This Tuesday the TechCrunch NYC meetup officially happened at Bar 13 in lower Manhattan. Setup of the place was: photo booth machine and karaoke on the 1st floor, full bar, DJ, disco ball and “VIP” tables on the 2nd floor, then there’s the roof top. Total 3 levels of mingling, 1,500+ RSVPs, packed on every floor, including the roof, and it was raining.

Here are some interesting people and startups I met:

Sang Lee, Founder of Return on Change, talked to me about crowdfunding for startups. His company is a meeting place for innovators and investors, and it allows everyone to fund companies you believe in. The idea is to shape the future together. I asked him how this is different from Kick Starter and he says you actually get returns on your investment with Return on Change. Currently you can sign up on their website either as 1. Crowdfounder interested in funding innovation or 2. Startup driving innovation. I wonder what happens if someone wants to be both?

William Neely, CEO of PieceWise tells me his company is like open source for projects. Members of the community contribute to pieces of your project and their contribution are validated through community voting. Pieces of projects can be reused as templates for future similar projects. Sounded to me  projects could be of any nature, from building a website to planning a vacation. The idea is “big projects through little pieces”.

Members of the Parlor.fm crew distributed the lovely “# me” t-shirts (not hashtag me, it’s pound me). They currently have 3 products: TopicTalk, GroupCall, and MobiCast. Their founder, Joel Schwartz demoed the TopicTalk app on his Android for me. The product is like chat roulette, you select a topic of interest and have 1 on 1 conversations with people who selected the same. You can hit next if the person bores you.

Steven Gutentag, Co-founder of Sitesimon, pronounced “site-Simon”, stands for “sites-I’m-on” came from BCG Consulting and invented the Internet assistant that aims to enhance personal content discovery through a browser sidebar. I wonder how sitesimon solves the problem of being looked at as an organized ads bar?

Fun event, TechCrunch! Pictures from the night: http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/09/oh-what-a-night-photos-from-last-nights-nyc-mini-meetup/

Shouts to Ryan Coyne from The Whoot and Rob Caucci from Space Splitter @_Splitter.

My full article is on Under30CEO

TY Tech Day Award Winners:

Best Use of Location – BiteHunter (http://www.bitehunter.com/)

Best Design – Chartbeat (http://chartbeat.com/)

Best Educational Startups – Three Ring (http://threering.com/)

Best Social Startup – GiftSimple (http://www.giftsimple.com/)

Best Booth Design – Cannonball (http://www.mycannonball.com/)

NY Tech Day Staff Choice – Snakblox (http://www.snakblox.com)

Best use of Data – Hoppit (http://www.hoppit.com/placesearch/)

Best Mobile App – Uber (https://www.uber.com/)

Best Business Model – Temboo (https://www.temboo.com/)

Best Enterprise Startup – SendGrid (http://sendgrid.com/)

Best Unfunded Startup – Unroll.me (http://unroll.me/)

1. THE PEOPLE: Any environment, whether an organization, a company, or a city, boils down to the people that consist it. Many smart, ambitious young people come to New York to become the best. New York is where you’ll find other thriving entrepreneurs who are hard-working and inspirational.  It’s a great feeling to be inspired by fellow young entrepreneurs, have opportunities to help one another and create collaborative relationships. Also, there are always new people moving to New York each year, which means endless cycles of new ideas and new information replenishing New York entrepreneurial minds.

To give an idea, here is a list of companies founded by New York entrepreneurs.

[Entrepreneurs through Instagram: Clay Hebert @Spindows; Jonah Peretti, CEO @Buzzfeed; Aaron Rudenstine, Co-founder @CityMaps; Persia Tatar, Founder Social Media Society; Matt Bishop, Founder @iGiveMore; Rob Caucci, C0-founder @_Splitter]

2. THE EVENTS: The ample startup and tech events in New York are what bring the people together. Just last Thursday was NY Tech Day, over 200 startups exhibited and shared space with several VCs in the Lexington Armory. Other yearly events taken place in New York include Social Media Week, Entrepreneur Week, Startup Weekend where it’s “No Talk, All Action” to launch a startup in 54 Hours. Many organizations host events for young entrepreneurs including Ultra Light Startups, hundreds of Meetup groups where entrepreneurs can practice pitches, listen to investors’ feedback and network with like-minded people in the scene. Meetup groups that focus on these formats include: NY Entrepreneurs Business Network, NY Tech Meetup, Startup Grind, etc. just to list a few.

Here is a curated calendar of events for young entrepreneurs in New York.

[Events through Instagram: NY Tech Day; Women in Tech Leadership Event; 212 Social; DaniWeb Social Media Week poker mixer]

3. THE CAPITAL: Another reason why New York is a top city for young entrepreneurs is the access to investors and incubation resources. Since New York officially replaced Boston as the #2 tech hub in 2011, more and more venture capital funding is finding its way to New York. According to Thomson Reuters and the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA), 42 U.S. venture capital funds raised $4.9 billion in the first quarter of 2012. To some entrepreneurs, the idea of approaching VCs or any kind of investors may be intimidating. Here in New York, there are so many opportunities to meet them in social settings that dials down the intimidation factor dramatically. For example, I was at a Women in Media (Wimlink) event this month, and the moderator of the event was Yao Hui Huang, Founder of The Hatchery. She talked to everyone at the event and was happy to keep in touch and help those who reached out to her even after the event.

Here are 11 NY incubators and accelerators for entrepreneurs to check out.

[Instagram Photos: Trophies from NY Tech Day; New York city from Ink 48 rooftop]

4. THE RESOURCES: We know space is tight in New York and renting an office space all to yourself may not always be the best option for young entrepreneurs. This is why there are lots of co-working and shared spaces in the city. These co-working spaces provide desks, conference rooms, and a collaborative environment for entrepreneurs to work in. Some of these spaces also provide classes that include topics on running successful companies and getting venture backing. I’ve attended speaker events at WeWork, Dogpatch Labs, and WixLounge.

Here is a list of co-working spaces in New York put together by Rose Tech Ventures.

[Co-working spaces through Instagram: Dogpatch Labs; WeWork Lounge]

5. THE KNOWLEDGE: Aside from the people and events that make New York an exciting place for young entrepreneurs, there are also plenty of classes and seminars offered in the city to further enrich your knowledge in building successful businesses. Social Media Society provides education and speaker series showcasing the best practices in Social Media. 212NYC provides activities and speakers to educate entrepreneurs how to best market and advertise your companies. And of course, there is Skillshare and  General Assembly, your trust-worthy sources of classes for technology, design, and entrepreneurship.

[Photos: Alexis, AT&T; Kathy Garfield, 1000heads; Heidi, Head of Blogger Community Outreach, Techlicious; Billy Sorrells, MTV; Johan, MobilityMinded; Chaim Haas, SVP, Kaplow PR; Eddy, dancinghotdogs.com]

Yesterday I was invited by @SirKneeland to a dazzling private event for AT&T + Nokia to showcase their Best Phone of CES 2012, the Lumia 900 and for media personalities to party and mingle. Event invitees were picked up in a white Escalade stretch limo (@klyon19 thanks for the correction, it was indeed not a hummer limo), rolled around Manhattan with drinks, disco lights, and Lumia phones. I almost thought I was in Vegas. O and we picked up a few surprise guests along the way, including Billy Sorrells from MTV. #tag of the night: #ATTMobileReviewNY

Limo drop off at 230 Fifth, the party crew went up to the rooftop.
Some interesting people I met:

Heidi @c2cmom from Techlicious has a PR and media production background, and is now helping those non-super techies learn tech online. Kathy Garfield @kathygarfield from 1000heads agrees with me that the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills are by far her favorite Housewives. Rebecca Levey, Queen Bee at KidzVuz.com started YouTube for kids, by kids. Chaim Haas @chaimhaas, SVP of Tech, Emerging Media & Digital Strategy at Kaplow PR believes in investing in good talent as it reflects back on his work. Serko Artinian, @mobiledivide Digital Media & Film Production, also Curator & Producer of nycmobileapps.com. Johan van Mierlo @johnvanmierlo Mobilityminded.com did a nice Lumia 900 review here. Jordan McClead, head of Mobile Technology at the University of Pennsylvania.

And the hosting crew of the night:

Jeb Brilliant @JebBrilliant, TheMobilePerspective.com from the LBC who had a 6:30AM flight the next morning. He rescued my dying phone by giving me one of those awesome iPhone battery case chargers to keep. Adam Cohen, @dadarocks http://dadarocks.com Director of Marketing & Events at J&R Jr. He’s a New York native and great event planner. Jimmy Lee @jjklee, Meredith Red @CSWMer, and the lovely Alexis, who was making everyone awesome drinks in the limo. Thanks guys for a fantastic evening, twas a night to remember!

I watched a webcast hosted by Clickable today, featuring Jordan Franklin, Director of Social Solutions. The topic was around Facebook marketing, advertising and Sponsored Stories.

Here’s what I got out of the webcast in quick bullet-point summary:

Facebook has always tried to bridge the engagement between brands and people.

1. 1. In the early stage FB let brands record activities of users and broadcast them in newsfeeds (this was not very well received)
2. FB then pivots to expand their ads program to Direct-Marketer platform and introduced conversion tracking. But ppl didn’t want to be sold in conversations they have with friends. Nobody wanted to be sold on Facebook. People look at pictures of cats, but don’t want to be sold on anything.
3. Finally, FB decided to separate economies of advertising: to focus on social metrics and use the ‘Ads with Friends’ model
   This was back when some terminologies were introduced:
   • Social Click-through Rates
   • Social Conversion Rates

The popularity of Friend-endorsed ads:
Nielson partner discovered the value in social endorsement, an increase of 68% in return of ads when a friend endorses it
Developer creates the social advertiser model: engage then monetize, create ads that build user engagement  (example used here was Zynga)
Developers becoming advertisers and advertisers becoming develoeprs: Zynga, Pinterest

The definition of ‘Like’ changed:
Now 40% – 60% of people click on ‘like’ to get a promotion or get informed of future sales

In 2011 Facebook introduced Sponsored Stories
- FB Sponsored ads leverages ads with friends/friends endorsed ads concept

“Frictionless Sharing”: ticker of newsfeeds, e.g. Spotify, it tells you which of your friends are listening to what music on Spotify
- Move beyond ‘like’ and create your own Verb on Facebook: Lounging with Mike; Rejuvenating with L’Oreal; Listening to Spotify
- Consumers are learning how to share better from earlier stages of FB

People often ask: What type of engagement tools could be blended with advertising tools for my brand/product?
Facebook is experimenting surfacing sponsored ad units directly in your newsfeed. See what affect that would have on user engagement. See how well sponsored ads blend with friends’ updates.
More and more the trend for developers & advertisers is developing apps and leveraging frictionless sharing (again the example of Spotify)

How to get there?
FB advertisers struggle with: 1. Lack of clarity on goals 2. Lack of performance metrics against those goals
Good news is we can track a lot of data. But you need to know what the data is for and how to carve all that data to measure against goals you set.

How do you monetize fans?
One approach: you can accomplish your goal of acquiring # of fans and monetization at the same time by offering something or provide incentive when somebody becomes a fan. Then you can track redemption.
Once you have all of these fans, you can remarket to your fans with sponsored stories or direct marketplace ads. You can also ask for direct response with fans to create more engagement.

Facebook advertising uses the auction model. Because of its popularity, initial price rose 18% last year. FB is increasing # of ads per page (now 7 ads per page), which doesn’t necessarily speak to return on investment but more on magnitude of investment.

Best suggested for advertising: Frictionless sharing/sponsored stories model
Best route to take: Invent a verb, make an app that surfaces that verb through frictionless sharing and promote through sponsored stories
What is owning your own verb?
There used to only be 1 verb on Facebook: like
Now you see “Dave is listening to xx song on Spotify” next step: target your ad on a particular verb you choose
When you target a verb, you can target users doing a specific action
3 tiers of FB ads:

1. Premium inventory
2. Marketplace targeting
3. Pponsored stories: 100% social impressions
   

Webcast found here:
http://www.clickable.com/search-engine-marketing/eventdetails.aspx?PostID=17500

About 150+ women in the media and tech industry attended. The evening started with a full-house of girls chit-chatting away, which you don’t see often in the tech and startup scene. Yao started off the panel with a strong opening, she said to the audience, “Do you know majority of college grads in the US is comprised of women? Yes, we are at 60%. And can you guess how many of us are sitting in the C-suites?” Scattered responses: “20 percent!”, “10 percent!”. Yao responded: only 5% are in the C-suites. She said, “In the work place, you always see boys have their boy clubs, why don’t women? Why don’t women help each other out like the men do?”

Some interesting takeaways from the panel:

Lorel started in journalism and realized her personality was best suited being an entrepreneur. She asked ‘who are the first borns’ from the audience and it turns out majority of us were. She also asked, “who’s here to become a better leader, better negotiator and be more confident?” followed by “As first borns, shouldn’t you already be all of those things?” Lorel shared her story about hosting media parties & events, and turning it into a business: Mediabistro.com, which she sold for 23MM.

Tania shared lessons learned from the journey of becoming Partner at Deloitte. She said, “think of yourself as a company, how is your marketing department doing? Are you communicating to your stakeholders/bosses your value?” Tania addressed the audience that it’s important to solicit support by reaching out to co-workers, share what you’re doing and asking them to support your efforts. This way you are known for what you’re doing and you have others backing you up.

Sharon from Mashable told her story from just joining the startup to becoming the COO of the popularly acclaimed news site. She talked about not being afraid to suggest new ideas/goals to higher-ups in the company. She shared that the New York office first started out in her apartment where they invited people over to write stories and people would bring their dogs along. It was fun and productive. And they have adopted this concept ever since. Here is Mashable’s dedicated column for dogs.

Last night, Mobile Monday NY @MobileMondayNY held their March event at the Canal Room in Soho, NYC. With Nokia as the sponsor, developers showed off their Windows 7 apps and Nokia raffled a few winner of CES Best Smartphone Lumia 900 phones.

Roughly 150 attendees in the mobile industry mingled by the open bar and listened to presenters on stage showcase their apps. Some interesting people I met:

Bill Craig from MobileHealthTech talked to me about the different RFID mobile payment technologies out there and how his company’s product is different from Google Wallet. John Kneeland @SirKneeland, Community Engagement Evangelist of Nokia, flew in from Sunnyvale and talked to me about the tech initiatives and user engagement projects Nokia is working on in developing countries around the world. Chance Arrington @chansearrington, head of Developer & Content Marketing for Nokia, was one of the main organizers of the night, really stirred the crowd right with his big personality.

One of the highlights of the night: a friend of mine, and ex-coworker at Audible @audible_com, Douglas Hwang @douglashwang got the chance to present the new Audible app for WP7 at the event. Love that he chose the book: Go the F–k to Sleep, narrated by Samuel L. Jackson to demo. Great job by Doug, you make us proud! And here’s the video:

Many companies are now trying to solve the problem of users experiencing content overload whether from popular social networking sites, the media, or your friends’ constant check-ins and tweets by curating content, qualifying and repackaging them in an easier digestible format. One such company’s product I recently checked out is News.me. It grooms through your Facebook and Twitter feeds, eliminates mindless day/life status updates and pulls the most relevant ‘news stories’. TechCrunch says the stories are filtered based on how many times they are shared and clicked on then curated based on signals from bit.ly.

News.me iPhone app helps smartphone news readers get high level and most popular content in your social network fast. You can add articles from tweets to your ‘Reading List’ to read later, like Instapaper. You can also ‘react’ to articles by leaving a comment or selecting from one of its presets: Ha!, Wow, Awesome, etc. You can follow your Twitter/FB friends on News.me to see what they are reading and what news stories they have reacted to. One main idea is to share with a smaller, more intimate group of readers on News.me than with a massive audience on Facebook and Twitter.

Here’s a screenshot of the News.me iPhone app. An interesting observation: one of my news feeds came from @ValleyGirlShow and the button for downloading their app fit perfectly in the news feed title, which made me tap on it to get the app on my phone. This would’ve most likely been missed in my Twitter feeds.

I got hooked on audiobooks while working at Audible, aside from providing a different way to ingest content, they make train rides and falling asleep easier. Recently, I discovered The Social Radio, it reads your Twitter feeds out loud along with music in the background, like a Twitter mix tape. The “stations” on your Social Radio are essentially your Twitter lists. If that’s not enough, there are also stations for What’s Trending, categorized by country. Currently the Social Radio is available via iOS, Android apps and desktop Web app (invite only).

I got a kick out of their iPhone app, especially when it was able to mix in my Pandora music while reading my “Twitter news”. Words from the tweets (though robotic) almost sounded like lyrics from songs playing in the background. The short form style in Twitter lends itself well to audio consumption as I find myself listening by keywords: listen with intent when I hear something interesting, listen as if it’s just music playing otherwise. Currently the Social Radio cannot ingest audio commands, it would be interesting to see it perform bookmark Tweets, RT, send link to email, etc. The Social Radio is also working on integrating with Facebook wall feeds.

More about the Social Radio: Article from The Next Web

It’s Social Media Week in New York. Wednesday night the Social Media Society hosted Social Media Influencer Awards & Party at the Yotel Hotel in Midtown, Manhattan. The party recognized the most influential social media campaigns, profiles and social videos of the year. Entries were voted on by the public, with a final vote cast by a panel of industry judges.

Here are some interesting people I met:

Pallas Erdrich, Producer @Fueled; Michael Santorelli @msantorelli, CEO of Stellarhead.com, a digital storytelling agency; Chris Garra @chrisgarra, Chief Creative Officer of ElevateXS; and Alex Rivas from Appinions, their “Influencer Exchange” product leverages the power of opinions and provides info on the leading influencers and conversations around any given topic.

And of course, I met the hostess with the most, Persia @persia13, from Social Media Society, who did a great job throwing the event and presenting awards to all the winners. Lastly, who could forget the live performance that night by Stumblebum Brass Band.