ventures, The 2012 New York Venture Summit provides an unparalleled opportunity for startups to meet, network and showcase their innovative investment opportunities to a leading group of investors. To apply to present please e-mail iwant2present@youngstartup.com for an application.

TechStars Seattle, deadline June 16; TechStars Boston, deadline June 20. You know the drill: a 3-month program; $18k + $100k convertible debt note, with 6% equity taken. TS provides seed funding from over 75 top venture capital firms and angel investors who are vested in the success of your startup, as well as intense mentorship from hundreds of the best entrepreneurs in the world. To apply: http://apply.techstars.com/

NEW   Seedcamp New York 10 July 2012 – deadline June 17th. Seedcamp New York taking place on 10 July, is a one day event aiming to connect the 20 best web-tech, mobile and software talent with some of the leading entrepreneurs, developers, and experts from all across Europe and all over the world.
If you are not familiar with the Seedcamp events or would like to know more about the process, please check reports from previous eventsabout & investment terms, and our FAQs pages. We will be bringing together 20 of Europe’s best seed stage tech start-ups with experienced entrepreneurs, investors and developers from across Europe and all over the world to participate in a day of intense mentoring, panel discussions and presentations. To apply: http://apply.seedcamp.com/

NEW    HackLolla: create cool festival apps for music fans, deadline June 25th.
Lollapalooza is offering over $6,000 worth of prizes and tons of promotional exposure for the best festival apps created using the Lolla API. Plus 2 Sold Out VIP Passes to Lollapalooza.The Grand Prize winner will be designated The Official Fan App for Lollapalooza 2012! With the Lolla API, developers can access data on artists, events, stages/venues and updates for Lollapalooza 2012. Prizes will be awarded for apps that help fans get the most from their Lollapalooza experience before, during and after the Festival. Winners will be promoted on the official Lollapalooza website and to fans via the Official E-list (~400K), Facebook (~300K), Twitter (100K), and the jumbotron screens at the Festival (80K per day)._
Lollapalooza’s official line-up for 2012 includes more than 100 of the most notable and buzzworthy bands from across the globe, including Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Black Keys, Black Sabbath, Jack White, and many others. The Festival is August 3-5 in Grant Park, Chicago._
To enter, Get a Lollapalooza API key from DoStuff Media by clicking here.

StartupBootcamp, Berlin. Deadline: June 17th. Get seed funding, join a co-working space with other startups in the program and get a dedicated mentorship plan that will excel you from wherever you are in the development cycle to the next. Then at the end of the program, get a chance to pitch to top angel investors and venture capitalists for funding. Fact: Over 50% of our program graduates have gone on to receive funding for their projects. For more information and to apply: http://bit.ly/GCAVPh

NEW   Chase and LivingSocial want to help fuel that drive by awarding up to 12 individual grants of $250,000 to 12 small businesses. Submit your Mission: Small Business℠ application today! Program ends June 30, 2012. For more information and to apply: https://www.missionsmallbusiness.com/

Call to international entrepreneurs: LaunchHouse Accelerator Program Takes Off, deadline July 1st. Over the past three years, LaunchHouse has succeeded in seeding, mentoring, and helping 30 companies to obtain follow-on funding. It plans to enhance those efforts with a new group of software and web-based tech entrepreneurs participating in the progra The LH Accelerator kicks off September 3. The application deadline is July 1. LaunchHouse will invest a total of $25,000 in each of 10 entrepreneurial teams (consisting of two or more co-founders) in software and web-based technology. Based in NE Ohio, but you can enter from anywhere in the world: http://bit.ly/Jy3D5o

NEW    DEMO Fall now accepting applications, scholarship consideration deadline July 6th. Standard deadline: August 17th. We just wrapped up one of the biggest DEMO events in our 22+ year history! Over 70 companies launched new products to a packed room of press, VC’s, angel investors and IT executives. If you didn’t make it to DEMO,  check out some of the cool products that launched from the DEMO stage. Now, we’re gearing up for DEMO Fall 2012, Oct. 1-3 in Santa Clara. We are accepting applications for companies to launch or pitch their product. If you have a new product or now of a company right for a DEMO launch,  visit, http://www.demo.com/launch. .Or, if you already have a product in the market, or know of a company who does, a Showcase sponsorship opportunity in the DEMO pavilion may be something to consider. For more information, visit, http://www.demo.com/showcase

Women 2.0 PITCH comes to NYC, deadline August 31st. We are now accepting applications for PITCH NYC from early-stage ventures around the world with at least one female founder to apply to the startup competition.  PITCH NYC 2012 will provide entrepreneurs with a chance for fame and fortune: finalists present onstage at the conference, and prizes include $25k cash from L’Oreal, $24k worth of free hosting from Rackspace and a finalist interview with TechStars! Stay tuned for more awesome prizes to be announced. Early-stage ventures with under a million in funding and a product in the market (prototype OK) are invited to apply. We are looking to identify, recognize and reward the most disruptive women-led ventures globally – and invite them to pitch onstage for the PITCH NYC conference in November for top prize. Got a startup idea but no team, or got an idea but don’t know how to build it? You have at least THREE MONTHS starting today to emblazen the deadline of August 31 into your head and make it happen. For more information and to apply: http://bit.ly/K56mbS

NEW   Battle of the Apps: become the Kick Apps Champion by creating software that helps small businesses. Contest now opened, deadline: December 31st. Infusionsoft is offering$20,000 in cash and prizes for the best apps to help small business customers. Use the Infusionsoft API to create an app, integration, or plug-in that helps Infusionsoft customers grow their business! 1st through 4th place winners will receive ongoing marketing, plus stage time at InfusionCon 2013. 10 runners-up will receive InfusionCon boothspace and 2 tickets to the conference. Register to enter.

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For you edification this week:

For more on the Amazon hack: Amazon becomes the third victim of hackers this week: http://bit.ly/KkgEWL
For more on the eHarmony breach: Dating site eHarmony Confirms Password Breach: http://bit.ly/K0hJBt
For more on the last.fm breach: Last.fm is the latest site to suffer a password breach: http://bit.ly/JRmtoh
Ah, and there’s linkedin: LinkedIn iOS App Grabs Names, Emails And Notes From Your Calendar. While access to the calendar is on an opt-in/opt-out basis, the app doesn’t inform the user that all this data will be harvested and sent to LinkedIn. What’s more, this information is sent to LinkedIn in plain-text form. This could allow the information to be intercepted when transmitted over an unsecured or a public WiFi connections such as those found at coffee shops. This is shockingly poor security.: http://onforb.es/KOt5Il

Last word: These are technology companies, actively collecting data on its users/members. All are profitable and it’s time they realized that with running a business comes responsibility. With running on online business comes the need for security, and we don’t mean the junior systems admin who’s been charged with the job. Once you’ve grown to a certain size, time to take it seriously and bring in the pros. It’s worth the price of not alienating your members, keeping their data safe – and  We share this whitepaper we received from a security firm – Clear Skies – that we ourselves have worked with – and will certainly work with again. It’s a good explanation of how/why these breaches happen:
When the Cloud Breaks – How the breach at LinkedIn may impact your enterprise http://www.clearskies.net/documents/LinkedIn_Breach.pdf

In case you missed the Apple developers conference yesterday: All Of Today’s Apple News In Less Than Two Minutes (video) http://read.bi/KOqfoH
Everything that Apple Announced today at WWDC http://tnw.co/N73s8p

TMZ, MZ – now GMZ?  Gizmodo is paying people $20 a piece for submitting photos of Mark Zuckerberg. Yes, they’re making a point and here’s what they have to say about the Summer of Mark project: Two years ago, Mark Zuckerberg told startup publicist Mike Arrington that “people have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.”
Facebook has evolved over time too. No longer privately held, it is itself a public company, with a public CEO. We think it’s time he evolves along with his company. In short, it’s time for Mark to go public too. Contest runs through Labor Day: http://tnw.co/L9gb7w

Sorry, Young Man, You’re Not the Most Important Demographic in Tech. Despite companies’ hamfisted, male-focused marketing efforts, women are the dominant users of a wide variety of new technologies. http://bit.ly/Lbr8E8

Brainstorming for New Startup Ideas: A Framework to Spur Creative Thinking. If you are a serial entrepreneur starting to look for an idea for your next startup, you are likely to want a way to stimulate your brain to come up with as many good ideas as possible. This blog post outlines a framework that is designed to fire up your best creative thinking modes, triggering the creation of new ideas. http://bit.ly/i4Pma7

Better Revenue Through UX. Or, how to remove banner ads and keep the revenue, the Hotwire way: http://bit.ly/JL4eCf

The public workers you support  Look at pay rates. In 2009, according to USA Today, compensation for the average federal civilian worker totaled $123,049 including benefits valued at $41,791. That’s more than twice what the average private-sector employee earned — only $61,051, including benefits. Even state and local government workers fared better than private-sector employees, averaging nearly $70,000 in 2009, including benefits. How long before the average federal worker’s benefits alone surpass the average private worker’s combined wages and perks? Something is clearly wrong with this picture — particularly when you remember who is paying their salaries. http://nyp.st/d9CUpM

How the Tech Industry’s Anti-SOPA Tactic Changed Politics. The tactics used in the massive online protests that helped convince Congress to axe the controversial SOPA and PIPA bills earlier this year brought new weight to Internet-based activism. Observers say the changes are already reshaping the political process in significant ways.http://rww.to/LenkAB But wait! There’s more:U.N. could tax U.S.-based Web sites, leaked docs show. The European proposal, offered for debate at a December meeting of a U.N. agency called the International Telecommunication Union, would amend an existing telecommunications treaty by imposing heavy costs on popular Web sites and their network providers for the privilege of serving non-U.S. users, according to newly leaked documents.  http://cnet.co/Nmu0kI

And, from SOS member Emily Lutzker: Want More Women in Tech Startups? Put Tampons in the Bathroom. Whether it’s NY or the Bay area, we hear stories of ping pong tables, swimming pools, kegs, foosball tables, game setups and pinball machines in common areas.  Not one tech startup space I have been in has a full length mirror in the bathroom. No hand lotion, no hair spray, and certainly no tampons. Not even a fem-product vending machine: http://bit.ly/Ltn6pu

From the ‘gotta share this one’ department: Teacher Tells High Schoolers “You Are Not Special” In Commencement Speech. If you haven’t seen this – it’s totally worth it. http://bit.ly/LE1GbJ

That’s it from us this week and hope to see you this weekend at The Seed: A Vegan Experience – June 16th and 17th,  (for tickets: http://bit.ly/JJzLnZ) and yes, bonniefoods will be there and hope to see you there as well! And now, as always, help is on the way…

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