My colleagues and I hosted a DCWEEK event focused on the controversial topic of patent and copyright trolls. Read my earlier TechCocktail post if you need an introduction to the topic. (And if you missed our event, check out our patent and copyright troll presentations). We had the opportunity to engage in a lively discussion…
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It’s unbelievably hard to find your rung on the career ladder now. At least 9.1% of us can’t even grab a hold, and vastly more of us, maybe even 71%, are not where we want to be with our work. The recession is one major contributor to job woes— 45% of employees in professional and…
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Intellectual Property (IP) lawsuits are big business these days. In fact, some companies and enterprising individuals use these lawsuits to make money—that is, filing lawsuits in order to get a monetary settlement is the business model. The phrase “patent trolls” was coined to describe companies that routinely pursue licenses and lawsuits in order to monetize…
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Every hack authoring an article and every flack penning a proposal has encountered The Question: how many users does Social Network X have? Sure, you can Google the answers, but then you run into the problem of making sure that your source is authoritative, current, and doesn’t confuse active users (those who log in at…
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Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal launched a standalone news product built entirely on Facebook. The new product, called WSJ Social, leverages the Facebook sharing to compile the most popular and relevant WSJ news based for you based on your social network. WSJ has decided to “fish where the fish are,” and leverage the popular social…
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Disclaimer: This is an opinion piece, based on the facts and most names have not been changed to protect their innocence, or, not. It’s September again and that means TechCrunch Disrupt is taking place this week in San Francisco. The TechCrunch Disrupt event evolved from the now dissolved TechCrunch50 conference that was the creation of…
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CouchSurfing International, which connects travelers with a place to crash, raised $7.6M in a funding and abruptly switched from non-profit to corporate status. The funding, which came from Benchmark Capital and Omidyar Network, will be used to hire programmers at competitive rates and thus keep the website functional as their user base grows. Switching to…
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On a recent visit to Dogabah, I had the good fortune to sit down with well-known business coach, galactic rebel and Jedi Master, Yoda. In my short visit with him, I asked him to share with me the underlying wisdom of 5 of his most famous quotes and to apply them to small company start-ups….
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Lightning in a bottle is a rare mixture of secret sauce and execution. What is Apple’s secret sauce? How about Google’s or Facebook’s? These companies are evolutionary, not revolutionary. Apple, with its iconic Mac, iPod, iPhone and iPad products, is the epitome of execution over secret sauce. Innovation and proprietary IP has not led to the rise…
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This post originally appeared on facc-chicago by Ken Hafft. For anyone who doesn’t already know, the world of cloud computing is upon us. Cloud computing saves time and lots of money and creates efficiencies the likes of which have not been seen before. It is a form of file sharing with the conveniences of automatic…
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Last fall, Raytheon unveiled its 2nd generation real life Iron Man suit, which they actually call the Exoskeleton (XOS 2) – though I think the name “Iron Man Suit” is more fun. This new suit is lighter, faster, and stronger than the XOS 1 and uses 50% less power. Check out the demo they did…
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You’re a founding CEO and you have hedged your bet. You have a day job. You have a guaranteed income stream. You haven’t burned your bridges. You’re comfortable. That’s smart, right? Like most things, the answer in this case is: It depends. If you want to guarantee that there is food on your table, it’s very…
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In an age of information overload, we like our coffee, oatmeal and media all instant. We scan RSS articles, have a quick glance at the Twitter feed, or catch up with friends on Facebook. It’s instant social interaction. However, entrepreneurs still quietly cultivate a culture rich in human connection. Startup founders engage with one another. …
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With over 150MM users, many of you have likely used a service called Shazam. They were the pioneers of song identification by allowing people to hold their phone up to a song and find out the artist and title of that song. It was quite popular but the model was typically to ding the user…
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Much has been made throughout time about the end of the world. Last month’s Twitter-frenzied, anticlimactic rapture. The fatal fallout from the Hale-Bopp comet in 1997. The belief of some scientists that the Large Hadron Collider would create a black hole capable of swallowing the earth. And remember that little panic called Y2K? I’m still…
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Uncle Sam is now developing iPhone apps. Seriously. Recently, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) launched a time-tracking app for smartphones that tracks an employee’s hours worked, and by doing so, puts employers across the nation on notice. The government-issue technology is fairly basic and has good intentions (protecting employees), but it carries far-reaching implications….
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There are a number of startup accelerator and incubator programs in the United States. We are fans of these programs (not to be confused with... Read More
Two months after the iPad 2 debuted in March, around 40% of users surveyed said their iPad was their primary computer, up from around 30%... Read More
With our Startup Mixology Conference coming up next week followed by our classic Tech Cocktail DC Summer mixer which will showcase a handful of early-stage... Read More
Coming off of one of our biggest Tech Cocktail mixer events in Chicago this past week, which showcased 14 early-stage start-ups, we thought it would... Read More