Quote of the Week

"News gets made on Twitter."

Robert Scoble

In a PodTech video of Feedhub.

Quick Roundup

Crazy busy in the Atlanta fall.

Yesterday was the Georgia Tech Innovation Experience.  Another great speed networking event for entrepreneurs and investors alike.  SparkIP and Innovolt were selected to present at ION.  ATDC companies represent half of the final 12 selected for ION.

ATDC won a Spirit of Endeavor Award from AeA.  The FastTrac program has evolved into the more focused CapVenture to better serve the technology startup community.  CapVenture kicks off on Tuesday.

Just announced Fundraising Fundamentals program over on PeachSeedz.  It's next Wednesday so sign up if you want to attend.

I am looking for a few sponsors for Startup Weekend Atlanta.

On the verge of becoming an angel investor. 

Vote756.com

Seems like Marc laid out $752,467 so that he could democratize the debate.  You can vote here.

Quote of the Week

"It has been fascinating to watch this phenomenon grow from a little message I tossed off in 10 minutes to something that has spread all around the world."

Scott E. Fahlman

On the 25th birthday of the emoticon which he created in this note:

19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-)

From: Scott E Fahlman <Fahlman at Cmu-20c>

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:

:-)

Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark

things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use

:-(

Have a great weekend! :-D

Founder Fight

I suppose I posted about the success of Toronto Startup Weekend a little too soon on the Atlanta Startup Weekend blog.  Seems like a disagreement has broken out among the founders.

Andrew Hyde, the founder of the Startup Weekend concept, was the first to bring this up.  Seems like Andrew got a bit of a surprise about his role, the equity structure, and how the concept was to be developed.  Steve Poland, an independent third party in my mind, pretty much backed Andrew up with his two cents.

Brill shot back.  And now Toronto is doing a survey (can't wait to see the results) on what the participants think.

In my day job at ATDC this is the type of thing that comes up from time to time.  Founders debating the equity structure of the company and strategic direction.  Two very important issues for any early stage company.  Issues that need a lot of open communication.  It does not seem that such communication was happening between Andrew and Toronto.  That will not be the case in Atlanta.

Cross posted in part @ Atlanta Startup Weekend.

The Event of the Season

It's called Atlanta DeckParty.  It is happening the evening of October 25th in the courtyard of Tech Square. 

Two rules.  You have to be 21 and you have to register. 

Be there or be square.

Quote of the Week

"Sig and I will see that any Infosec startup with any shot of making it gets funded."

Tom Noonan

In a speech to the Atlanta Technology Marketing Council.  That's exactly the type of leadership Atlanta needs.

Virtual World Use

I met Melanie Leeth of Imlay at an Atlanta Technology Angels event.  I learned a lot about Imlay that I did not know.  But more importantly, we had one of  those great uplifting energizing conversations that you have every so often.  Melanie has great cognition of the Internet space and we talked about some potential opportunities that need to be addressed that are obvious to both of us.

I asked Melanie to lunch recently because I wanted to talk about some concepts that I have been thinking about and get her uber smart thoughts.  We never really got there. 

The topic of the day turned out to be 3D virtual worlds.  Seems like folks are telling Mel that virtual worlds are where the Internet is going and we had a rather animated discussion around that.  Mel does not get it.  Neither do I.  So when two relatively well schooled Internet folks don't get it, what does that mean?  We are either way right or way wrong.  Part of the way wrong could be that we just don't hang out with people that use such services.

So I did a tweet to my twitter followers.   Not a one responded that they engaged with virtual worlds.  Amber knows a few people that hang in the virtual world world, but does not go there herself.

This led me to ask Joe Reger over at dNeero to create a social survey.  While hardly a statistically valid study, the early results showed that nearly 40% of the respondents have tried a virtual world, but less then 10% have engaged with one in the past week.  Over 60% of the respondents are under 29.  You would think that young people taking social network based surveys would be pretty much in the target for the big virtual world service players.  Not so from what I am seeing.

Once place where virtual worlds do seem to be thriving quite a bit is in the 7 - 9 age group.  While the social aspects are not the driving force, every kid I know in that age group seems to be on Webkinz World.  After giving it some more thought, my view is that the time for virtual worlds being used widespread is coming.  Coming as these kids grow up and virtual world technology capabilities grow with them.  The Internet is going there, but its going to be awhile.

So right now Mel and I are way right. In seven to ten years we will be way wrong.  In Internet time that is 50 years.  Timing is a bit off to worry about it right now.

You can take the dNeero survey yourself and see the updated results in the widget below.

Startup Weekend Atlanta

I'm not really sure where I first heard about Startup Weekend. It could have been TechCrunch, or perhaps Brad Feld. Regardless, when I heard about it I decided that Atlanta needed to host one to foster its startup community.

I reached out to Andrew Hyde, the guy that came up with the Startup Weekend concept, back in July. Andrew told me one of the biggest issues was finding a place to hold the event. ATDC agreed in short order to be the host. Startup Weekend is coming to Atlanta on November 9.

Well what exactly is Startup Weekend? According to David Cohen, who was Andrew's sounding board, the concept is to get a bunch of crazy hackers, marketing types, user experience people, and business geniuses in one room starting on a Friday evening and launch a “real” live startup by Sunday night with no budget beyond good will and human capital (and perhaps some sponsors).

To me it seems to be a bit more about the experience than the actual end product (though I would like to show the world what Atlanta can do).

Like David said, the idea is a little wacky. So wacky that it makes sense for Atlanta. That is why I am putting in the effort to make it happen.

If the concept is appealing to you and you are willing to put in some real work for nothing guaranteed beyond the experience, registration is how open. Please only sign up if you can dedicate the time for the entire weekend and add real value by blogging, coding, designing, planing, thinking, or writing about this for three days straight.

You can follow developments on the Startup Weekend Atlanta blog and FoG. Or of course drop me a line anytime to find out more.

Stay Up Super Late

While most of Atlanta trampled and trashed Piedmont Park last night to hear Dave Matthews, I journeyed down to Variety Playhouse to see The National.

The place was packed and it was a great show. The Kid and I worked our way right up front. The highlight was by far the sing along that broke out in the opening stanzas of Fake Empire. When Matt Berninger introduced the song he stated that it was not political. Except for one sentence it sure feels that way to me.

Buy the disc and if you get a chance go see these guys.