Radio Ink Forecast

I was on a really terrific panel at Forecast 09 in New York last week (I snarfed the picture from Eric Rhodes' Radio Ink site). My fellow panelists and I had a spirited conversation about how new media fits in with the radio industry.

Thanks to Eric Rhodes for organizing the conference and my fellow panelists; Gerrit Meier (COO, Clear Channel Online Music & Radio), Deborah Esayian (Co-President, Emmis Interactive), Bruce Falck (Director, Google Audio Ads), and John Rosso (Senior VP/Digital Media, Citadel Broadcasting).

More pics here

Speed Venture Summit

Yesterday I participated in a speed venture summit, it's like speed dating but it's companies and VCs. You fill out a form online to get accepted. The organizers hook up companies (about 75 are accepted) and investors (about 30 VCs and angels groups) by investment philosophy and company stage.

When you get there you get a dance card, each company has 6 or so meetings. All meetings are 13 minutes long and take place in a big room with one investor per table. There are no slide decks, there's no internet, you just pitch and demo best you can. At the end of the event the 5 top ranked companies by the investors nominated as finalists. The 5 finalists do a live one minute pitch in front of the entire audience. The audience then chooses the top two companies.

I thought our pitches went well. One of the firms was clearly a much later stage investor. Two of them went very well. Two others it was hard to tell. But I guess it went better than I thought, we were chosen as one of the top 5 to do a 1 minute live pitch.

A 1 minute pitch is tough. You need to define a market, a problem and a solution, and hopefully in the case of mobile leave enough time for a 20 second demo.

Foneshow came in second. The company that won had this really cool facial recognition software for the iPhone (I would have voted for them too).

But even second place has its rewards. I won schwag. A Peek email device and a Flip video camera.

Forecast Summit

I'll be speaking on the Radio's Battle for Relevance in a New Media World panel at Radio Ink's Forecast Summit in New York City on December 2nd. The attendance is quite limited (it's at the Harvard Club) so if you want to go, sign up soon.

Online News Association

I'm on a panel on Saturday at the ONA conference in Washington D.C. On the Mobile Platforms panel we'll be talking about using mobile to create and distribute news content.

I'll be taking the minimalist and (probably) contrarian view that simple is better for mass adoption.

Travel and Speaking

I'm going to be in the Bay Area the week of August 4th. I'm on a panel entitled "Personalized Mobile Experience – Social Networking: Breakthroughs in Search, Messaging, Entertainment, Video Capabilities & Advertising" at the Digital Hollywood Building Blocks conference in San Jose. My panel is Wednesday the 6th from 3:50-5PM. If you're there, say hello.

I'm also setting some meetings with partners, friends and VC's.

Talkers New Media

I'm in New York City today to attend the Talkers Magazine New Media Seminar. I'm looking forward to hanging with our friends from teh talk industry, particularly the Talk Radio News Service folks.

In a few weeks I'm going to be presenting at the McVay Media Summit@The Conclave in Minneapolis as one of the "Hot Ideas in Radio".

I look forward to seeing you there.

NAB, Done - On to Silicon Valley

Foneshow had a great response at NAB. We launched our tool for local TV and radio stations to break news quickly to mobile. The whole team did great. My panel was fun, we had a good conversation, and I met some great people. We called in some friends of Foneshow to help cover booth hours. Liza totally rocked everything, we could not have done it without her.

I'm at the McCarran airport now headed to SJC. I'll spend the weekend hanging out with friends and family in the bay area. On Tuesday and Wednesday I'll be at Dow Jones Wireless Innovations 2008 (presenting on Wednesday).

After I get in to the bay area I'll post some photos from NAB and write more about Foneshow Breaking News.

NAB in Vegas

Almost the whole team is off to Las Vegas for NAB this week. We've even raided the farm team for some extra bodies.If you're coming to NAB be sure to drop by our booth (C452) for a demo of our new product (more on that on Monday).

I'm also on a panel on Monday at 10:30 (Mobile, Digital & Syndicated Content) at the RTNDA section of the show. Come on by for that too.

Foneshow on the Road

Foneshow is presenting at a few upcoming events:

On April 8th I'm presenting at Venture Summit East in Boston.

Foneshow has a booth at NAB in Las Vegas April 13-17. I think I'm also on a panel, but I need to double check that.

I'm speaking at Dow Jones VentureWire Wireless Innovations conference on April 22 & 23 at the Sofitel in Redwood City, California.

We'll probably do something for Talkers in NYC in June.

Setting Up at Radio Ink Convergence

More Travel

I'm heading out to Silicon Valley tomorrow. Thursday and Friday I've got a bunch of meetings with VC's, technology companies, and some of my old valley cronies. Then next Monday and Tuesday I'll be at at Radio Ink's Convergence conference with Nic and Jon Sinton. Foneshow will be exhibiting and I'll be presenting. Stop on by our display and get a demo of our new publishing tools and our nifty new publisher dashboard.

From California I'm going straight to Washington DC to Radio and Records Talk Radio Seminar.

We'll have a stack of LOI's at both of these events and we'd love to get you signed up to publish with Foneshow.

Online News Association Conference

I'm on a panel at the Online News Association Conference up in Toronto this week. I went to their politics conference in Madison, Wisconsin last spring, I made a lot of interesting contacts and had a great time. I'm really looking forward to Toronto; meeting people and talking about new ways for people to communicate. Apparently the conference is sold out, but if you are going, please come to my Future of Publishing panel

Upcoming Conferences

September 28-30 Podcast Expo in Ontario, California (Just attending)

October 17-19 Online News Association in Toronto, Ontario (the real one in Canada, not the one in LA), (Erik is on a panel)

October 26-28, Podcamp Boston 2 (We'll certainly do a session, we may sponsor)

October 29-November 1, Fall-VON, Boston

This Week

On Thursday night I'll be in NY at the PaidContent Mixer.

On Friday I'll be at the Talkers Conference New Media Seminar.

On Saturday we'll be demo-ing at a table at the talkers conference in the atrium of the Embassy Suites Battery Park. Come on by and say hello.

Another Crazy Week

Today (Monday) is pretty quiet. A few meetings and getting our new (sublet) office space in Portland set up.

Tuesday: A few meetings during the day, then a seminar with the Maine Software Developers Association (MESDA) Telecommunications SIG.

Wednesday: Speaking at a lunch in Portland, hop on a plane to Chicago, rent a car and drive to Madison Wisconsin.

Thursday: ONA Regional Conference. Drive back to ORD at the end of the day.

Friday Morning (0400), drop off car and catch 0600 flight to JFK.
Personal Democracy Forum Conference in NY

Saturday: PDF unconference.

Sunday: Fly home

All this time I've also got to be preparing for the following week when we've got some meetings and presentations setting up operational stuff. I'm really glad I got to take the girls to the Seadogs game yesterday (despite the pain of watching them blow a 6-1 lead to lose 12-6).

Update:
At 2 PM yesterday I got an email from a VC we're working with. I thought I had a meeting with the VC and a potential partner at 4PM in Portland, I was wrong, the meeting was at 4PM in Waltham. I drove like mad and just made it. Add an extra 4 hours in the car to the madness.

Podcamp NYC

There's an article in the New York Sun.

Oh, by the way, Foneshow is a (small) sponsor of Podcamp NYC.

(HT to Chris Brogan)

More Podcamp NYC Info

Great news. Podcamp NYC has just switched venues. They had maxed out the space at The New School so the organizers got a bigger space at The New Yorker Hotel at 481 8th Avenue at 34th Street.

So now you have no excuse not to come. Register now! Nic and I will be presenting Foneshow and talking about mobile podcasting (time TBA), come on by and join in.

Also... Just a quick shout out to John Havens who has done an awesome job putting this thing together.

Podcamp NYC

Podcamp NYC is coming up April 7th at the New School in New York City. Foneshow's public debut was four months ago at Podcamp in San Francisco and the great response and feedback we got from the community there has shaped the product we now have. We've got the conference poster in the sidebar.

Podcamp is an unconference. For those unfamiliar with the format here's a definition from Wikipedia:

An unconference is a conference where the content of the sessions is driven and created by the participants, generally day-by-day during the course of the event, rather than by a single organizer, or small group of organizers, in advance. To date, the term is primarily in use in the geek community. Unconference processes like Open Space Technology, however, have been around for over 20 years in other contexts.

Open Space Technology is an energizing and emergent way to organize an agenda for a conference. Those coming to the event can post on a wiki ahead of time topics they want to present about or hope others will present about. The wiki can also be used to share who is coming because it is the attendees who have a passion to share that contribute to the event and will make it great.

We're really excited to have in intense few days meeting with the podcasting community. We plan on presenting again and are really excited to show off our progress in the last four months.

I believe they've reached the capacity of the conference facility so there's a waiting list if you want to attend.

Some More Press

We were a demo lunch company at the Brave New Web conference yesterday in Boston and we're starting to get some nice press notices from it.

Rafe Needleman at CNET wrote a very favorable article about Foneshow on their Webware site.

His one criticism is right on, we do need to spend some time working on the web site design and usability. We've been totally focused on optimizing the mobile phone experience.

MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge

Foneshow has been invited to present at the demo lunch at the Brave New Web Conference put on by the MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge. It looks like an interesting conference. If you're in Boston/Cambridge on February 7th you should come and hear the speakers, have some lunch and see our products. Nic and I would love to meet you.