By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
Want to find a dance partner near you? Want to find a workout partner near you? Want to find a tennis partner?
A new website called CribSocial.com can help you. This Bay Area startup, which was launched in November of 2009, provides a platform where people with similar interests can connect and socialize offline through activities in their neighborhood.
While many social websites such as Facebook and MySpace are mostly viewed as indoor activities that are enjoyed alone in your house or apartment, CribSocial.com encourages offline interaction, indeed that is the entire point of the site.
It’s free service which allows people to create and participate in social activities in many different categories such as dancing, hanging out, sports, education etc. People can look for a dance partner, hiking groups or simply someone interesting to hang out with. Besides the individual activities users can also create social groups that meet regularly as well as one time special events such as a sports event or music concerts.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
I have some entrepreneurs named Daniel and Alicia Adams whose leap of faith into the United States economy is extremely interesting.
In 2006 Daniel and Alicia Adams, former business professionals based in Germany, saw this country not for the decaying economy, but for the prospect of starting the north eastern United States largest Suri alpaca farm.
Alpaca farming is not a get-rich quick business, but the Adams’ have created a two-fold business. Daniel turns a serious profit by careful breeding and selling of the Accoyo bloodlines while Alicia started a blossoming manufacturing business selling women’s apparel, baby clothes, and homegoods using the luxurious, super-fine fibers collected from their own alpaca herd. Although their entrepreneurship presents its challenges and struggles every day, it has continued to increase revenues without any major setbacks.
Besides breeding for excellence in conformation, fleece and character, one of our main goals is to preserve the pure Accoyo bloodlines in the United States, and also to introduce them into our colored breeding program to further enhance the fiber quality of the company’s colored herd.
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By: Co-Editor, RS:
As the decade came to a close, I took a small amount of time to reflect on another year of my life and how the business world has changed. For one reason or another, I started to think about various businesses that used to be in my neck of the woods on Long Island, New York.
One of the things I started to realize is that despite all of the advances in technology its impact on business over the last 10-15 years, the overall effect has not been good for the entrepreneur or the small business owner.
Can you imagine if you wanted to open a hardware store in the suburbs of any large or small city? Good luck. You will never be able to compete with the likes of The Home Depot. How about opening an office supply business? Once again, good luck, as Staples or Office Depot buys in such bulk that one cannot possibly compete on pricing or national advertising.
My recollection of the beginnings of this trend of “Big Business” domination ruining it for entrepreneurs, started in the mid to late 1980’s. It seemed that on every corner of the universe you were able to find a neighborhood video store. Then in the late 1980’s after Wayne Huizenga acquired the Blockbuster name, we started to see these mega-video stores all over the place. There were times you could find numerous Blockbuster stores within a few miles of each other. This phenomenon crushed the small mom and pop video retailer as everyone enjoyed the variety that Blockbuster could offer the consumer due to its ability to carry more inventory.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
When the history of the beginnings of the Internet is written, one web phenomenon that will be discussed will be so-called “Internet meme”. For the great unwashed, an Internet meme is is a phrase used to describe a catchphrase or concept that spreads quickly from person to person via the Internet, much like an esoteric inside joke. The term is a reference to the concept of memes, although this concept refers to a much broader category of cultural information.
Perhaps the most famous early Internet meme was the so-called “lolcat”.
A lolcat is an image combining a photograph of a cat and a humorous caption in language that typically parodies Internet slang. In this case the slang LOL for “laugh out loud”.
I Can Has Cheezburger? sparked an Internet phenomenon by creating a weblog that featured lolcats. Launched in January of 2007 by Eric Nakagawa and Kari Unebasami, the site was sold to Pet Holdings, Inc., a Web startup based in Seattle.
Pet Holdings, Inc. then started the Cheezburger Network.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
Zero Motorcycles Inc. designs, manufactures, and sells high performance electric motorcycles. The company, formerly known as Electricross, was started in 2006 near Santa Cruz, California. The company was founded by Neal Saiki who was a former NASA engineer and has also won numerous design awards in the sports world.
They are known for their line of dirt bikes and most recently the popular Zero X. They have begun branching out into the street world with a motorcycle called the Zero S (Zero S) which began shipping in 2009.
The Zero S shares some of the same styling cues as its off-road little brother, the previously mentioned Zero X. The motorcycle has highway appropriate tires and a “projector beam” headlight. With a peak horsepower of 31 and 62.5 lb-ft of torque, the clutchless one-speed “Zero S” gets to its top speed of 60 mph in no time. Its four kWh battery can keep you going for up to 60 miles. The intergrated charger allows you to fully charge in less than four hours.
It is very light, and therefore very quick. The battery warning light goes on with about 20 miles to go.
By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
The word “bitch” is often consider a profanity in the English language and commonly carries misogynistic overtones. However, a “bitch” in the literal, non-slang use refers to a female dog.
Now comes a start-up out of Long Island, New York that has fun with both the literal and slang use of the word “bitch”. BitchNewYork.com is a startup that specializes in designer products for dogs. The “Bitch” in BitchNewYork.com refers to both its founder and a very spoiled Chihuahua named Princess Lola that provided the inspiration for this success story.
The human “Bitch” is Stacy Braverman who is not a bitch at all. She is a successful entrepreneur who has transformed her love of dogs and fashion into a successful business. In her quest to spoil Princess Lola, Ms. Braverman searched far and wide for glamourous canine couture and accessories to befit a Princess.
The designer clothes she procured for Princess Lola were the envy of the neighborhood, and her fellow dog lovers wanted their pooches to be outfitted in the same manner. It was then Ms. Braverman decided to start her own online boutique and thus BitchNewYork.com was born.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
Mobile Gifting is the next evolutionary step in the world of gifts. In a fast moving world there will always be room for paper vouchers but unquestionably the majority of the market will move to e-vouchers - in particular mobile vouchers.
With more and more users buying goods online why not allow customers to buy gift vouchers online as well. These vouchers can be delivered, including a personal message, via SMS. Delivery is almost instant.
Several large e-retailers are already involved in mobile gifting such as Alibaba.com.
A new company currently in beta is seeking to ride this next wave in retail. The Cambridge, Massachusetts based KangoGift.com is at this point limited to retailers in the Boston area.
KangoGift, allows shoppers to send both virtual gifts and real gifts via text message to friends and family.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
What if SharkTank was filmed on 125th Street in NYC? What if the VC firms in Silicon Valley considered pitches from a more diverse group than Stanford business grads?
A new website seeks to fill a largely ignored niche by being the online community for young urban entrepreneurs.
TheCASHFLOW.com, based in Cold Spring Harbor, New York is a startup that seeks to provide an interactive and approachable platform blending financial media, professional networking and business knowledge for young urban entrepreneurs. The site officially went live online earlier this month.
TheCASHFLOW.com users can customize an education plan, apply to get their business idea funded, gain knowledge of unique ways to profit from today’s news and trends, and learn from a resource-rich blueprint that takes them step-by-step through the process of writing a business plan, building their team and realizing their financial dreams.
The launch of TheCASHFLOW commenced with the “Put Yourself on the Map Tour,” a coast-to-coast series of interviews and networking events with aspiring urban entrepreneurs in 100 cities across the United States.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
Since this is not technically a tech site, I will take a second to give you a primer on what a Cloud operating system is.
The term “cloud” is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on the cloud drawing used to depict the Internet in computer network diagrams as an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it represents. Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online which are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on servers.
Attribo.com is a Bangolore based startup beta that is focused on what they call “Cloud Management, Provisioning, Monitoring & Reporting Solutions”. They are trying to solve the end user adaptability issues related to multiple cloud vendors and cloud based infrastructure components. They are attempting to make the cloud experience more end user friendly and easy to manage with feature rich approach.
Attribo is built with a unique integration pattern, which brings on the multiple cloud vendor API features within 24 hours of their release and made available to users via the Attribo 3C management console.
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By: Co-Editor, Bobby B:
There are people who you know that are obsessed (not merely interested) with the latest technology releases be it the latest iPhone, Nokia Booklet, or video game release. Some of these people have buyer’s remorse the minute they pick up the latest gadget thinking about the next upgrade.
There is a new site out of St. Petersburg, Russia called PreOrder.it launched in January that has been created in order to give people who are interested in latest novelties in the world of electronics, mobile systems, photo and video equipment a possibility to contact manufacturers directly and leave an order for a product in which they are interested before the official sale starts.
This site would obviously interest any techno-savvy consumer, but the obsessive described above will really enjoy it.
The site actually has two types of users: merchants and customers. Customers can go to the site to access company’s press releases to find out new models, their characteristics, types of set and future price. If the client gets interested in something he can leave a pre-order that goes directly to merchants. Merchants can sell in advance and receive orders directly from loyal and future customers.
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