lalawag » Events

Apple Redefines Conspicuous Consumption

Akela Talamasca — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 15:00:28 +0000

Apple, baby, why you gotta make me hate you? This is the second time I’m writing about you on Lalawag. That means that you make up 66% of my total content on this site! Dammit, Apple, isn’t 33% ENOUGH? *cries*

This past Wednesday — what the Danes call “yesterday” — Steve Jobs took the stage in shockingly aberrant attire (no turtleneck? it’s the apocalypse!) to announce a veritable slew of new products, designed to make strong men weep from desire and women go damp at the mere mention of iAnything. Only Steve-O could have the temerity in this economy to boast that Apple has 300 stores open worldwide, that they’ve shipped 120 million iOS devices, and sold 67 frillion songs through iTunes. Just once I’d like someone to hijack the visual presentation with shots of underfed children in Africa. “Oh, and One More Thing … try to feel good about Lady Gaga’s new outfit now.”

Do I own an iPod? Never mind that, let’s move on.

We will now go over what The Steve revealed. Take notes; there will be a quiz at the end of this post.

iOS 4.1

• High Dynamic Range photography! Those beer pong photos are SICK, bro.

• Game Center debuted, marking the point in history that non-gamers realized with dawning horror that there is a wider world out there that they never even dared to dread. A world filled with noobs, griefers, and teh 1337. You won’t be able to enjoy Flight Control for two minutes before receiving a challenge from XxXsmokeDog420XxX to play Blood Drinking Hell Guys. And if you don’t accept, everyone on Game Center will know you’re not uber! All you wanted was a little time with Plants vs. Zombies and instead received hot, steaming shame!

• Having said that, however, “Project Sword” does look amazing, I dunno.

iOS 4.2

• Is better than 4.1! Is one more! This is notable to iPad owners for containing the functionality that should have been present at launch, but wasn’t for some reason. Apparently even Steve-O can’t crack the whip hard enough sometimes.

New iPods

• Why is everyone applauding that Apple sold 275 squidillion iPods? Is Jobs going to give us all a cut? I love that man.

• New iPod Shuffle: Yo, it’s got BUTTONS, yo!

• New iPod Nano: Dude, what? A CLIP? My iCup runneth the hell over!

• New iPod Touch: It’s an iPhone without the Phone! Which, frankly, is enough to sell me. And I may be mistaken, but I could swear I heard the president of AT&T wince when this comparison was made. It was like that moment in the Simpsons when Bart and Lisa are watching video of Ralph Wiggum’s heart breaking in slow motion. “But Steve choo-choo-choosed me!”

iTunes 10

• New logo openly disses archaic CD format. “BRING IT” says non-sentient collection of pixels. Not since Pachelbel has musical notation been so … so edgy.

• Ping: what is it? It’s Apple’s new way to make Google searches confusing.

It’s also their new social media service that purports to connect everyone in iTunes to each other, making it easy to discover new music, follow musicians to find out what they’re up to, and broadcast to the world your shameful love of Air Supply. If this results in even more people telling each other to “Ping me!” then I will have to axe murder everyone I know.

New Apple TV

• We’ve talked about this, and now it’s true: $0.99 TV show rentals. While I still can’t quite wrap my head around this one, apparently these shows will be commercial-free, which runs directly against my hope/prediction in my previous post on the subject. Listen, Big Media Companies, I get that you’re scared. You’re seeing your carefully-built empires beginning to crumble under the onslaught of the Internet. Let’s face it: people want to experience content in new ways now, and you’re just not equipped to handle that.

But I’ve said this before, and here it is again: If anyone can make this work, it’s probably Apple. Apple can make people want things that they know are stupid (Buttons! Clips! Ping me – AAARGH). So if Steve-O says “No more ads”, go with it. I know it goes against everything you have grown up believing, but a metric fuck-ton of your audience hatehatehates commercials. Give it a try. I both hope and fear that you’ll be surprised.

• Bullet points are fun.

So that was the Apple event this past September 1^st, 2010. iHope it boggled you as much as it has me. Give me your comments below and let me know what you think, pro and anti. Oh, and the quiz I threatened. Q: Which of the announced products does Akela want? A: All of them.

I’m weak, people. Weak.

Mindshare LA’s August 2010 Event

Michael Arcand — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 18:34:15 +0000

Join Mindshare LA tomorrow night as they break in their new digs at the Exchange LA, located downtown. So what is Mindshare LA, exactly?

Mindshare LA is a unique monthly event which draws a brilliant crowd seeking connections, experiences and exposure
to new ideas. The program, the atmosphere, and the attendees make this monthly get together something you don’t want to miss. In fact, it has even been called “enlightened debauchery,” so you know it’s more than a boring meet-and-greet!

This month’s program includes neuroeconomist Paul Zak; Micki Krimmel, founder of NeighborGoods.net; representatives from the Pedal Patch Community; and the creators of Axe Cop. Music will be provided by Philadelphia-based DJ Jacob Henry. Interactive installations will also be in place from the UCSB Media Arts & Technology Program.

Don’t leave after the program, because that’s when the after program breakout sessions will take place!

Oh yeah, and don’t forget about the COMPLIMENTARY VODKA DRINK SPECIALS provided by Mindshare LA partners Pama and IZZE.

When:
Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 7:00 PM

Where:
Exchange LA
618 S. Spring St.
Los Angeles, CA 90014

Tickets:
Available Online

Previously on lalawag:

Media Leaders L.A. Networking Event

Michael Arcand — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 19:51:05 +0000

A local networking event will be taking place tomorrow night in Santa Monica, at the Bodega wine bar at Lincoln and Broadway. The event is being hosted by Social Media Leaders, and will provide you with a great opportunity to discuss current trends and events as well as new and innovative ideas in social media. Bring your business cards and join a group of marketing, advertising, PR, and technology leaders. These are the influencers in the field and this is your opportunity to exchange ideas and make connections that can take your idea to the next level.

Details:

Where: Bodega Wine Bar Santa Monica
814 Broadway (at Lincoln) Santa Monica, CA 90401

When: Wed. August 18th @ 6:30-9:30pm

Who: See who’s attending

Enjoy the drink discounts just for Media Leaders (6:30-7PM) Don’t be late!: $3 beers | $6 glasses of wine | Andrew Jackson $20 a bottle all night long!

Official RSVP Here

This Week In Events: August 9 – 13

Michael Arcand — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:44:26 +0000

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Collecta Comes to L.A.: Collecta is moving to L.A.! Since their entire team will be in town on tomorrow, they are throwing a meet and greet, and you’re invited, since you real lalawag. ;-)

They haven’t got their new digs set up yet, so they are currently working out of the Coloft in Santa Monica. RSVPs are requested to help them guesstimate how many people are going to show up, but if you don’t get around to sending an RSVP, that shouldn’t stop you from going!

Time: 6:30 p.m.

Location:
CoLoft
920 Santa Monica Blvd
Santa Monica, Ca 90401

Tickets: RSVP

Thursday, August 12, 2010

#140conf Los Angeles Summer Cocktail Party: Hosted drinks by #140conf & Whrrl, this is the event before the event. Come out and meet the people behind one of the top social networking conferences of the year.

Time: 7:00 p.m.

Location:
The Den of Hollywood
8226 W Sunset Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90046-2414

Tickets: Registration

Thursday, August 12-13, 2010

Perseids Meteor Shower: This is one of the most famous meteor showers, responsible for the majority of meteor sightings by everyday people (non-astronomy geeks). The peak is after midnight on the 11th and will run through the night of the 12th. The Perseids in particular are known to produce up to 50 meteors or more per hour, which makes it one of the best showers of the year.

Time: Between midnight and dawn

Location: The Skies of the World (near the constellation Perseus)

Tickets: None needed! But you can still network with others and share your experience.

ITVFest: Who To Watch

Michael Arcand — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 17:35:56 +0000

The 2010 ITVFest kicks off this year with the red carpet gala tonight and opening day tomorrow, featuring some of the web series entries. The complete schedule for this years festival can be viewed and downloaded here. While there over 50 entries in this year’s competition, there are three that we think stick out above the rest. Check out the trailers below for Octane Pistols of Fury, 15 Minutes, and Illuminati Brothers. I think you’ll see why these are definitely ones to keep an eye on! Following the trailers is a complete listing of all entries for the main categories: Pilots, Web Series, and Web/Mobile.

It’s not to late to get tickets for the premiere independent television festival of 2010. Visit ITVFest.org for more information and to purchase your pass to ITVFest 2010.

Pilots:
15 Minutes
Axis
Birds of A Feather
Choir Boys Motorcycle Club
Deal O’Neal
Finding My Magic
Four Angry Men: Billion Dollar Blood Trail
Going To Pot
Illuminati Brothers
LA Manzana
Off Campus
Ogden: The Inappropriate Yoga Guy
Palisades Pool Party
Souvenirs
The Dojo
The Fall of Kaden
The Geniuses
The Hairdos
The Scottish Ninjas
The Wine Guy Unplugged with Anthony Gilardi
Treasure Coast
Twentysixmiles
We Are with the Band

Web Series:
A Good Knight’s Quest
Anyone But Me
Cell: The Web Series
Concierge: The Series
GOLD
Good Cop (Blank) Cop
Hamilton Carver: Zombie PI
Hot on the Red Carpet
Octane Pistols of Fury
Odd Jobs
Olga Kay’s Circus
PASSENGER
RHYME ANIMAL Web Series
SOLO – The Series
Squatters
Stoop Sale
Suck and Moan
The Ballad of Mary and Ernie
The Super Man
The Temp Life
the_source
Time Traveling Finger

Web/Mobile:
Duncan & Me
Life Advice from Old People
Mother Approved – Phobias
Patrick and Molly and all the small things
Permanent Stakeout
Sometimesdaily Explorers
The Jon and Eddie Show
Quick Tip Couple

ITVFest 2010 Schedule Announced

Michael Arcand — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:00:06 +0000

It’s just about time for the 5th annual Independent Television Festival (ITVFest), featuring the most diverse programming lineup to date. Come be a part of the independent television community and see independently produced television pilots and web series. There are over 50 selections this year, and attendees can also visit a variety of daily themed panels which go behind the scenes and see some of Hollywood’s leading voices talk about what it takes to produce an independent pilot or web series.

The event is being held at Laemmle’s Sunset 5, with the Opening Night Red Carpet Gala taking place on July 29th and the festival kicking off on Friday, July 30th and running through the following Thursday, August 5th, when the awards will be announced. If you’re involved in the independent television community, or if you aspire to produce your own pilot or web series, or even if you just want to see what this artistic community is all about, you need to make your way to the ITVFest. With some of Hollywood’s leaders there, this is one event you simply don’t want to miss. Tickets to ITVFest can be purchased online at ITVFest.org.

Below is the outline of the festival’s events as well as a detailed schedule listing (PDF):

July 29 (Thu) Opening Night Red Carpet
July 30 (Fri) Opening Day
July 31 (Sat) Development Day
Aug 1 (Sun) Production Pointers
Aug 2 (Mon) Web TV Day
Aug 3 (Tue) Branded Entertainment Day
Aug 4 (Wed) Interactive Day
Aug 5 (Thu) Pitch Day / Awards Ceremony

(Click on Full Screen below to view larger image)

ITVFest 2010 Schedule

This Week In Events: June 29 – July 2

Laurie Percival — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 19:07:34 +0000

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

LAPHP June Meeting: Agile not by the book – Last time we were talking about version control, why SHOULD we and how we CAN do it with Git. Now we will discuss the overall organization of our development process. We invited Christophe Louvion, the CTO of the CityGrid Media (aka Citysearch) to share his experience and various practical insights on the agile software development.

Time: 7:00pm

Location:
CoLoft
920 Santa Monica Blvd
Santa Monica, Ca 90401

Tickets: RSVP

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Social Media Day LA 2010 – Social media has changed our lives. It has not only changed the way we communicate, but the way we connect with one another, consume our news, conduct our work, organize our lives, and much more. So why not celebrate? We have answered the call to action and are assembling at the heart of LA — Culver City — to unite our fellow Angelenos to toast the information revolution and what it can do for education!

Time: 8:00pm

Location:
Choppe Choppe
Culver City, Ca

Tickets: RSVP

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Digital LA – Canada Cocktails – Canada Day, hurr-EH! So we’re getting together Canadians, Americans and friends to celebrate! We’ll also give shout outs to Canadians doing digital at the event. Optional: Wear white and red (our fave color), Canadian shirts with maple leaf, Vancouver Olympics logos, or even ear muffs if u got ‘em!

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Bigfoot West
10939 Venice Blvd
Culver City, Ca

Tickets: FREE for Canadians, or anyone who can correctly answer a Canada trivia question at check-in! Otherwise $10

Ready, Set, Go: Tesla Motors IPO (TSLA)

Michael Arcand — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 19:17:57 +0000

Tomorrow is the big day for Tesla Motors, when they hope to raise around $244 million in operating funds for the company through an initial public offering. The green electric car startup began selling their vehicles two years ago, and remains the only highway-ready electric vehicles being sold in volume to date. Despite the fact that the company has sold over 1,000 Roadsters, each costing over $100,000, the company has yet to make a profit. The company’s first quarter losses surpassed $29 million, which was up $13 million from the previous year. Overall revenues for the quarter came it at just under $21 million.
While those numbers may seem dismal, there is quite a bit of talk in the green community about these vehicles. Currently targeting the high-end consumer market, there is no reason that the company could not begin producing vehicles for the middle-income market as well. You can check out what Tesla currently has to offer at their showroom in Los Angeles, located at 11163, Santa Monica Blvd. They are open Tue – Sat from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. and on Sundays from 12:00 noon to 5:00 p.m. The company’s IPO is slated to be priced tonight, after the market closes. Proposed price range for the stock is from $14 – $16 per share. The stock has been approved to trade on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol TSLA.

Demand Media Files For Its IPO

This Week In Events: June 21 -26

Laurie Percival — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:32:18 +0000

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Gravity Summit – Gravity Summit events help bridge the gap between the new Social Media Marketing tools and the business community. We seek to help educate and inform marketing professionals, small business owners, advertisers, and c-Level executives, and others, about the exciting new marketing and communications landscape that is evolving daily.

Time: 6:00pm to 9:00pm

Location:
UCLA Faculty Club
480 Charles Young Dr. East
Los Angeles, Ca 90095

Tickets: $40 Networking, Refreshments, Speakers Limited Seating

Digital LA – Social Games and Virtual Currency panel – Join us for our panel on Social Games and Virtual Currency. We’ll discuss the rise of social games, and how virtual goods are a key revenue model for games like Farmville, etc. We’ll also discuss virtual currency: when nothing is really something. Real attention and cash are being spent on virtual currency, and real growth and cachet for businesses and brands are resulting from its use. We’ll discuss in-game incentives for virtual goods, what works and doesn’t, and how entertainment, gaming companies, and researchers are using virtual currency.

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Ipsos OTX MediaCT
10567 Jefferson Boulevard
Culver City, Ca

Tickets: $25

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Social Media Advertising Consortium LA Salon – Join SMAC members for a lively discussion on how agencies and brands are testing, succeeding and testing some more in social media. A panel of top brands and agencies will share insights, look at best practices, campaign successes and discuss what’s next in measurement and research. Discussion followed by networking, wine & light hors d’oeuvres.

Time: 6:00pm to 8:00pm

Location:
IPG Emerging Media Lab
5700 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Tickets: Free, RSVP

Saturday, June 26, 2010

SoCal Code Camp – Code Camp is a place for developers to come and learn from their peers. This community driven event has become an international trend where peer groups of all platforms, programming languages and disciplines band together to bring content to the community.

Date: June 26th and 27th

Location:
UCSD Extension Complex

Tickets: Free, Register

This Week In Events: June 14 -18

Laurie Percival — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Video Schmooze – Broadband Video Leadership Breakfast – Join us for breakfast with a panel of leading entertainment and technology industry executives who will share insights on the most important factors driving change in the digital distribution era, and what Hollywood must do to succeed.

Time: 8:00am to 10:15am

Location:
SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills
465 South La Cienega, Ca

Tickets: $90 Individual, additional prices per table

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Digital LA E3 Digital Drinks & Band Jam – We’re teaming up with GirlGamer and getting bands together again to repeat last year’s successful Band Jam (one of the bands got signed after A&R saw them perform at our event!)

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Conga Room
800 W Olympic Blvd
Los Angeles, CA

Tickets: $10 or FREE if you flash your E3 pass

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Mindshare LA – We’re excited to announce the program for June 17th’s Mindshare: from Augmented Reality to Sexual Cooking Techniques, from Financial Responsibilities for Babies to the Wisdom of Animal Dung Showering – this Mindshare is going to leave your brain spinning. Program here.

Time: 7:00pm

Location:
Club 740
740 S. Broadway
(Enter through the alley at 8th Spring St.)
Los Angeles, CA 90014

Tickets: $30

Scion Music(less) Music Conference – consists of debates, panels and workshops on issues in the music industry. The goal is to provide developing talent with knowledge and resources for their evolving careers.

Date: June 17 -18

Time: Registration opens at 8:30 a.m

Location:
Renaissance Hollywood Hotel
1755 N Highland Ave
Hollywood, Ca 90069

Tickets: RSVP
*RSVP closes 06/15/2010

“Pour on the Fun” Thirsty Thursday! – Meet up with thinkLA for a free-to-attend advertising industry networking mixer organized by AdZoo! Thirsty Thursdays are casual events (no name tags) that give people the chance to mix, mingle and make new friends in a relaxed atmosphere.

Time: 6:30pm to 9:30pm

Location:
Bungalow Club
7174 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets: Free

This Week In Events: June 8- 12

Laurie Percival — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 20:41:53 +0000

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Digital LA THR Key Art Awards and Finalist Cocktails – Advertising, creative design, agencies, movie/home video marketers and ad sales and friends are invited to join us as we salute The Hollywood Reporter for their commitment to honoring the hard work of the digital creative community and toast this year’s Key Art Awards finalists in the following digital categories:

- Best Theatrical (digital, online banner, website design, buzzworthy)
- Best Home Video (online banner, buzzworthy)

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Philippe Chow
8284 Melrose Ave
West Hollywood, Ca

Tickets: $12

LA Tweet: LA’s Monthly Social Media Tweetup – LA Tweet is hosting their second social media event at the offices of Border Stylo! We’d love to see you there and casually chat about social media.

Time: 7:30pm

Location:
Border Stylo
729 Seward St.
Los Angeles, Ca 90038

Tickets: This event is free and does not require an RSVP

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Digital LA Games Go Hollywood Panel – Join us for our pre-E3 panel on Games Go Hollywood! Prince of Persia is the latest game to go big at the box office. And more and more games like Uncharted 2, Assassin’s Creed 2, and Call of Duty are inspired by movies’ cinematic angles and storytelling.

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Ipsos OTX MediaCT
10567 Jefferson Boulevard
Culver City, Ca

Tickets: Early Bird $25

S.O.L.O. The Series Premiere Party – The long awaited release of SOLO The Series is here! To kick off the web launch we are hosting a premiere at a fav Hollywood venue, Cinespace. SOLO is a sci-fi, comedy web series set in space, naturally.

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Cinespace
6356 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, Ca 90028

Tickets: Free

Friday, June 11, 2010

New Media Film Festival – The New Media Film Festival (NMFF) spotlights stories worth telling. We are looking for films that exemplify the power of the cinematic arts to inspire and transform. The festival celebrates innovative and imaginative visual work that can make audiences laugh, cry, think, and go beyond the ordinary.

Dates: June 11 – 13

Location:
Downtown Independent
251 S. Main Street
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets: Details here

TechCrunch Meetup – Come, meet some startups, talk about tech, get some drinks and have a great time! We’ll have lots of free food and drinks + a Startup Demo Pit Competition!

Time: 8:00pm

Location:
Coloft
920 Santa Monica Blvd
Santa Monica, Ca

Tickets: Free, RSVP

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Digital LA – A-Team @ Drive-In Theatre – Road Trip! We’re heading out to Montclair to see the A-Team, opening weekend, at Southern California’s Mission Tiki drive-in movie theatre! Yup, we’re going retro to the drive-in to watch this classic reboot.

Time: 7:00pm to 10;00pm
*Try to arrive by 6:30 so we can park in a group

Location:
Mission Tiki Drive-In Theatre
10798 Ramona Ave
Montclair, Ca

Tickets: $12

WordPress Workshop – Welcome to the wpWorkShop! This is our first class, where you can get hands on experience from LA’s smartest WordPress’ users.

Time: Starts at 10:00am Full Schedule here

Location:
The CoLoft
920 Santa Monica Blvd
Santa Monica, Ca 90401

Tickets: Regular $50, At the Door $55

Glass hosts: USA vs England Word Cup Match – Join us and other soccer fans from LA on June 12th for the USA vs England game. Food and drinks are on us. Bring you, bring a guest, and feel free to show your team colors. This is a networking get together between our users, bloggers and the company people.

Time: 11:00am

Location:
Hollywood Billiards
5750 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, Ca 90028

Tickets: RSVP only and the list will close once full. Please email your rsvp to rsvp@writeonglass.com

Join the Glass private beta by visiting writeonglass.com and use the code: Cup2010
By joining Glass, and adding RaffleBot3000 as your contact, you’re entered to win world cup memorabilia. The raffle will be held during half time at the event.

iPhone 4 Wrap-up

Michael Arcand — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 21:03:00 +0000

Today was the big day for the WWDC 2010 conference, with Steve Jobs giving the keynote speech. It was, of course, the announcement of the latest and greatest iPhone that had everyone waiting with baited breath for today’s announcements. Steve announced the new iPhone 4 to much fanfare, despite the fact that we’ve already seen the device (thanks to Gizmodo). However, it’s the features of the phone that we didn’t have all the juicy details on. So Steve laid out his top eight features, a couple of which were really lame in my opinion (iBooks and iAds, for starters) so I’m not going to do a rundown of those features. If you want a blow-by-blow of this morning’s event, you can check out the keynote liveblog post over on Digigasms, where I really work. ;-)

So let’s get down to the nittty gritty. What are the real features on this new iPhone 4 that will matter to most users? Here’s my top 5 picks, and analysis, of these features:

5. FaceTime - This is the new iPhone video chat application. You will now be able to video chat with your friends and family, but only if they have the iPhone 4. While the iOS software will be available for the 3G, 3GS and iPod Touch, not all features will be supported, and apparently this is one of those features. And while this feature can use either the front or rear facing cameras, keep in mind that the new front facing camera is VGA only, not the five megapixel HD version that is the rear facing camera.

4. Stainless Steel – You might wonder why I’ve included the stainless steel rim in my top five new iPhone 4 features. Well, it all comes from what this rim is actually used for. The rim is part of an internal antenna system that is used to boost signal strength for both WiFi and 3G signals. Now I don’t know about you, but that is a big deal for me. I don’t live in a big city (and from what I hear, AT&T isn’t all that great in some metro areas either), and out here in the boonies it pays to get good reception. Anything that will help with reception is a bonus in my book.

3. iOS 4 – The new operating system is being called the iOS 4, instead of the iPhone OS 4. This represents a major shift, indicating that the OS is no longer just for the iPhone, but is being developed for other “i” devices as well. Will this include mobile laptops as well? I think the key is that the market is pushing in the mobile direction and Apple wants to maintain their lead. I will be looking for versions of this iOS to be available for future MacBook systems as well.

2. Retina Display – Jobs has coined another phrase in his ever-evolving world of techno babble, and this time it’s part human. According to Steve, “retina display” is the display that the human eye can perceive, which at 10-12 inches is roughly 300 pixels per inch. The new iPhone’s resolution is an astounding 326 pixels per inch, for a total of 960 × 640 available screen space. So I think the point is that anything better and your eyes can’t tell the difference anyway.

5. Battery Life – According to Jobs, the battery life is longer because of a bigger battery as well as a better processor. 40% longer, to be exact. This comes out to seven hours of talk time on 3G, 10 hours of WiFi browsing and 300 hours of standby time. If these numbers hold up out in the field, this will be a phenomenal accomplishment, rivaling the iPad in battery life. I will be impressed. This is the most important new feature to me, simply because it is the biggest complaint of almost every iPhone user I know.

Well, that wraps it up for my top new features. Tell us what you think about the new iPhone and share your favorite features in the comments.

More Coverage:

Gdgt
Engadget
Gizmodo

This Week In Events: June 1st – 5th

Laurie Percival — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 16:30:25 +0000

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Digital LA Cocktails – Come by, mix, mingle and enjoy Citysearch sponsored cocktails and apps as the sun sets on Sunset. Citysearch brings you the best of LA and this happy hour won’t disappoint. Please join us at Citysearch’s Frank Gehry designed IAC building in West Hollywood, big Citysearch news will be announced.

Complimentary hors d’ouvres provided by Poquito Mas and Buttercake Bakery and drinks provided by Karma Tequila.

Time: 6:00pm to 9:00pm

Location:
Citysearch – IAC
8833 West Sunset Boulevard
West Hollywood, Ca

Tickets: FREE to attend, RSVP required

TEDx Manhattan Beach Social – TEDx Manhattan Beach is pleased to announce our May Social. These monthly socials on the last Wednesday in the month are an informal compliment to the annual TEDxManhattanBeach conference. We will be providing beer, wine and healthy food. Two recorded TED talks on the theme of “food” will be presented. Followed by discussion, networking and more beer and wine.

Time: 5:30pm to 8:00pm

Location:
Private Residence
606 Ardmore
Manhattan Beach, Ca 90266

Tickets: Free to attend. RSVP to reserve your seat, space is limited.

*Will be asking for a $10 donation at the door to contribute towards the cost of drinks and food.

Social Media Breakfast Seminar – Join Esteban Kolsky, Principal and Founder of ThinkJar LLC and former Gartner Research Director, along with Blake Cahill, SVP of Marketing at Visible Technologies for an interactive breakfast presentation where they will address: Enterprise Adoption and Readiness, Total Cost of Social Media Ownership, What resource, technology, and service costs should you consider when investing in social and deploying it across your organization, Calculating ROI, Success Stories and more.

Time: 7:30am to 11:00am

Location:
W Los Angeles – Westwood
930 Hilgard Avenue
Los Angeles, Ca 90024

Tickets: $25

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Open Door Session for Entrepreneurs – We’re setting up shop in Santa Monica again to give some help and feedback to the LA start up community. All time slots are booked but there should be time in between to ask questions.

1:00 Capchure
1:30 One Tribe Mobile
2:00 AudioMicro
2:30 Elevated Games
3:00 SocialBlaze
3:30 Local.to

Time: 1:00pm to 4:00pm

Location:
Palomar Ventures
100 Wilshire Boulevard,
Santa Monica, Ca

Tickets: Free

LA Web Professionals Group June 2010 meeting – Illustrator CS5 Deep Dive – Deep discussion with guest speaker Chana Messer followed by Q&A. There will also be a networking break and tweet up with free food and a prize drawing.

Time: 6:30pm to 9:30pm

Location:
Moviola
1135 North Mansfield Ave.
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets: Free, RSVP

Friday, June 4, 2010

Musicians Take over Chatroulette – Lets get a bunch of musicians to “take over” Chatroulette for a day. Share your music with random people – and get instant feedback! If they don’t like your tunes, they’ll click “next” (and be prepared to click next yourself). But you’ll be amazed how many people will appreciate your performance!

All you have to do is set up a webcam and a good way of capturing the audio on your computer. Then show up on chatroulette.com and play tunes until you get bored or grossed out. Or both. This is an *experiment*. It’s completely anonymous, so why not try it out!?!?

PLEASE USE THE HASHTAG #MusicTakeOver

Time: 12:00pm till Saturday, June 5, 2010 at 11:30pm

Location: On the interwebz at chatroulette.com

Tickets: None

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Digital LA Producers Cocktails – Producers of movies, TV, web series, videos, and friends are invited to network at our Producers Cocktails at the InterContinental Hotel. We’re inviting Produced By conference attendees to come on over from the Fox lot next door. FREE when you flash your Produced By conference badge.

We’ll also have a guest speaker from the PGA board to speak about the new digital Producer credits, now available for Transmedia, Video Games, DVD/Blu-Ray, Digital Visual Effects, Special Venue, Digital Animation, Broadband, iTV, and more! We’ll talk about what’s required to get the credits, what they mean and more!

Time: 6:00pm to 9:00pm

Location:
InterContinental Hotel
2151 Avenue of the Stars
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets: RSVP to be informed of when the registration link is availalbe

TEDxHollywood 2010 – Inquisitive, fun-loving minds gather to watch live speakers and TEDTalks videos and spark a night of deep discussion and connection. In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx, a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience.

Time: 5:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
TBD

Tickets: FREE

Don’t forget, Sunday is Facebook Protest Day!!

This Week In Events: May 24 – 28

Laurie Percival — Mon, 24 May 2010 16:00:59 +0000

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Geek/Nerd Pride Day 2010 – (I found this little gem from Robert Scoble on Plancast) Apparently it’s Geek Pride Day which originated in Spain, you go Spanish nerds. In 2008 Geek Pride Day came to America and in 2009, Canada. So let’s rock our nerdiness. This is Geek Pride, so it includes everything from Star Wars to Shakespeare. So whatever you feel geeky about, this is the day to express it.

Check out the list of Basic rights and responsibilities of geeks.

Time: all day long

Location: In a galaxy far, far, away. (or on the interwebz)

Tickets: there are none

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

How to Raise Venture Capital – Startups Uncensored #17 – we are bringing in venture capitalists from the top firms across the country to talk about the process and requirements entrepreneurs need to go through to successfully raise money from venture capitalists.

We are also going to be offering 3 companies the opportunity to give a 5 min pitch on their business to the investors and startups uncensored crowd. Details here.

Time: 6:30 to 8:00pm reception to follow

Location:
Milken Institute
1250 4th Street
Santa Monica, CA 90401

Tickets: Free
*Confirmation will be required or your spot will be given up for our waiting list

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Digital LA – Digital Drinks – Join us for our next Digital Drinks at Playhouse! Located in the heart of Hollywood, Playhouse is a modern ode to stylish escapism. Demi & Ashton, Leo, Rihanna, and Janet Jackson have all partied at this exclusive nightclub. Now it’s your turn! Playhouse has a large sunken dance floor, so Digital Drinks can lead to Digital Dancing. Or u can watch the Playhouse dancers step on stage at 11p. DJ Gusto will spin for us, opening for DJ Vice.

Time: 7:00pm to 11:00pm

Location:
Playhouse
6506 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets: Advance registration required available soon. RSVP so we can let you know when registration is available.

This Week In Events: May 17th – 21st

Laurie Percival — Mon, 17 May 2010 16:00:23 +0000

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Mindshare LA – a unique monthly event which draws a brilliant crowd seeking connections, experiences and exposure to new ideas.

Program includes:

Jonathan L. Zweig / CEO, Jirbo, Inc. – Bizarre Occurrences in the Virtual Economy
Jake Meyer / LA Ballet & New Wave LA
Bob Lancaster / Intellectual Property Attorney, Bryan Cave LLP – A Few “Great” Ideas Your Government Bought for You
Kasey McMahon / Conceptual & Multimedia Artist – Finding Beauty: Pattern Recognition, Perception and Visual Culture
Featured NPO: RenewLA
Floris Van Breugel / Award-Winning Photographer & Graduate Student, Caltech – Encounters with Ents: Seeing Suffering and Love in Nature’s Inanimate Creatures

Brand X Presents:

Rudy Coby / ‘The Coolest Magician on Earth’ -The Art of Illusions (and being Marilyn Manson’s Roommate)

Time: 7:00pm

Location:
Club 740
740 S. Broadway
(Enter through the alley at 8th Spring St.)
Los Angeles , CA 90014

Tickets: $30

Sashi – South Bay Tech Group Happy Hour - Casual monthly meetup of entrepreneurs who live and/or work in the South Bay.

Time: 5:30pm to 7:30pm

Location:
451 Manhattan Beach
Boulevard Manhattan Beach, Ca 90266

Tickets: RSVP

Friday, May 21, 2010

LASW Reunion – Get updates from your Startup Weekend colleagues, ask for help on your project(s), maybe even pitch an idea for a new project, the floor is yours, so lets make the most of it! This is a little shin-digg meant to bring everyone together again to keep the startup energy alive! This is OPEN TO ANYONE, so invite all of your friends too! Pay now or at the door, your choice! We’re going to work on having a speaker and maybe some cool other surprises, so be sure to show up!

Location:
The Co-Loft
920 Santa Monica Blvd
Santa Monica , Ca 90401

Time: 7:00pm to midnight

Tickets: $5 (so we can buy some beer & wine for you)

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Crawfish Broil, Louisiana Style – Harold and Belle’s invites you to attend a traditional New Orleans Crawfish Boil. The music lineup for the Crawfish Boil includes: The Supa Lowery Bros., Homegrowne Entertainment Ensemble and the highly esteemed New Orleans Traditional Jazz Band, a fifteen member brass band consisting of immensely trained Creole musicians.

Time: 11:00am to 5:00pm

Location:
2920 W Jefferson Blvd
Los Angeles, Ca 90018

Tickets: $25

The You Conference – three visionary authors and entrepreneurs Gary Vaynerchuk (Crush It!), Dave Lakhani (How To Sell When Nobody’s Buying) and Peter Shankman (Can We Do That?!) are going to demonstrate step by step how virtually any entrepreneur can dominate awareness, build a powerful personal brand and create a media strategy that moves markets.

Dates: Saturday, May 22, 2010 – Sunday, May 23, 2010

Location:
Renaissance
Los Angeles Airport Hotel
9620 Airport Boulevard
Los Angeles , CA 90045

Tickets: $749 VIP Ticket, $499 Regular Ticket

Silver Lake Jubilee – The Silver Lake Jubilee is a celebration of all that is unique, eclectic, artsy and bohemian about Silver Lake and its surrounding neighborhoods. The festival features local and national music acts, multi-disciplinary art, local artists and crafters, exquisite food from local restaurateurs and various LA-based cultural enclaves.

50+ Bands
33+ food trucks and food vendors (eat your heart out!

Dates: Saturday May 23rd and Sunday May 24th

Location:
Silver Lake on Myra Ave.
(at Santa Monica Blvd. and Fountain Ave.)

Tickets: $5 one day general admission /Children 10 and under and Seniors 60 and older are Free

This Week In Events: May 10 – 14

Laurie Percival — Mon, 10 May 2010 17:43:47 +0000

Monday, May 10, 2010

#140conf LA Meetup – An opportunity to discuss the emerging Real-Time Internet and the effects on business. A monthly gathering for friends of #140conf to get together and discuss issues of the day. Hosted by Jeff Pulver and Eric Greenspan

Time: 5:00pm to 7:30 event, 8:00pm after party at the Viper Room

Location:
The Comedy Store
8433 Sunset Boulevard
Hollywood, Ca 90069

Tickets: RSVP required, space is limited
*Must be 21 to attend

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

LAPHP May Meetup: SPL Iterators, Practical Git – Join us for an evening of networking and presentations. There will be two great talks scheduled for the evening:

Intro to PHP SPL: Iterators -presented by Peter Warnock
Practical Git. A simple intro to a powerful distributed version control system – presented by Matt Weghorst

For those of you who cannot attend in person, we will be streaming the talks live on Ustream.tv.

Time: 7:00pm

Location:
CoLoft
920 Santa Monica Blvd
Santa Monica, Ca 90401

Tickets: Admission is free, pizza and drinks will be served

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

MediaClub LA – Join LA’s largest Business Networking Organization for Media Professionals at this networking event. Attendees work at companies such as CAA, Disney, Dreamworks, Fox, ICM, MySpace, NBC, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios, William Morris, YouTube, etc.

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
House of Blues (Foundation Room)
8430 Sunset Blvd
West Hollywood, Ca 90069

Tickets: $12 Advanced RSVP required

WITI Summer Mixer 2010 – As always both WITI and Girls in Tech are organizations dedicated to the engagement, education and empowerment of tech savvy women. With some of the most influential members in a variety of industries, this will be the must attend event for tech savvy men and women in Los Angeles this summer.

Time: 6:00m to 9:00pm

Location:
Shangri-La Hotel
1301 Ocean Ave
Santa Monica, Ca 90401

Tickets: $20 for WITI members $40 for non-members

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Mixergy Event: How to Use SEO Effectively – For our second Los Angeles Mixergy Meetup, we’ll be changing the format and the topic of the night will be “How to Use SEO Effectively”. The format will consist of three parts, introduction of guests and short discussion; question and answer session with the audience; then mixer. We will be joined by three distinguished guests. They are all past Mixergy interviewees who have mastered the SEO craft respectively.

Constantine Roussos of .music TLD
Michael Dorausch of Planet Chiropractic
Tony Adam on Myspace

Time: 6:30pm to 10:30pm

Location:
coloft.com
920 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, Ca 90401

Tickets: FREE

This Week In Events: May 3rd – 8th

Laurie Percival — Mon, 03 May 2010 16:00:51 +0000

Monday, May 3, 2010

Digital Hollywood Spring 2010 – Spring session is here. There are multiple tracks running on each day and plenty of special events planned. Anywhere from four to seven concurrent sessions, depending on the day, along with special sessions and workshops. Attendees will be free to move from room to room throughout the day, which is the only way it would be possible for you to see the massive amount of sessions they have in store. Digital Hollywood is host to a number of co-located Events like The Variety Entertainment and Technology Summit – Monday, May 3rd, and The Hollywood Content Summit.

Date: May 3rd – 6th

Time: Agenda

Location:
Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel
1700 Ocean Avenue
Santa Monica, Ca 90401

Tickets: $735 All event, $785 Variety Plus
*Special rates available for layed off, self employed and starups

Twitter Hashtag: #DH2010

Digital LA Hosts Go Digital Panel – Join us for our panel discussion on Hosts Go Digital! Our expert host panelists will discuss:

- How do established hosts manage both their online and on-air TV broadcast careers and projects?
- How do hosts use social media to build their brands. What to tweet? What do fans wanna know?
- Multiple hats: host as executive producer, director, PR, etc.
- What should u put in ur reel? Where should u promote it: ur website, YouTube, Facebok, etc?
- How do people get started trying to be a host? How to start hosting ur own web show, etc.
- What digital skills do hosts most need: video editing, website updating, Twitter/FB/social, etc

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Open Door Productions
10131 National Blvd, Suite A
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets: $18 advance registration required

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

WITI Decoding Dating Panel and Mixer – Join entertainment industry professionals and alum from a host of schools for a panel on Decoding Dating. The event is an intriguing and fun panel discussion hosted by Tristan Coopersmith — Love Stylist, Trend Expert and Author of acclaimed book, “MenU Dating”. Refreshments and hors d’oeuvres will be served.

Time: 6:00pm to 8:00pm

Location:
The UCLA Fowler Museum
110 Westwood Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90095

Tickets: Free, RSVP

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Digital LA Cinco de Mayo Cocktails – Join us to Celebrate Cinco de Mayo at the Penthouse at the Huntley! Watch the sunset with sweeping views of the ocean and the Santa Monica mountains. The Penthouse offers great sunset hour drink and food specials from 6-7pm. Event is FREE with a Digital Hollywood pass, just flash it at the door!

Time: 5:55pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Penthouse at the Huntley Hotel
1111 Second St.
Santa Monica, Ca

Tickets: $10 advance registration required

Friday, May 7, 2010

2010 Entrepreneurs Conference – “The Sky is No Limit.” The conference embraces the concept that even in an uncertain business environment, there is always room for the next great idea. It will explore what it takes to turn those great ideas into successful business ventures. IT also includes industry and topic-specific panel discussions and workshops, a fast pitch competition, and a networking lunch and cocktail reception.

Keynote Speakers:

Peter Diamandis, M.D. - Founder, Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation
Jason Fried - Co-founder and President of 37signals and co-author of REWORK

Time: Schedule

Location:
UCLA Anderson School of Management, Korn Hall
110 Westwood Plaza
Los Angeles, Ca 90095

Tickets:
General Admission $95
UCLA Anderson Alumni $75
Students, Faculty, Staff & Admits $55
Full-Day Entrepreneurs Conference plus CACI Afternoon Special $200
Register Here

LA Happy Hour with Peter Shankman- Peter runs HARO. Companies pay jim to come in and explain how they can make money using this thing they call social media. He’s in town for a few days, come and have a drink and say hello, he’s a swell guy.

Time: 7:00pm to 9:00pm

Location:
W Hotel
6250 Hollywood Boulevard
Hollywood, Ca

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Wii Tennis Tourney – show off your mad wii skills at Tennis Tourney, an all ages, all abilities, fun Wii Tennis knock out tournament in aid of the United Nations Agency for Refugees’ Give Them Shelter campaign – we’re raising money to raise tents! Winner walks away with a trophy and a Puma sports backpack worth $120 filled with goodies including a Babolat XS 102 racquet from Super Sports worth $130! 100% of the profits will go to UNHCR’s Give Them Shelter campaign.

Time: 6:00pm

Location:
Kegs
120 Internatl Boardwalk
Redondo Beach, Ca

Tickets: $10 entrance fee per player – each player gets 5 games against his or her opponent
*Spectators welcome for FREE and there will be an auction for non-players

LA Startup Weekend – 54 hours To Launch An Idea

Laurie Percival — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 20:15:27 +0000

What if you could take an idea from concept to reality in just one weekend? That is the idea behind Startup Weekend, an event that takes place in cities around the globe each year. Los Angeles Startup Weekend takes place this weekend, starting tonight at 5:30pm. So how does it work?

Friday night you meet up with all the other awesome developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphic artists and local entrepreneurs in your city at the event. Ideas are pitched and people start breaking off into groups. Usually around nine groups total are formed.

Saturday morning your team gets to work on developing the idea. The LA event will include startup waffles in the morning and a poolside rooftop BBQ break for lunch. Throughout the day guest speakers will pop in and there will be music and sponsors set up for you to chat with when you need a break.

Sunday begins at 9am and you have until 6pm to figure out if you have a viable product to launch. More special guests pop in during the day. Presentations begin at 9pm and there is also a discussion about what worked, what didn’t and how to make it better.

You may be asking yourself what attendees get out of all of this hard work? It’s a unique opportunity that you can’t find anywhere else. Many people forge connections and friendships not to mention companies. In the past ideas from Startup weekend have gone on to produce revenue and get seed funding. Your drinks and food are also covered and even though it’s work, it’s the kind of work that is fun to do. Building something you are excited about with others that share the same passion often doesn’t feel like work at all.

Tickets are also unique in that you get pick what kind of role you want for the weekend. There are nine different types to choose from. If something is sold out, don’t panic, you can also purchase a ticket under a different role. They are not designed to represent your day job, but rather what you would like to spend the weekend doing and often people change roles throughout the weekend. For a better description of each role check out the ticket info under the FAQ section. This years event is already sold out. I suggest signing up early next time to ensure you get a spot. You can ask to be added to the waitlist in hopes that a spot opens up.

Some of the speakers that are lined up to pop in during the weekend are: Sean Percival, Scott Sangster, Andy Wilson, Will Schroter, Ryan Roberts, Mark Suster and Kimberly King-Burns. Francisco Dao from Twiistup will also be there as a judge.

Check out la.startupweekend.org for more information on the event and follow them on Twitter @startupweekend. Attendees will be using the hashtag #lasw if you want to follow along as the weekend unfolds, it should be pretty exciting.

Details

Dates: April 30th to May 2nd

Time: The schedule is open for you to come and go as you please. A general breakdown can be found here.

Location:
coloft
920 Santa Monica Blvd
Santa Monica, Ca 90401

Tickets: $75 (sold out)

Hashtag for the event is #lasw

Startup Weekend Los Angeles Photos

NewMedialocity: The New Media Academy

Laurie Percival — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 20:58:59 +0000

Seeing a need in the webseries space for content creators to gain access and information from proven creators, Brian Rodda and Matthew Arevalo have joined forces to create NewMedialocity. They announced late last week that NewMedialocity; The New Media Academy and Screening Mixer, would be an academy for the next generation of digital creatives paired with an industry networking event.

“With digital studios like Crackle, Fox Television Studios 15 Gigs, Babelgum, and more finding success and expanding rapidly, there is a growing industry need for professional digital creatives that provide New Media content in this space,” said Matthew Arevalo, Co-Founder of NewMedialocity, “Our students will learn from industry insiders and award winners, the story of their success and their struggles, valuable insight needed to compete in web television and beyond.”

The academy consists of four-week courses that focuses on these areas, creative development, production, post production/technology and social networking/sponsorship. Each class will be taught in a supportive and creative environment and feature guest speakers and teachers that have developed successful models.

Some of the guests slated for the fist course include: Bernie Su (Compulsions), Elizabeth Flack (WGA New Media), Liz Shannon Miller, (NewTeeVee), Mark Gantt (The Bannen Way).

Each screening mixer will t feature the work of their students and other leading industry creatives. After the screening there will be a Q&A session with the creators. The screening mixers are set up to give people the chance to mingle and interact with other professionals that share the same passions.

NewMedialocity is hosting an open house tonight so others can get acquainted with Dogma Studios, learn more about the academy and have a great time networking with other industry professionals. The evening will include live music, great guests, a surprise interactive experience. The Worldfare Bus will also be on site, yum, and drinks will be available.

If you are thinking of joining the academy you’ll definitely want to take advantage of the sweet offer they have going on today. If you tweet out “I want to join the New Media Academy @NewMedialocity!” and follow their twitter account, you will be entered for a chance to win free tuition, a $199 value. You have until midnight tonight, April, 28th, to get your tweet in.

Details

NewMedialocity Open House & Mixer – Come and join us for the OPEN HOUSE of NewMedialocity, The New Media Academy! the evening will include live music, great guests & a surprise interactive experience. The @Worldfare Bus will also be there peddling their supper yummy food.

Date: Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Time: 7:30pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Dogma Studios
4136 Del Rey Avenue
Marina del Rey, Ca

Tickets: Free

(Photo from newmedialocity.com)

Previously on lalawag:

This Week In Events: April 26 – May 1

Laurie Percival — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:00:15 +0000

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

MOTM: Discovering Common Ground with Lunch.com founder J.R. Johnson – J.R. Johnson is the founder of Lunch.com and host of the Lunch for Good event series. He’s an experienced entrepreneur, who sold his last firm, VirtualTourist.com, to Expedia for a mint and will be sharing with us some proven insights. We’ll be diving into J.R.’s passion and vision behind VirtualTourist.com and Lunch.com and open the conversation on how social media can change the world through common ground.

Time: 7:30pm to 9:30pm

Location:
Mastro’s Steakhouse
2807 East Thousand Oaks Boulevard
Thousand Oaks, Ca 91362

Tickets: $75 Register
*Includes four course meal at Maestro’s

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Digital LA – Scrum w founder Jeff Sutherland – Programmers, developers and engineers are invited to join our second one-on-one chat with Jeff Sutherland, often known as the Father of Scrum. Jeff helped co-found Scrum, a process where a team meets frequently to determine and assign task priorities, to ensure the project (programming code) is delivered on time. (non-programmers: if you’ve walked by your IT department gathered around yellow stickies on a board, that’s Scrum.)

Time: 6:30pm to 9:30pm

Location:
Hotel Angeleno
170 North Church Lane
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets: $40 Advance registration required

New Media Vault April Edition – This monthly event draws at least 300 people from all levels of the new media world: with top industry leaders in attendance, your company will have the chance to get face time with financiers, talent, celebrities, producers, directors, designers, agents, managers, lawyers, and industry award winners. This months door prize is two certificates to Web TV Workshop’s crash course commencing May 3rd.

Time: 7:30pm to 1:00am

Location:
Standard Hotel Downtown LA
550 South Flower St.
Los Angeles, Ca 90071

Tickets: Free, RSVP

LA Games Conference – Over 300 of the most influential decision-makers in the games industry gather for the LA Games Conference to network, do deals, and share ideas about the future of console, PC, online and mobile games. LA Games Conference – now in its 4th year – features a lively and fun debate on timely cutting-edge business topics, demos as well unrivaled access to some of the most progressive companies in Hollywood, Silicon Valley and beyond.

Time: 9:00am to 12:00pm

Location:
Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel
7000 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets: Online Registration Rate: $599 ($100 OFF)

The Core Circles: Citysourced and How Mobile Apps Can Save the Community – Join theCOREcircles/Santa Monica, a new community happening at The Victorian – and participate in a dialogue with City Sourced co-founder Kurt Daradics around how mobile applications and technologies are impacting the way citizens engage with government and with each other.

Time: 6:00pm to 11:00pm

Location:
The Victorian
2640 Main Street
Santa Monica, Ca

Tickets: $5 at the door
*Cash bar and mobile gourmet catering trucks available

Friday, April 30, 2010

X PRIZE Foundation TweetUp – For the first time, we are holding an open house to give us a chance to interact directly with our online fans and supporters. The event will feature brief, Ignite-style presentations on the Foundation’s three ongoing prizes as well as our on-going work developing new prizes in a variety of fields. Additionally, we’ll be joined by Anousheh Ansari, the first female private space explorer and a trustee of the X PRIZE Foundation. She will be doing a reading and signing of her new memoir, My Dream of Stars. Light appetizers and refreshments will be provided. Cameras, tweeting, and live-blogging of the event are, of course, welcomed.

Time: 6:00pm to 8:00pm

Location:
X PRIZE Foundation
5510 Lincoln Blvd. Ste 100
Playa Vista, Ca 90094

Tickets: Free, RSVP

LA Startup Weekend – Startup Weekend recruits a highly motivated group of developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphic artists and more to a 54 hour event that builds communities, companies and projects. The participants that attend a Startup Weekend decide what they want to tackle over the weekend and come out at the end with several developed companies or projects. Attendees are responsible for bringing the same desire and passion to the project and walk out of the room with the task at hand, in a short 54 hours. Sound intense? It is.

Featured Speakers: Sean Percival, Scott Sangster, Andy Wilson, Will Schroter, Ryan Roberts, Mark Suster and Kimberly King-Burns.

Date: April 30th to May 2nd

Time: Schedule here

Location:
Coloft
920 Santa Monica Blvd
Santa Monica, Ca

Tickets: $75, Sunday night demo only $20

Saturday, May 1, 2010

HARO: Help A Mother Out Date Night Wine and Cheese Party – Support our month-long diaper drive campaign by stepping out. Join us for a wine and cheese tasting brought to you by Fresh & Easy and Tillamook’s Loaf Love Tour. We’ll keep the goodies coming, and the funky mellow music by DJ Brian Klotz at an appropriate level so there will be plenty of opportunity to finally have a conversation with that friend you never get to talk to! Special appearance by The Game Truck. All this just for the admission “price” of a pack of disposable diapers (or two!) per person.

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location: At a private residence in Encino, Ca
*exact location will be given once you purchase a ticket, this is to protect the privacy of the hostess

Tickets: Free but you must register and bring a pack of disposable diapers per person

DONATE online via our virtual diaper drive. Diapers sizes 3 through training pants especially welcome.

This Week In Events: April 19 -23

Laurie Percival — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 16:00:29 +0000

Monday, April 19, 2010

HTML5 And Beyond - MySpace and Opera are co-hosting an HTML5 meetup with noted Web standards expert and author Molly Holzschlag.

Time: 6:00pm to 8:00pm

Location:
MySpace Headquarters
407 North Maple Drive
Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Tickets: Free, RSVP
*Parking entrance on south side of the building from the alley (must bring tickets to get in)

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

The .NET Rocks! Visual Studio 2010 Road Trip: Los Angeles stop – Carl and Richard are loading up the DotNetMobile (a 30 foot RV) and driving to your town again to show off the latest and greatest in Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0! And to make the night even more fun, we’re going to bring a mystery rock star from the Visual Studio world to the event and interview them for a special .NET Rocks Road Trip show series. Along the way we’ll be giving away some great prizes, showing off some awesome technology and having a ton of laughs. And one lucky person at the event will win “Ride Along with Carl and Richard” and get to board the RV and ride with the boys to the next town on the tour (don’t worry, we’ll get you home again!)

Time: 6:00pm to 9:00pm

Location:
Microsoft Los Angeles Office
333 South Grand Ave. Suite 3300
Los Angeles Ca 90071

Tickets: Free

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Startups Uncensored #16 - This month’s Startups Uncensored will be on “How to Build a Great Technology Team”. It will be an open and frank town-hall conversation talking about the experience, process and skills need to build an all-star caliber technology team.

Speakers: Alon Shwartz the Co-Founder/CTO of Docstoc, Nick Wilson the EVP/CTO of Break.com, Allen Hurff the former Senior Vice President of Engineering at MySpace, Travlin McCormack the CTO of Internships.com and former CTO of Sgshot Labs, and Nitu Gulati-Pauly Director of Recruiting at Cybercoders.

Time: 6:30pm to 9:00pm

Location:
Santa Monica Public Library (Auditorium)
601 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, Ca 90401

Tickets: Free, RSVP
*This event is capped at 140 attendees. Confirmation will be required or your spot will be given up for our waiting list.

ITVFest Launch Party – The Independent Television Festival has made it to year FIVE! Come celebrate the Launch of the 5th Annual ITVFest by participating in this year’s fundraiser. First 50 people to register will get ITVFest gift bags. There will also be a silent action.

Time: 8:00pm to 11:00pm

Location:
The Den
8226 West Sunset Boulevard
West Hollywood, Ca

Tickets: $10
*Parking is available in the lot for $5

Startup LA – Join the fastest growing association dedicated to entrepreneurs and Startups in Los Angeles.Startup LA already counts 2500 members working in Startups in the Los Angeles Area. Startup LA members are entrepreneurs, digital media experts, internet evangelists, business angels, VCs and innovators of all kinds.

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Palihouse
8465 Holloway Drive
West Hollywood, Ca

Tickets: $13 Advance RSVP required

Shakers and Stirrers – Casual monthly meet-up of technology entrepreneurs who live and/or work in the South Bay. We have met for the last year at Shade across the street but are going to try out something new at Sashi in March. Free sake at Happy Hour starting a 5pm is something we should capitalize on.

Time: 6:30pm to 8:30pm

Location:
Wilshire
2454 Wilshire Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90403

Tickets: NFP Members: $10, Non-Members: $15, At door: $20 for everyone

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Girls in Tech LA Presents: The Buzz – PR & Marketing 3.0 – When it comes to today’s PR world, it’s all about the buzz. That particularly viral kind of word of mouth marketing that means big brand recognition and even bigger sales. But, how do you build that buzz? How do you keep it going? How do you transition a PR campaign from traditional media to new media? And, how do you convince clients that all this tweeting and texting and typing is totally worth it? These are just a few of the topics we’ll be covering at our latest Girls in Tech LA panel.

Speakers: Rynda Laurel -AF83, Bearstech & Hackable: Devices, Babette Pepaj -Bakespace, TECHmunch & The Daily Bite, Nicole Jordan -Mobile Roadie, Amanda Coolong -Tech Zulu, ThisWeekIn.com & Beta PR, Andrea Scott -POM Wonderful and Christine Kirk -Social Muse Communications.

Time: 6:30pm to 10:00pm

Location:
H.Wood
1738 North Orange Drive
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets: $10

Startup Legal & Biz advice by Fenwick – Fenwick rocks LA again. They’re coming to LA offering free legal advice to tech startups. Swing by and meet Bill Schreiber & Darrell Kong. Beyond the legal stuff these guys actively help with funraising, relationships & biz dev. Paige Craig, Investor, recommends them to almost every startup. Talk to the guys at @MobileRoadie, @Affordit and you’ll understand their value.

Time: 1:00pm to 5:00pm

Location:
Palomar Ventures
100 Wilshire Boulevard (Suite 1700)
Santa Monica, Ca

Tickets: Free

Screw Coachella, Let’s Raise Awareness

Laurie Percival — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:02:20 +0000

Sunday is Run for Water day, the largest solution based global initiative in history aimed at solving the water crisis. In nearly 100 cities across 50 countries around the world people are raising awareness and funds to help solve the global water crisis. Live Earth is hosting their very own a six kilometer run for water as well, in Exposition Park, and if you are not going to be at Coachella you should be there.

Everyday women and children walk an average of six Kilometers (3.5miles) to get water. The funds raised from this event will benefit Global Water Challenge, a coalition of non-profit organisations that works to bring safe drinking water to millions of people. Including communities in Hati, Central America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia. All you have to do is show up and lend your support. They are even providing music for you to enjoy during and after the walk.

The concert featuring award-winning singers and songwriters starts at 9:00am and Melissa Etheridge will take the stage at 11:00am. World renowned athletes Kara Goucher, nine-time Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis, and professional athlete and fashion model Jenny Fletcher will be participating in the event as well. Registration for walking is closed but you can still donate online.

Live Earth will be posting content from all the events taking place throughout the day on their site, LiveEarth.org. They are encouraging others to contribute their own photos and videos here:

Video

Flickr group

Help spread the word about this event by using the hashtag #RunForWater. Download the free Live Earth android/iPhone app from Mobile Roadie here. Check out tweets about the event by following @LiveEarth.

Details

Date: Sunday, April 18, 2010

Time: Walks starts at 8:00am Concert at 9:00am

Location:
Exposition Park
3825 South Figueroa
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets: Donate here

The Los Angeles Dow Live Earth Run for Water event will be held in Exposition Park, near downtown Los Angeles, with the 6km course starting on Exposition Park Drive, turning onto Figueroa and traveling three kilometers toward downtown, turning around at 17th Street for the return three kilometers, and ending in the Water Village in Expo Park.

The Unofficial Post-Streamys Celebration

Laurie Percival — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 20:18:48 +0000

It’s pretty obvious by now that the web community and even the people who support it were very unhappy with the Streamy Awards event that took place on Sunday, April 11th, 2010. Instead of just bitching and moaning, most have offered constructive criticism and shared their ideas on how web entertainment should be recognized in the future.

But what about the nominees who were announced as winners this year? Don’t they deserve a tastefully done moment of recognition for their hard work? Many felt that they do and it appears that two women have stepped up to do something about it.

Jenni Powell and Kim Evey have put together an informal gathering taking place tonight, April 15th at Acme Comedy Theater. Winners will be in attendance and given the opportunity to speak for 1-2 minutes about their creation, what web entertainment means to them, and their thoughts on net neutrality.

“This is not about airing out grievances about the Streamy Awards ceremony, it is about celebrating those who were chosen by their peers as the best representations of web video in a variety of categories.” -from jennipowell.com

Members of the community who are located in Los Angeles are invited to join the event. There will be no red carpet this time and press will be in attendance. This is your chance to meet the winners in a relaxed environment, hear what they have to say and then pop next door to the Amalfi Restaurant to celebrate their achievements with a drink.

The theater is relatively limited, holding only 99 people inside and an additional 40 that will be able to stand and watch on monitors from the lobby. Because of the limited space, attendees will be seated in the following order:

2010 Streamy Winners and their guests
Press and 2010 Streamy nominees
Additional guests on a first come/first served basis

The event will also be streamed to the public and web community at large on Acme Comedy’s website. Hashtag for the event is #celebratetheweb.

Details

Thursday, April 15th at 8 PM PST (7:30 drinks at Amalfi next door)

Acme Comedy Theater
135 S. La Brea Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036-2911

When you arrive, please check in at the ACME box office where there will be a sign in sheet for additional guests as well as name tags. The ceremony itself should last no more than an hour and the most important part of the evening is the opportunity to mingle and enjoy time with each other before and after the event.

Those confirmed to be attending in person thus far include:

Best Comedy Web Series
Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis
Dan Strange (Director)

Best Drama Web Series, Best Directing for a Drama Web Series, Best Male Actor in a Drama Web Series
The Bannen Way
Mark Gantt (Creator, Actor) Jesse Warren (Creator, Director)

Best Directing for a Comedy Web Series
The Guild
Sean Becker

Best Writing for a Drama Web Series
Compulsions
Bernie Su

Best Foreign Web Series
OzGirl

Best Female Actor in a Comedy Web Series
Felicia Day (The Guild)

Best Interactive Experience in a Web Series, Best Mobile Experience in a Web Series
Valemont

Best Visual Effects in a Web Series
Fear Clinic

With video submissions by:

Best Hosted Web Series
Diggnation
Alex Albrecht

Best New Web Series
Odd Jobs
Jeremy Redleaf

Best Writing for a Comedy Web Series
Wainy Days
David Wain

Best Female Actor in a Drama Web Series
Anyone But Me
Rachael Hip-Flores

Best Vlogger
Shane Dawson

Best Live Production in a Web Series
Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show
Michael Rotman (producer/director)

Best Animated Web Series
How It Should Have Ended

Best News or Politics Web Series, Best Experimental Web Series, Best Original Music in a Web Series
Auto-Tune the News

(Photo by TheBuiBrothers.com)

CitySourced Celebrates Download Day

Laurie Percival — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 16:00:56 +0000

Last week CitySourced announced that City Council President Eric Garcetti would be adopting their iPhone app for his district. The “Garcetti 311″ app will allow users to easily report graffiti, potholes, and other problems that need to be addressed in the Hollywood area. By using the Garcetti branded app, issues you report will be brought directly to his attention.

To kick it off right, Mr. Garcetti will be joining CitySourced at a special event this Saturday, April 17th, dubbed “Download Day”. Personally I love this app and feel it can be a great benefit to any community. Hopefully more council members will start to adapt it for their districts. Help support CitySourced by showing up this Saturday and telling your friends about it.

Details

Date: Saturday, April 17th, 2010

Time: 9:00am to 10:30am

Location:
Americans (SIPA) Community Room
3200 Temple Street
Los Angeles, Ca 90026

Full Press Release

Garcetti Announces New iPhone Application
“Garcetti 311” by CitySourced will allow users to submit service requests via iPhone

LOS ANGELES – Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti today announced “Garcetti 311,” a new application for iPhones that will allow users to snap and submit photos of potholes, graffiti, and other problems in his district for the city to address. The application, developed by CitySourced, will be launched as a pilot program in Garcetti’s Council District, which stretches from Hollywood to Glassell Park.

“The new app empowers Angelenos to improve our neighborhoods by providing a quick, easy way of letting city government know where there are problems that need to be fixed. I’m proud to launch the pilot program in my district,” said Council President Garcetti.

Garcetti made the announcement at a training conducted by CitySourced in which Garcetti’s staff learned how to handle requests submitted through the new application.

“CitySourced was founded on a simple premise — to make it easier for all residents make their communities better. We’re doing this by facilitating the communication between residents and government, making the process simpler, more efficient and effective. Plus, as Angelenos ourselves, we’re excited about helping the city.”

“We are thrilled to have Los Angeles as our newest customer, which gives us a great opportunity to showcase and model for the rest of the world the emerging Gov2.0 movement,” said CitySourced Co-Founder Kurt Daradics.

Through the “Garcetti 311” application, users will be able to report problems for the city to address, including:

Abandoned bicycles and vehicles
Deceased animals
Bulky items
Graffiti
Illegal dumping
Broken sidewalks
Potholes
Overgrown trees

The application uses geo-tagging technology to automatically provide the problem’s location, simplifying the reporting process for users. During the year-long pilot program, Garcetti’s staff members will submit the requests to the appropriate city departments for action.

The application will be made available free of charge via iTunes later this month. Within the next three months, CitySourced, powered by FreedomSpeaks.com, also expects to expand availability of the technology to other mobile platforms such as Google Android, Blackberry, Palm, and Windows Mobile.

This Week In Events: April 12 – 16

Laurie Percival — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 22:14:59 +0000

Monday, April 12, 2010

Digital LA Digital Music Panel: Artists Go Social – We like music! Join us for our pre-Coachella panel discussion with digital music industry experts on how artists are using social media and cutting edge tools to distribute and market their songs and brands. We’ll discuss: How bands use their websites, MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, apps, tours, etc. to distribute and market their songs and brands, What do fans wanna see with social media: behind the scenes, backstage, day-in-the-life, etc., Beyond personal tweets, what are cutting edge social media/Twitter tools, apps, and campaigns artists can use?

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Stone Rose at Sofitel
8555 Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets: $60 VIP admission (Includes light appetizers &networking in VIP room) $18 Standing Room Only (Limited supply)

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

digiday:VIDEO UPFRONT LA – The best and the brightest in digital video, emerging platforms, plus media, marketing, publishing, and television executives will converge in Los Angeles to address the future of video programming and advertising. During this high-level event, Top Brand Marketers, Agency Executives, Publishers, Content Owners, and Video Technology experts will come together to discuss and explore the shape of the burgeoning Upfront Digital Video Advertising Market. The conference will take a deep dive into the advertising and content market, the buying and selling opportunities, the projected growth, and the way brands and agencies are harnessing the power of digital video to engage today’s multi-screen consumer.

Time: 12:00pm to 6:00pm

Location:
SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills
465 S. La Cienega Boulevard
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets: $595 ticket includes all sessions, keynotes, meal functions, and a networking cocktail party

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Mindshare – Enlightened Debauchery

Douglas Campbell, Co-Founder of Mindshare LA & Syyn Labs: Volcanoes, Earthquakes and the Driest Desert in the World
Gerard Minakawa – Founder, Bamboo DNA: Building with Bamboo, A World Changing Material
Benjamin Bidlack – Engagement Director, Innovation Protocol: The Hero’s Journey in Everyday Life
Brand X presents: Richard Metzger: The Infinite Mind of Artist Paul Laffoley
Rebecca Ninburg – AKA “Demolicious”, Founder, LA Derby Dolls: How to Keep SoCal Rolling

Time: 7:00pm

Location:
Club 740
740 S. Broadway
Los Angeles, Ca, 90014

Tickets: $30

Friday, April 16, 2010

Digital LA – Green Goes Digital Panel – Join DigitalLA and co-host Rynda Laurel for our pre-Earth Day panel on how green entertainment goes digital and social. We’ll discuss: How green messaging goes digital, How to use social media to promote environmental movies, TV shows, and web series, How can filmmakers use film production that is sustainable, What are ways Hollywood celebs can use their celebrity status and digital to promote green initiatives.

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Green Door
1429 Ivar Avenue
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets: $15

Viper Room Foursquare Day Party – 4 squared equals 16. So naturally April 16th (4/16) has been digitally declared Foursquare Day –cities all over the world will be holding Foursquare Day parties. There are plenty of people in Los Angeles using the mobile application, so why not have a party in Lalaland. If you want to tweet about the event, make sure to use the city & official hashtags: #4sqday #LA.

Time: 7:30pm to 9:30pm

Location:
The Viper Room
8852 W Sunset Blvd
West Hollywood, Ca

Tickets: Free

How To Get Nominated For A Streamy

Laurie Percival — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 18:47:28 +0000

The second annual Streamy Awards took place last night at the Orpheum Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles. The night started off without a hitch but unfortunately soon ran into many technical difficulties, including videos being cut short or not playing at all.

We understand that putting on a show of that magnitude is tough work, so much goes into the planning and things are going to happen that are out of your control. Look at the current televised awards shows, they have been around for years and still run into issues.

One of the most entertaining videos we saw that night was “How to get nominated for a Streamy … in the nominees own words.” However due to said technical difficulties no one was able to see the conclusion of the video leaving many people wondering.

The Fine Brothers, Benny and Rafi Fine, created the video and have kindly shared it with us so you can view it in its entirety. Enjoy:

Twiistup’s New Exclusive Event: The Retreat

Laurie Percival — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 20:04:57 +0000

The organizers behind Twiistup have added a new segment to the growing brand. Not only are they expanding by having a start-up summit in NY, they made an announcement earlier this week about The Retreat.

The Retreat is like a nod back to when business was being done on the golf course. Instead of sitting in a conference room you would get out on the green with your client, have a few beers and make your deals under the sun. According to the announcement, The Retreat is an exclusive executive level event that will be invite only. Those wishing to attend will need to apply and only 85 will be selected out of applications.

Talking place at a 5 star/5 diamond resort in Dana point, attendees days will be filled with catered meals, golf, sailing and activities that allow you to develop and foster relationships with the other participants. The three-day event will be Co-hosted by David Hornik of August Capital and Andy Sack of the Founder’s Co-op. Some of the most proven investors and entrepreneurs will be invited to mix and mingle with up and coming players. With only the creme de la creme of startup tech being selected, that one on one time in an open atmosphere will be extremely valuable.

More VIP hosts will be announced shortly, while many of the specific details, including price and exact location, will only be released to applicants. The Retreat takes place from Jun 16-18, 2010. If you’d like to attend you need to get your application in by the end of May. Apply here.

The Second Annual Streamy Awards

Laurie Percival — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:25:36 +0000

They’re almost here! The second annual Streamy Awards are taking place this Sunday, April 11, 2010. You may be asking yourself what is a streamy and why do I keep seeing it in my Twitter stream? The Streamy Awards, a grassroots effort that was started last year by online entertainment enthusiasts, is an evening of celebration and awards for excellence in original web television programming and those who create it.

Think of it like the Emmys for internet geeks, though you will see “real” celebrities not just web celebs in attendance. Last year I spotted Neil Patrick Harris, Lisa Kudrow, Zoe Bell, and Rosario Dawson, but the person I think most people were excited to see, not to mention the big winner of the night, was Felicia Day. Her heartfelt acceptance speech was something that most people walked away from the evening talking about.

Produced by Tubefilter, The Streamy’s are co-hosted by Tubefilter News and NewTeeVee. The nominees are selected, after public submission, by members of the International Academy of Web Television. An independent, non-profit organization that includes actors, agents, composers, content creators, directors, journalists, producers, technology innovators and writers. You now have the chance to help pick the Audience Choice Winner. You can vote for your favorite series once a day, every day, right up until the day of the awards.

Hosted by Paul Scheer, The Streamys are taking place this year at the Orpheum Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles. If you haven’t found the perfect dress yet, not to worry, Taryn O’Neill wrote an amazing guide that will help you find it. For those of you that weren’t able to snag a ticket, you can watch the evening unfold live at 5:30pm on Streamys.org.

Last night there was a special event held just for The Streamy Craft Awards. Due to time constraints of the big event of Sunday, some awards were presented then. Here’s a quick look at the winners:

Best Reality or Documentary Web Series
The Secret Life of Scientists

Best Foreign Web Series
OzGirl

Best New Web Series
Odd Jobs

Best Companion Web Series
The Office: Subtle Sexuality

Best Experimental Web Series
Auto-Tune the News

Best Editing in a Web Series
The Bannen Way (Zack Arnold)

Best Cinematography in a Web Series
Riese (Christopher Charles Kempinski)

Best Art Direction in a Web Series
Green Porno (Rick Gilbert)

Best Sound Design in a Web Series
Fear Clinic (Kunal Rajan)

Best Visual Effects in a Web Series
Fear Clinic (Jason Bergman, Nicholas Onstad, Bethany Onstad, Jason Knetge, Erik Porn, Ikuo Saito, David Dang)

Best Animation in a Web Series
theGoob (Magnus Jansson)

Best Original Music in a Web Series
Auto-Tune the News (Evan Gregory, Andrew Gregory, Michael Gregory)

Best Live Production in a Web Series
Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show

Best Interactive Experience in a Web Series
Valemont

Best Product Integration in a Web Series
Easy to Assemble (IKEA)

Best Mobile Experience in a Web Series
Valemont U

From the red carpet entrance full of press, to the ceremony and after party, the Streamy Awards are an evening full of class, wit and of course a few laughs. In short, something you don’t want to miss. See you on the red carpet!

(Photo by TheBuiBrothers.com)

This Week In Events: April 5th -11th

Laurie Percival — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 16:00:41 +0000

Anyone that runs their own site can attest to the fact that sometimes life gets in the way of your posts. This Week In Events is coming to you a bit late due to ah, maintenance issues, ya that’s what we’ll call this horrific cold I have. Enjoy.

Check out everything Tubefilter has planned for Web Television Week, April 5th – 11th, here.

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

Hollywood 2.0 Event at UCLA: Steven de Souza, writer of Die Hard, 48 Hours and Tomb Raider Cradle of Life is coming to UCLA Anderson to screen his Web Series. Steven is a Hollywood legend, and is one of the handful of screenwriters whose movies have grossed over $2 Billion.

Time: 5:00pm

Location:
UCLA Anderson School Of Business, Room A201

Tickets: Free
*RSVP by sending an email to sunil@scripped.com

DealMaker LA Presents: Don’t hire your BFF - How to build a winning Team: Join us for a candid conversation about what it takes to hook, line and sink’er when it comes to attracting (and keeping) an amazing executive team.

Speakers:

John Suh, CEO, LegalZoom
Jim Jonassen, Founder, Jim Jonassen & Associates
Brett Brewer, CEO, Adknowledge
Rich Battista, President, National Cable Networks at Fox Cable Networks

Time: 6:00pm to 9:00pm

Location:
Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP Los Angeles
11355 W. Olympic Blvd.
Los Angeles, Ca 90064

Tickets: Strategy Series + Mixer: $60, Mixer Only: $35

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

New Media Vault – Streamys Edition: Join us for a special Streamys Edition of New Media Vault as part of the week-long Web TV Week celebration. Featured sponsor is Web TV Workshop, Hollywood’s 1st Web TV School Opening May 2010!
2 full free tuition certificates will be given away as a special door prize!

Time: 8:00pm to Midnight

Location:
Broadway Bar
830 S. Broadway
Los Angeles, Ca 90014

Tickets: $10

MediaClub LA @ Haute Hollywood: Come mingle with top industry professionals in Media and Technology. Attendees work at companies such as CAA, Disney, Dreamworks, Fox, ICM, MySpace, NBC, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios, William Morris, YouTube, etc.

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Haute Hollywood
665 N Roberston
West Hollywood, Ca

Tickets: $12 until April 5th, then $15
*Advanced RSVP required

Saturday, April 10th, 2010

The Streamy Awards Launch Party — Hosted by blip.tv: Celebrate the arrival of open entertainment on the eve of the most prestigious awards ceremony devoted to excellence in original web television programming and those who create it.

Time: 8:00pm

Location:
Millenium Biltmore Hotel
506 South Grand Avenue
Los Angeles Ca, 90071

Tickets: Invited Guest/ Register

Sunday, April 11th, 2010

The Streamy Awards: This year marks the second annual Streamy Awards, honoring excellence in original web television programming and those who create it. The ceremony, and its live online broadcast, brings together top talent, decision-makers and influencers shaping the online entertainment industry. Awards are presented for the past years’ finest achievements in a variety of categories spanning multiple disciplines, including Performance, Directing, Writing, Editing, Visual Effects, Sound, and more.

Time: 5:00pm

Location:
Orpheum Theatre
842 South Broadway
Los Angeles, Ca 90014

Tickets: Invite Only, watch the livestream here.

*Some information taken from Nicole Jordan’s LA Tech Calendar on Kickingsand.com.

This Week In Events March 29 – April 2

Laurie Percival — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:00:57 +0000

Surprisingly low key week happening. This should give you time to rest up and prepare to face the massive amount of geeks that will be lining up for their iPad on Saturday. You’ll be standing in line for awhile so don’t forget to bring backup chargers for your iPhone, you wouldn’t want to be the only one in line not able to tweet about how your waiting in line.

Monday, March 29, 2010

Digital LA – Glendale Cocktails – Join us for wine and appetizers at the acclaimed Palate wine bar in Glendale, just a few blocks south of the Americana at Brand. Yup, it’s our first Glendale event, perfect for nearby studio peeps (Disney, ABC, WB, Universal) and others around Glendale, North Hollywood, Burbank and Pasadena. Tell your friends to show and we can represent in Glendale!

Time: 7:00pm to 9:00pm

Location:
Palate Food & Wine
933 S. Brand Blvd
Glendale, Ca

Tickets: $8 advance registration required

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

MOTM: Through the Digital Looking Glass and What Alice Found There - For all the benefits computers and the Internet have given our culture they have also made it far more complex. Arguably, one of the biggest problems is that we don’t have useful ethical frameworks in which to make judgments about both old and new behaviors. Join us for a discussion where we examine a few selected cases, both real and fictitious, and as a group explore the ethical questions involved.

Featured Guest: Mark Gibbs

Time: 7:30pm to 9:30pm

Location:
Los Robles Greens Golf Club
299 South Moorpark Road
Thousand Oaks, Ca 91361

Tickets: Free

UPCOMING EVENT

Los Angeles Startup Weekend will take place from Friday, April 30, 2010 to Sunday, May 02, 2010 in Santa Monica, CA. Tickets went on sale last week and are limited. Get yours here.

Featured speakers:

Sean Percival
Will Schroter
Ryan Roberts
Mark Suster

This Week In Events: March 22 – 26

Laurie Percival — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:00:43 +0000

You get a bit of a break this week, only two events to make your appearances at. Unfortunately for you they are on the same night, plan wisely.

UPDATE:

The awesomeness of peeps on Twitter have alerted me to two other events added below.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

StartUp LA - Helping Entrepreneurs, one StartUp at a time. Join the fastest growing association dedicated to entrepreneurs and Startups in Los Angeles by attending our Premiere event at Bar Marmont.

Time: 7:00pm to 9:00pm

Location:
Bar Marmont
8171 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles Ca 90069

Tickets: $12 ADVANCE RSVP REQUIRED

Thursday, March 25, 2010

LA Twestival – Twestival is a charity festival whereby 175 cities from around the world come together for events on 1 day- March 25th- raising money for one cause. This year we’re raising money for Concern Worldwide, an international humanitarian organization transforming the lives of the world’s poorest, most marginalized children through access to education.

Featuring: Youtube’s official video mixer, TweetMuseum – one of a Kind Celeb art!, Polite in Public Digital Photo booth, DJ Mike Relm, 16 year-old DJ prodigy and blogger Jake Simon. Plus: a SURPRISE GUEST PERFORMANCE by a top Alternative Music Band!

Time: 7:00pm to 11:00pm

Location:
The Roxy Theatre
9009 Sunset Boulevard
West Hollywood, CA 90069

Tickets: $20

Schmoozd Mixer – Join us at the Wokcano for more rock solid networking with tech geeks, VCs, entrepreneurs and good folks just like you. Media Temple is buying the first few rounds so get there early to get your free drink.

Time: 6:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Wokcano
1413 5th Street
Santa Monica, Ca

Tickets: $20
*Parking Details: Valet services offered from 5:00pm to 2:00am. There is also a parking garage behind the building.

Saturday, March 27, 2010

LA Media Reform Summit 2010: Preserving Democracy – Please join the LA Media Reform Group, California Common Cause and the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute on March 27, 2010, at Occidental College for our third annual summit. Given the recent supreme court decision, the changing media landscape and the importance of the upcoming election cycle, we’ve decided to make this year’s theme, “Preserving Democracy.”

Time: View the full schedule here

Location:
Occidental College
1600 Campus Road
Los Angeles, Ca 90041

Tickets: $15 in advance, $20 at the door

SXSW: Muse at Stubb’s Photos

Sean Percival — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 23:17:46 +0000

Now that I work at MySpace I really need to better balance my SXSW time between interactive and music. While I was flying out of Austin last Monday my MySpace Music colleagues were pouring in. While it’s great for us to have a “changing of the guards” that means I’m missing some great live music events. Sponsored by MySpace, the Muse show was certainly one of those events.

Also miss it? Then enjoy some photos from talented local photog Anna Webber.

Things I Wish I’d Known About SXSW

Nicole Gustas — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:00:21 +0000

The cool kids have been telling me about it for years, and this year I finally did it – I made it to Austin for SXSW Interactive. The panels were as informative as I’d heard, the parties were even crazier, and boy, what a good-looking and intelligent bunch attend – especially that Sean Percival! (Sean, if you could mail that $1000 by Friday, that would be excellent.)

I’m a research junkie, so I looked for first-timer’s guides all over the place, hoping I’d find something like I did for Burning Man. But despite the fact that SXSWi is made up of a bunch of compulsive Tweeters and bloggers (who, as I mentioned before, are all good-looking and intelligent), you guys are completely pathetic when it comes to any kind of online tip guide. Seriously, when a bunch of Burners outdo you in the organization department? That’s a sorry story, right there.

So, in the spirit of sharing – and because the end of SXSW has left me with the three-second memory of a goldfish and I’ll forget this all if I don’t get it down – here’s All The Things I Wish I’d Known About SXSW.

Things I Wish I’d Known About Food and Drink at SXSW

@sxswfreenoms would make you think that food just floats out of the sky at SXSW. And sometimes it does. I was dodging cupcakes left and right in front of the Conference Center Saturday, and if Zone Perfect bars were $5 bills I’d be able to buy myself a new MacBook (okay, okay, at least an iPod). But for actual sustaining meals, there’s a lot of things I wish I’d known before SXSW.

If you’re vegetarian you will starve. There is allegedly a lot of great vegetarian food in Austin, but just about none of it is within a mile radius of the Convention Center. When parties say “We have free food!” they’re really saying “All the cow you can eat!” You can try a bean and rice burrito, but the refried beans are made with lard and the rice is made with chicken stock. And God help you if you have food allergies. Which is why you should…
Hit Whole Foods when you get into town and stock up. It doesn’t matter if you’re a vegetarian or a carnivore – stock up at Whole Foods. The Whole Foods Death Star is at 6th and Lamar. It is approximately the size of the Austin Convention Center. If you haven’t been there, you think I’m exaggerating, and if you have you’re probably saying to yourself, “Actually, I think it’s a little bigger.” It’s like Yuppie Wal-Mart – they have everything. But before you hit Whole Foods, go a block down 6th and…
Get ice cream at Amy’s. HOLY CRAPNUTS. I’d heard that Amy’s had the best ice cream on the planet, but I thought that was hyperbole. I wish I’d gone the first day. And every day. It’s not like I was eating anything else, anyway, because I didn’t…
Research restaurants before you go to Austin. 80% of the restaurants within a 10-minute walk of the conference center suck, and 18% of the rest are wall-to-wall with SXSW folks. Which means you can either miss three panels waiting for a table or eat bad food. If you flail on Yelp looking for something decent and nearby, you’ll burn valuable time that you could be using walking to a restaurant. If you walk into a random place on 6th Street, you will, like we did, have them deliver your meal an hour late, with every item wrong. (Staring at Anil Dash for 35 minutes didn’t improve things.) Do the research and write it all down before you come. Or better yet, mark it on a map.
You can get free water if you bring a water bottle. There’s plenty of water coolers around, but SXSW staff frown on attendees wrapping their lips around the spout. Bring an empty bottle and refill it. (Or buy a bottle of water, but that’s about $3.50 in the convention center.)
Don’t dehydrate. There’s a few ways that SXSW is like Burning Man, and this is one. It’s dry, it’s dehydrating, and most of the drinks people are handing you are alcoholic, which will just dehydrate you more. Drink water, and tons of it. Next year I may bring a Camelbak.

Things I Wish I’d Known About Panels Before I Went to SXSW

Every time I had #panelfail, because the panel was packed and I couldn’t get in or it sucked or it just wasn’t applicable to what I do, it made me crazy for the next few hours, because I knew I could have been at something better. Here’s some info that might have helped.

Panel rooms are really spread out. It’s about 4/10 of a mile from the front door of the Hilton to Ballroom A in the Conference Center, plus there’s geeks to dodge. If your prime pick panel is in the Hilton, several floors up, and your backup is in Ballroom C, you might make it in time for the Q&A, or as I like to call it, “oversharing time.” (More on that later.) When you pick a panel, make sure you have a backup in the same building, or that time slot may be a wash.
If you get the vibe you’ll hate it before hand, you’re probably right. I went to a panel that I thought would be on professional development. The bullet points on the boards made it clear it was about “The Secret.” I still stuck it out for 15 minutes, hoping I was wrong. I would have been better off bolting to my Plan B before the panel began.
Q&A sessions = audience self-promotion. At least half the people asking questions would spend several minutes shilling their skills, then ask something just meant to show themselves off. If you need to get to another panel, or lunch, skip the Q&A.
Panel hashtags almost always change. SXSW likes giving panels 30-character hash tags. Panelists ruthlessly shorten them, usually by scrawling with a Bic pen. This is a problem if you’re in row 40 and trying to monitor the Twitter backchannel.
Panelists need lessons in how to use the microphone. No, actually, that’s what I wish SXSW knew about panels. Speaking directly into a mic may seem simple, but many speakers can’t seem to grasp it, even when the audience shouts it repeatedly. Sit near the front so you can hear them even without the mic.

Things I Actually Got Right at SXSW

And here’s some things I actually did right that friends of mine who came to SXSW wished they’d done.

Bring multiple pairs of shoes and rotate them. I learned this lesson, painfully, at Burning Man last year. C.K. Sample didn’t have that info, and by Day 3 was Tweeting desperate requests for shoes.
Give yourself foot massages at the end of the night. It may sound lame, but otherwise you will wake up with feet that are almost as sore as when you went to bed.
Bring an umbrella. Nick Fairbairn of Engine Company One gave me this tip the day before I left, and I listened. Monday night the skies opened up when I was standing in front of Tech Karaoke. Suddenly, I had five new friends standing as close as possible. I wish more of them had showered during SXSW.
“Remember” people’s names. Everyone is wearing a badge with their name on it. Everyone forgets they’re wearing a badge with their name on it. When you say hi to someone you’ve met before, glance at their badge and use their name. It makes them feel special and it makes you look like you care.
RSVP for every single party. Some parties are hard-core about their guest lists; some will let anyone walk in who has a badge. There’s no way to tell which will be which, and I missed a few parties because I had RSVPd but my crew hadn’t. Just because you RSVPd doesn’t mean you have to show. Follow @sxswparty, @sxswparties, or @sxswPartyList(or next year’s versions of same). Check out the blogs Austinist and Republic of Austin about two weeks out. Between all of them, you should find 80% of the parties.
Make plans to see people. You think you’ll just run into people. You’re wrong. (Unless they’re Sean Percival, who is everywhere. How does he DO that?) I missed a good friend who lives in London because we’d never made real plans and he left Saturday afternoon. He was on London time and I was on California time, which meant when one of us texted “What are you up to?” the other was sleeping. I only got to see Jason Calacanis, Lon Harris and Mark Jeffrey – all people I really wanted to see – because I knew they would all be at the TWiST event, and I completely missed C.K. Sample there, which was when I knew I had to make plans. You won’t just run into people (except for Sean) – you have to make it happen.
You will always miss something cool. Deal with it and enjoy where you are. At every party I went to, there were a bunch of people sitting there, jacked into Twitter, trying to find out if they were missing something cool. And they were – they were missing the cool thing right in front of them. There’s a million cool things going on simultaneously at SXSW. Enjoy the cool thing where you are rather than searching for something cooler.

SXSW: In One Word

Sean Percival — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 18:00:55 +0000

SXSW really is a unique experience.

Where else can so many of us geeks justify our existence and relevancy? Look here are 15,000 weirdos just like me! For others it’s just a great place to get tanked and finally score that hot PR girl you’ve been flirting with on Twitter with for LIKE EVER. For just about everyone it’s a place to connect, share, and form something offline.

Really SXSW can be a lot of things, none of which we really wanted to hear about. So we challenged the leaders of over sharing to distill their message into one simple word. Here is how they did.

Video features:

Alana Joy
Alexia Tsotsis
Andy Sternberg
Ben Metcalfe
Brian Solis
Cathy Brooks
Chris Saad
Damien Basile
Erin Broadley
Francisco Dao
Gabe Rivera
Jeremy Johnson
John Boitnott
Laura Fitton
Lon Harris
Loren Feldman
Marc Hustvedt
Mark Krynsky
Micah Baldwin
Michelle Oshen Feldman
Nicole Gustas
Nicole Jordan
Pete Cashmore
Robert Scoble
Sean Percival
Serena Ehrlich
Tony Adam

This Week In Events: March 15 -19

Laurie Percival — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 16:00:01 +0000

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Digital LA Digital Drinks - ‘Tis our lucky day! We’ll be celebratin’ St. Patty’s a wee day early with our pre-St. Patricks Day – Digital Drinks @ Dillon’s Irish Bar. Rest ur feet and pull up a chair with good cheer! And practice for the next day: wear some green! We’ll be networking in the left back private room – the one with the big screen!

Time: 8:00pm to 11:00pm

Location:
Dillon’s Irish Pub
6263 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets: $10 advance registration required

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

Mindshare LA – We hope to see you there for another night of enlightened debauchery!

Program Includes:

David Orban / Founder, Chief Evangelist, WideTag, Inc. & Advisor, Singularity Univeristy / The Internet of Things
Matthew J. Smith / Harvard Law School / Negotiation & Mediation Afterhours
Wil Carson / Senior Project Designer, Michael Maltzan Architecture / New Questions for a New City
Emily Tyrant / Pervert Extraordinaire, Den of Iniquity / Acclimating Men to Pain

Time: 7:00pm

Location:
Club 740
740 S. Broadway
(Enter through the alley at 8th Spring St.)
Los Angeles, CA 90014

Tickets: $30

WITI Spring Mixer with Girls In Tech – Make new contacts, re-connect with former colleagues, invite clients (and make new ones!). You’ll have rare access to a highly diverse group of professionals committed to your success! Men and women are encouraged to attend this smashing seasonal event and we will be inviting many other LA based groups to join us.

Time: 6:00pm to 9:00pm

Location:
Wokano
1413 5th Street
Santa Monica, Ca 90401

Tickets: $20 for WITI members $40 for non-members

Docstoc March Mixer and Startups Uncensored #15 – How to Persuade People – This month’s Startups Uncensored will be on “How to Persuade People”. It will be an open and frank town-hall conversation talking about the skills and techniques leaders use to influence others. Led by Jason Nazar, the “How to Persuade People” presentation will be geared towards startups and entrepreneurs to learn and review the skills that will help them raise money, hire great talent, and land partnerships.

Time: 6:00pm to 8:00pm

Location:
Santa Monica Public Library (Auditorium)
601 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, Ca 90401

Tickets: Free, RSVP
*This event is capped at 140 attendees. Confirmation will be required or your spot will be given up for our waiting list.

MediaClub LA – Join LA’s Largest Business Networking Organization for Media Professionals and see you at our next event. Come mingle with top industry professionals in Media and Technology. Attendees work at companies such as CAA, Disney, Dreamworks, Fox, ICM, MySpace, NBC, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Universal Studios, William Morris, YouTube, etc.

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
W Hollywood
6250 Hollywood Blvd
Hollywood, Ca

Tickets: $12 until March 15th, then $15

SXSW: The Foursquare Prank Calls

Sean Percival — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 13:02:45 +0000

Location based service Foursquare is a revolutionary product that allows you to broadcast your whereabouts at any given time.

It’s also a great tool for stalking your friends.

Of course many SXSW attendees this year were happy to broadcast every spot they visited, even their hotel location. And while that may not include their exact room number that’s easy enough to come by thanks to the friendly front desk staff.

So we decided to see just how many people we could track down based on their last check-in of the night. We can not confirm or deny if there was some responsible drinking involved. In either case here is what we found when we tried to unlock the coveted “Annoy the crap out of your friends at 5am” badge.

*Update: Some took this joke better than others so we have updated the video to include the best call of the night, the one and only Gary Vaynerchuk:

MediaLeaders SXSWi Kickoff Event

Laurie Percival — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 18:00:43 +0000

MediaLeaders is hosting another set of events that are all happening on the same night. As a pre-kick off event to get you ready for SXSWi they are having networking events in San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City and Austin. Each event takes place Tuesday, March 9th, 2010.

In addition to a fun night of mingling, they are having a tweet contest to see who the “Best Social Media City” is. This is based off of tweets that contain the hashtags #medialeaders and #LA. Currently out of the eight cities in the running, Raleigh is winning by a landslide. Now, I’m not encouraging you to spam your readers but, do you really want North Carolina to beat us at this?

To participate in the tweet contest and let other LA residents know that you will be attending the event, visit MediaLeaders.tv and click the tweet “this button”. Or just tweet out:

I am attending #MediaLeaders #LA on March 9th (and I want LA to win the tweet contest). Join me: http://bit.ly/ab8CI8.

To check out who has already tweeted that they are attending and to quickly search what’s going on live at the event in your city, check out their Twitter Tracker.

Details

Date: Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Rush Street
9546 Washington Boulevard
Culver City, Ca 90232

Tickets: $12

(Photo from rushstreetculvercity.com)

This Week In Events: March 8 – 12

Laurie Percival — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:00:19 +0000

Most of Los Angeles tech is completly focused on the ultimate event that starts this Thursday, South by Southwest Interactive. But before you get completly in the Austin mindset you might want to spare a second to check out the events this week leading up to it.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Digiday: Mobile – Is Mobile The Next Critical Mass Medium? – Discover the what the future holds for you and this game changing media platform at digiday:MOBILE in Los Angeles. During this high-level full day event – top Publishers, Agency Executives and Brand Marketers will come together to discuss and debate how to fully utilize the next critical mass medium: MOBILE.

Full day of sessions and networking. Agenda here.

Time:
Starts at 8:00am, last session at 5:00pm
Cocktail party 5:30pm

Location:
Hilton Los Angeles (Universal City)
555 Universal Hollywood Drive
Universal City, Ca 91608

Tickets: $595.00
*The ticket includes all sessions, keynotes, meal functions, and a networking cocktail party.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Digiday: Social – The New Media Reality: Everything is Social. Are You? – During this high-level event, top Publishers, Agency Executives and Brand Marketers will come together to discuss how Social Media is everywhere and is changing everything.

Full day of sessions and networking. Agenda here.

Time:
Keynote starts 9:00am, last session starts at 4:45
Cocktail party at 5:30pm

Location:
Hilton Los Angeles (Universal City)
555 Universal Hollywood Drive
Universal City, Ca 91608

Tickets: $595.00
*The ticket includes all sessions, keynotes, meal functions, and a networking cocktail party.

Media Leaders Networking Event – Join fellow Media Leaders to share ideas and enjoy meeting new friends a week before SXSW. There’s no keynote speaker or panel of experts, just socializing and mixing with key influencers that are changing the way the industry operates.

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Rush Street
9546 Washington Boulevard
Culver City, Ca 90232

Tickets: $12

Crash Space LA – BristleBots and LED throwie art – Tuesday night Crashpace LA is open to the public. They’ll be having some fun quick DIY projects for you to build. Come on over and have fun. The project kits are $5 for CrashSpace members or $10 for non-members and you can take them home after you build them. In the kit you get the parts to build your own Bristlebot, a tiny robot made from a toothbrush and LED throwie art. They’ll have a Bristlebot race track you can do time trials on.

Time: 8:00pm

Location:
Crash Space
10526 Venice Blvd
Culver City, Ca 90232

Tickets: None needed, more information on Crash Space here.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

ThinkLA’s February Interactive Mixer – Mingle at this mixer geared towards the interactive community. Appetizers served, no host bar.

Time: 6:00pm to 9:00pm

Location:
Rush Street
9546 Washington Blvd.
Culver City, Ca 90232

Tickets: Registration for this event is now closed. Walk-ins will be available at the door at $40 an individual.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Los Angeles VC and Angel Event – How to meet investors, pitch them, and what it really takes to get them to write you a check! We will be discussing trends in Early-Stage Investing, hot sectors, sectors that these Angels and VCs look at, things that are most important to them when they are considering an Investment, the best and worst things an entrepreneur can do to get their attention, additional advice for entrepreneurs, and, of course, the best ways to reach these and other Investors.

Time: 2:00pm – 6:15pm (workshop is 11am-1pm)

Location:
Bingham McCutchen LLP
355 South Grand Avenue Suite 4400
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets:
Entrepreneur Raising Capital – Event: $75
Entrepreneur Event + Pitching Workshop: $350
Investor / Service provider: $85

Friday, March 12, 2010

By now most of LA has arrived in Austin, Texas for the first day of SXSW Interactive, excluding me of course. For those of you not going and wanting to drive everyone crazy with non SXSW tweets, check out @notsxsw.

Thanks to Nicole Jordan for information taken from her LA Tech Calendar on KickingSand.com

Ignite LA Fizzled, I Expected A Spark

Laurie Percival — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:00:14 +0000

Ignite LA took place on Monday, March 1st at Cinespace in Hollywood. The place was so packed they had to put chairs in the walkways for us to sit on. So what was everyone there for?

To be inspired of course. All week long Ignite events are taking place across the planet in different cities. Known as Global Ignite Week, participants get five minutes to present on stage with their 20 slides and try to enlighten and inspire the crowd.

The tag line for all of the events is “Enlighten us, but make it quick”, with topics ranging from social good, to robots, to remote viewing?? This was my first Ignite and I am sad to say I had to ask my friends that had been to past events what the point was. Thankfully there were a few presenters that stood out and actually made me think “Wow, that’s really cool, I want to know more.”

Kurt Daradics bravely took the stage and gave a very touching and funny speech about being a cyborg. He shared with the room a personal story that many have never heard, how he was born with a condition that left him deaf with 40% hearing loss until they were able to implant a piece of metal in his ear that conducts sound through the bone. I even had people coming up to me at other events this week to talk about how great they thought it was.

Photo by Laurie Percival

Eric Gradman shared a range of projects he has worked on including one called the Narcisystem, a wearable suit of biometric sensors which allows different parts of his body to control the elements in the room around him like the lighting and sound. How you can use RFID tags to turn any space into an interactive one and he talked about Sockieokie, a project that will be unveiled at a Syyn Labs, formerly Mindshare Labs, event this Saturday. He definitely inspired me to get out to the next Mindshare event.

The last presenter, Adam Sadowsky, treated us to some of the specifics behind the recently debuted video for OKGO’s new song “This Too Shall Pass”. It was released at 4pm on Monday and encompasses a Rube Goldberg machine. The band was really specific on their requirements and it was quite impressive that Syyn Labs was able to meet them all and pull off such a cool video in one shot.

The presenters that I liked, I really liked but they were few and far between. Overall I found the evening interesting but not necessarily enlightening. I didn’t seem like I had experienced what I had heard a typical Ignite event was like. That being said I am still willing to attend another one as long as they make some changes.

To the organizers I would have to recommend next time get a bigger venue, have the community vote ahead of time on who they want to see present, and for the love of god, have food available.

(Photos by Jim Alden @TechFrog)

This Week In Events: March 1 -5

Laurie Percival — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:00:04 +0000

Why does everything in LA Tech have to happen on the same day? Lots to check out this week, especially on Wednesday. We will be at the Mahalo offices then for Scripped.com’s Hollywood 2.0 panel. Hope to see you there!

Monday, March 1, 2010

Ignite LA – Speakers get only 5 minutes to give an amazing, inspiring talk. In LA, there are tons of different communities at the intersection of tech, art, green/sustainability, unique lifestyle design, digital/collaborative media, and social action that don’t know each other but should. Think of Ignite as a set of trailers for exciting projects people are doing that you should know about.

Time: 7:00pm to 9:30pm

Location:
Cinespace
6356 Hollywood Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90028

Tickets: Free, RSVP

A Good Knight’s Party — Premiere Party for ‘A Good Knight’s Quest’ – official premiere party for A Good Knight’s Quest, a new web comedy series by The Escapist and writer/director Brett Register. Evening includes: special guest DJ Michael Woodward of Your Only Friends, signature “Quest” drink specials by a Capitol City mixologist, win an evening with a cast member, red carpet interviews w/Kristyn Burtt of The Web Files, high-definition screening of our extended trailer and cast and crew Q&A.

Time: 8:00pm to 11:00pm

Location:
Capitol City Hollywood
1615 N. Cahuenga Blvd
Los Angeles, Ca 90028

Tickets: Free, RSVP required

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Scripped – Hollywood 2.0 – The topic of the discussion will be *”Film Production and Online Distribution – Strategies for Success.”* This will be an especially useful chat for those of you interested in hearing how quality content is put together, and how to go about distributing content on the web.

Panelists:

Tyler Crowley – Director of Strategy, Mahalo ; producer of several web series
Sean Percival – Director of Content Socialization, Myspace; founder lalawag.com
Mali Elfman – Editor-in-Chief, Screencrave ; Producer
Aaron Lubin – Producer

Time: 7:00pm

Location:
Mahalo
902 Colorado Ave
Santa Monica, Ca 90401

Tickets: Free, RSVP required (email Sunil at Sunil@scripped.com)
* We can only accept 100 people into this event due to the limited space.

Dealmaker Media – How To Build A Remarkable Company (aka: How Not to Be Boring) - At this special event, we’re thinking out of the box, so you can too. We’ll be discussing:

Startup DNA: How do you build a truly remarkable company?
Where does inspiration for “new” ideas come from?
How do you promote a new idea to a market that might not yet be defined?
Spreading the gospel: turning doubters into believers.
How to surround yourself with a winning team

Time: 6:00pm to 9:0pm

Location:
Clearstone Venture Partners
1351 4th Street (4th floor)
Santa Monica, Ca

Tickets: Strategy Series & Mixer: $60 Member Price: $40 / Mixer Only: $35 Member Price: $25

Digital LA – Celebrity Websites Panel – The Oscars are coming up, perfect time for our panel on celebrity websites! At the perfect venue to talk celebs: Madame Tussauds in Hollywood, right on the Walk of Fame, on the same block where the Kodak Theatre will be hosting the Oscars a few days later! So after our panel in a section of the exhibit reserved just for us to talk about celebs, u can take pics with ‘em too!

Panelists:

Jeff Pierce, 65 Media, concepted JimCarrey.com website, currently a finalist for this year’s SXSWi Film/Web award http://jimcarrey.com
Anthony Malzone, Art Director for Prince, manager of Prince’s online presence, including his official website LotusFlow3r http://www.lotusflow3r.com
Karen Woodward, content manager, writer, Booeep.com, works with Greg Grunberg, Sophia Bush, Lauren Holly, Disney kids, etc. on their official websites

Time: 5:00pm to 8:00pm

Location:
Madame Tussauds Hollywood
6933 Hollywood Boulevard
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets: $60 thru Mar 1, Increases to $75 on March 2-3
* Includes admission to our panel, and a self-guided tour of the museum immediately afterward.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Digital LA – Alice In Wonderland – We just reserved a block of 10 VIP tickets to see Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland in 3D at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood! Our VIP tickets include no waiting, reserved seating, popcorn, a drink and 3D glasses.

Time: 9:00pm to 11:30pm

Location:
El Capitain Theatre
6838 Hollywood Boulevard
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets: RSVP here, and they will let you know when registration is available

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Art Directors Guild Panel Discussion – An open invitation to attend a panel discussion of Production Designers and Set Decorators nominated for the 2009 Acadamy Award for achievement in Art Direction. Footage from the nominated films will be shown. Following films will be discussed: Avatar, The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, Nine, Sherlock Holmes and The Young Victoria.

Time: 2:00pm doors open 2:30 event starts

Location:
Egyptian Theatre Hollywood
6712 Hollywood Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90028

Tickets: Free, seating is first come first served

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Digital LA – Oscars Viewing Party – Get ready for the big awards show of the year: it’s our second annual Oscars Viewing Party! We had so much fun dressing up and watching the show together last year, we’re looking forward to more of the fun this year. Especially cuz a third of the Best Picture noms are digital: Avatar, Up, and District 9! This is a dress up event, blazers for guys and cocktail dresses for the ladies.

Time: 4:30pm to 8:00pm

Location:
The Parlor
1519 Wilshire Boulevard
Santa Monica, Ca 90403

Tickets: $35 thru Fri Mar 5, Increases to $40 Mar 6-7
*Your ticket includes light appetizers (shrimp cocktail, chicken satay skewers, sliders, veggie platter, and unlimited soda, juice, water).

Streamy Awards Nominees Announcement – Watch It Live Today

Laurie Percival — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:00:00 +0000

The second annual Streamy Awards are quickly approaching but before you get too excited about what you’re going to wear you might want to know who you will be cheering for. After weeks of serious deliberation by the academy on who to vote for, the final nominees for top web series of 2009 have been picked. They will be announced today, at 9:30am (PT) live on Streamys.org.

Photo by Wm. Marc Salsberry

Join media empress Shira Lazar and theStream.tv’s Jim Festante as they a Read off the nominees for ten of the main categories. The full list of nominees in all 35 categories are set to be announced in a press release immediately following. Check back with us for a complete list once we have it.

The official Twitter account for The Streamys will be live tweeting the event and are planning on giving one special fan a ticket to the Streamy Awards sometime during the announcement. Be sure to follow them at @streamyawards for a chance to win.

The second annual Streamy Awards ceremony is scheduled for April 11, 2010 at The Music Box at Fonda Theater in Hollywood. See photos of last years event by Wm. Marc Salsberry here and by Lan Bui here .

UPDATE: Info from NewTeeVee.com

And the nominees are:

OVERALL SERIES

Best Comedy Web Series
Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis
Easy to Assemble
The Guild
The Legend of Neil
Wainy Days

Best Drama Web Series
Angel of Death
Compulsions
OzGirl
The Bannen Way
Valemont

Best Hosted Web Series
A Comicbook Orange
Diggnation
Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show
Know Your Meme
The Totally Rad Show

Best Reality or Documentary Web Series
Interview Project
Mommy XXX
RADAR
Streak to Win
The Secret Life of Scientists

Best News or Politics Web Series
Auto-Tune the News
Rocketboom
The Tommorow Show with Mo Rocca
The Young Turks
VBS News

Best Foreign Web Series
Flying Kebab
Girl Number 9
Noob
OzGirl
Riese

Best New Web Series
$5 Cover: Memphis
Girl Number 9
Odd Jobs
Old Friends
The Bannen Way

Best Companion Web Series
Assassin’s Creed: Lineage
Dexter: Early Cuts
Harper’s Globe
The Office: Subtle Sexuality
Weeds: University of Andy

Best Animated Web Series
Eli’s Dirty Jokes
Happy Tree Friends
Homestar Runner
How It Should Have Ended
Zero Punctuation

Best Branded Entertainment Web Series
Back on Topps (Dick’s Sporting Goods)
Brainstorm (Altoids)
Easy to Assemble (IKEA)
Parts Art (Lexus)
The Temp Life (Spherion)

Best Experimental Web Series
Auto-Tune the News
Green Porno
HBO Cube
INST MSGS
Level 26

DIRECTING

Best Directing for a Comedy Web Series
Blue Movies (Scott Brown)
Dorm Life: Semester 2 (Chris Smith, Mark Stewart Iverson)
James Gunn’s PG Porn (James Gunn)
The Guild (Sean Becker)
The Legend of Neil (Sandeep Parikh)

Best Directing for a Drama Web Series
Anyone But Me (Tina Cesa Ward)
Compulsions (Nathan Atkinson)
Girl Number 9 (James Moran)
The Bannen Way (Jesse Warren, Mark Gantt)
Young American Bodies (Joe Swanberg)

WRITING

Best Writing for a Comedy Web Series
Back on Topps (Jason Sklar, Randy Sklar, Eric Friedman, Matt Price)
Dorm Life (Chris Smith, Jordan Riggs, Jessie Gaskell, Jack De Sena, Jim Brandon, Brian Singleton, Mark Stewart Iverson)
The Legend of Neil (Tony Janning, Sandeep Parikh)
The Guild (Felicia Day)
Wainy Days (David Wain)

Best Writing for a Drama Web Series
Anyone But Me (Susan Miller, Tina Cesa Ward)
Compulsions (Bernie Su)
Girl Number 9 (James Moran, Dan Turner)
The Bannen Way (Jesse Warren, Mark Gantt)
Valemont (Christian Taylor)

ACTING

Best Male Actor in a Comedy Web Series
Zach Galifianakis (Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis)
Tony Hale (CTRL)
Amir Blumenfeld (Jake and Amir)
Sandeep Parikh (The Guild)
David Wain (Wainy Days)

Best Female Actor in a Comedy Web Series
Illeana Douglas (Easy to Assemble)
Justine Bateman (Easy to Assemble)
Joanna Cassidy (Sex Ed)
Felicia Day (The Guild)
Lisa Kudrow (Web Therapy)

Best Male Actor in a Drama Web Series
Craig Frank (Compulsions)
Robert Englund (Fear Clinic)
Joe Absolom (Girl Number 9)
Mark Gantt (The Bannen Way)
Eric Balfour (Valemont)

Best Female Actor in a Drama Web Series
Zoe Bell (Angel of Death)
Rachael Hip-Flores (Anyone But Me)
Tatyani Ali (Buppies)
Sophie Tilson (OzGirl)
Crystal Chappell (Venice)

Best Ensemble Cast in a Web Series
Back on Topps (Randy Sklar, Jason Sklar, Jason Nash, Janet Varney, Stephanie Courtney, Brian Huskey, Phil LaMarr)
Dorm Life (Nora Kirkpatrick, Hannah Pearl Utt, Anne Lane, Jessie Gaskell, Brian Singleton, Jack De Sena, Jim Brandon, Jordan Riggs, Pancho Morris)
Easy to Assemble (Illeana Douglas, Justine Bateman, Eric Lange, Michael Irpino, Cheri Oteri, Daryl Sabara, Michael Panes, Rob Mailhouse, Sean Durrie, Tom Arnold, Ed Begley Jr., Tim Meadows, Ricki Lake, Greg Proops, Kevin Pollak)
GOLD (Robert J. Brewer, James Paul Xavier, Nathan Mobley, Rick Robinson, David Nett, Gary Karp, Shannon Ivey, Alan Loayza, Shannon Nelson, Jeremy Guskin, Angela Schnaible) The Guild (Vincent Caso, Felicia Day, Jeff Lewis, Amy Okuda, Sandeep Parikh, Robin Thorsen)

Best Guest Star in a Web Series
Chris Hardwick (Back on Topps)
Nathan Fillion (PG Porn)
“Weird Al” Yankovic (Know Your Meme)
Wil Wheaton (The Guild)
Courteney Cox (Web Therapy)

Best Web Series Host
Alex Albrecht (Diggnation)
Zadi Diaz (Epic Fu)
Kevin Pollak (Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show)
Kristyn Burtt (The Web.Files)
Michael Buckley (What The Buck?!)

Best Vlogger
Brigitte Dale (Brigitte Dale)
iJustine (iJustine)
Phillip DeFranco (sxePhil)
Shane Dawson (ShaneDawsonTV)
Shira Lazar (Shira Lazar)

CRAFT AWARDS

Best Editing in a Web Series
$5 Cover: Memphis (Nathan Black, Morgan Jon Fox, Josh Swain)
Brainstorm (Jochen Kunstler, Jacob Vaughan)
Auto-Tune the News (Evan Gregory, Andrew Gregory, Michael Gregory)
I Kissed a Vampire (David Bekoff)
The Bannen Way (Zack Arnold)

Best Cinematography in a Web Series
Angel of Death (Carl Herse)
Brainstorm (Michael Lohmann)
LUMINA (XiaoSu Han, Andreas Thalhammer)
I Kissed a Vampire (Robert Lam)
The Bannen Way (Christopher Charles Kempinski)

Best Art Direction in a Web Series
$99 Music Videos (Kit Pennebaker)
Green Porno (Rick Gilbert)
Mountain Man (Matt Enlow)
Riese (Chad Krowchuk)
Tiki Bar TV (Kim Bailey)

Best Sound Design in a Web Series
Fear Clinic (Kunal Rajan)
Mountain Man (Michael Miller)
Riese (Bill Mellow, Kevin Belen)
Rockville, CA (Seth Talley)
The Vetala (Randy Kiss)

Best Visual Effects in a Web Series
Backyard FX (Erik Beck)
Fear Clinic (Jason M Bergman, Nicholas Onstad, Bethany Pederson, David Dang)
Mordy Koots (Reece Sanders, Clayton Jacobson)
Safety Geeks: SVI (Thor Melsted, Mike Smith)
The Crew (Jeff Bell, Zack Finfrock, Brett Register)

Best Animation in a Web Series
College Humor: Hardly Working (Dan Meth)
Happy Tree Friends (David Winn, Alan Lau, Jason Sadler, Brad Rau, Roque Bollestros, Paul Allan, Nica Lorber, Michael Lipman)
How It Should Have Ended (Daniel Baxter, Tommy Watson, Tina Alexander)
Inventions (Chris Weller, David Lamps)
theGoob (Magnus Jansson)

Best Original Music in a Web Series
Auto-Tune the News (Evan Gregory, Andrew Gregory, Michael Gregory)
Horrible Turn (Chance McClain, Kevin Ryan, Frank Bullington, Jeremy Botter)
Key of Awesome (Mark Douglas)
Sparhusen (Rob Mailhouse, Todd Spahr, Illeana Douglas)
The Coat (Thierry Chaze)

Best Live Production in a Web Series
Coin-Op TV Live
Fantasy Football Live!
Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show
The RadNerd Show
TWiT.tv

Best Interactive Experience in a Web Series
Circle of Eight
I <3 Vampires
Married on MySpace
Valemont
Wreck and Salvage: Suppendapo

Best Product Integration in a Web Series
Circle of Eight (Mountain Dew)
Easy to Assemble (IKEA)
The Bannen Way (Jaguar)
Valemont (Verizon Wireless)
Woke Up Dead (Kodak)

Best Mobile Experience in a Web Series
AT&T Life Without Mobile
Mr. Wrong
Playboy: Interns
Seth on Survival
Valemont

(Photo by Wm. Marc Salsberry)

Top 10 Books Perfect For The iPad

Hayden Black — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:00:13 +0000

Oh iPad. Your biggish screen, your handy portability, your…um…colors, your…help me now…stuff. According to all that is Jobs, its imminent release is set to change the way we eat, think and dress. I can only imagine how tough it must be to be iJustine right now; all that antici (say it) antici (say it) antici-pation.

So what can I do to help? What can this lowly individual do to add to the sheer amazingocity (trademark Jobs) that is the iPad? I can’t program. Christ, I can’t even spell HTLM let alone do anything with it (see what I did there?). So I decided to compile a list of books – real books – from Amazon that I thought would be perfect for the iPad. Titles that sum up the sexy piece of glass you just bought. Imagine booting up your iPad to see these titles winking back at you.

What Is This? by Antje Damm
Pointless by Jeff Connor
Waste of Money by Owen Money
Why the World is Full of Useless Things by Steve McKevitt
Useless Beauty by Robert K. Johnston
Don’t Be Afraid to Drop by Julia Cook and Anita Dufalla
Boom! Splat! Kablooey! by Pat Murphy and The Scientists of Klutz Labs
Why Did I Buy This? by Lynn Brunelle
More Money Than Brains by Laura Penny
Refund by Mike Thompson

(Photo from wired.com)

This Week In Events: February 22 -26

Laurie Percival — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:59:40 +0000

This week is packed with events, and two celebrations happening on Thursday. Hope you have a case of red bull cause you’re gonna need it.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Gravity Summit – We have an amazing day planned for attendees – a virtual brain trust of the top brands and minds in the industry. In addition, the attendees are outstanding – decision makers from all types of businesses across Southern California – financial services, entertainment, healthcare, music, high-tech, non-profits, municipalities, and entrepreneurs.

Time: 9:00am to 4:30pm conference
Tweetup Cocktail Party at the Roxy at 6:30pm (free)

Location:
UCLA Covel Commons
200 De Neve Drive
Los Angeles, Ca 90077

Tickets: Register here

UCLA Anderson School Of Management – Entrepreneurship Week – Tim Westergren, the founder of Pandora, will be delivering the Keynote address on campus as part of UCLA Entrepreneurship Week. His speech will be followed by time for networking. UCLA Entrepreneurship Week encourages and celebrates entrepreneurship across all the graduate schools on campus.

Time: 7:30pm

Location:
UCLA Anderson School of Management
Gold Hall (Building B)
Executive Dining Room

Tickets: Free, RSVP

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Social Media Club – Going Goo Goo over Google Analytics - join Social Media Club as we discuss Google Analytics, with John Shiple, CTO, Ultralive; Alex Becker, Co-Founder and President, Highly Relevant; and Andrew Hahn, Luxury Link and Familygetaway.com. Erica Forrette, Online Marketing / E-commerce will be moderating this event.

Time: 7:00pm to 9:30pm

Location:
Mahalo
902 Colorado Ave
Santa Monica, Ca 90401

Tickets: Advance Pre-Sale $10 Members Free Student Free

Thursday, February 25, 2010

New Media Vault 1 Year Anniversary Bash! – New Media Vault Celebrates its 1 Year Anniversary with a New Media Star Studed Bash at its new location The Standard Hotel in Downtown LA. With Live Jazz and Musical Performances! Get your photo taken at our free photo booth to comemorate this historic evening! Tech and Software door prize give aways all night! We will be raffling off tuition for 2 students for Hollywood’s Newest Web TV School! WEB TV WORKSHOP. Raffle tickets will be sold for $5

Time: 7:30pm

Location:
The Standard Hotel (Downtown)
550 South Flower St.
Los Angeles, Ca 90071

Tickets: Free, RSVP

TechZulu Turns 2 – Digital LA, Techzulu, and Citrusbyte invite you to celebrate at the new Geisha House – Santa Ana. Just walking distance from Efren’s home! TechZulu’s Efren says: “Come down and celebrate with us. There will be lots of new faces and contacts to be made so we are definitely looking forward to this years celebration!”

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Geisha House
2773 North Main Street
Santa Ana, CA

Tickets: $10 advance registration required

Friday, February 26, 2010

Digital LA – LA3D – VFX Animation Panel @ Cinespace – We’re teaming up again with the LA3D vfx/animation group, for our VFX panel and mixer at Cinespace. Our top-notch panelists specialize in movie animation (character design, title treatments, visual effects), and commercial effects. We’re super stoked that the lead designer on Avatar will be joining us to chat about animation, design, and FX on the highest grossing film of all time.

Time: 8:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Cinespace
6356 Hollywood Boulevard
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets: $15 Advance Registration Required

Sunday, February 28, 2010

UpTake’s Los Angeles Meet-up for Bloggers – Learn tips & secrets from UpTake’s search engine team to
increase visitors and awareness to your blog.

Time:
Increase Your Blog Traffic Seminar: 3:00pm to 4:00pm
Cocktail Reception & Networking: 4:00pm to 5:00pm

Location:
Huntley Hotel
Aqua Room
1111 2nd Street
Santa Monica, Ca 90403

Tickets: Free, RSVP

This Week In Events: February 15 – 19

Laurie Percival — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:00:12 +0000

Have drinks with Kevin Winston on Monday, chat with Mark Horvath on Wednesday and end your week watching web shows with Brady Brim-DeForest. It’s all happening this week in LA Tech. Don’t forget to check out our plancast, and if you have an event to promote let us know at tips@lalawag.com.

Monday, February 15th, 2010

Digital LA – Digital Drinks at W Hollywood - Introducing… the new W Hollywood! After months of construction and anticipation, the brand new W Hollywood has *just* opened! We’re among the FIRST to schmooze in this new hot spot in Hollywood – check it out before your friends and give them the report! We’ll be in the ‘Station’ outdoor patio reserved just for us, for your digital networking, just off the Living Room lobby.

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
W Hollywood
6250 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, Ca 90028

Tickets: $10 advance registration required

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

Los Angeles Social Video Meetup – Join us for our first LA Meetup. Mark Horvath, a visionary producer, will join us. Mark is the founder of InvisiblePeople.tv has travelled across America to capture the stories of people without a home, raw and unedited. Mark will share his experiences and the effectiveness of using social broadcasting technology to rapidly share your story. We’ll also have a cool new start-up, Vpype presenting along with producers/media mavens and personalities to talk about how to use social video within Facebook to create your personal digital studio.

Time: 6:30pm to 8:30pm

Location:
Blankspaces
5405 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, Ca 90036

Tickets: RSVP

Friday, February 19th, 2010

Streamys – IAWTV Member Webseries Courtesy Screening – Join us for a special screening of web shows in a lovely environment where you can kick-back and just watch. With drinks. Each featured show will offer a sampling of episodes for your consideration for the 2nd Annual Streamy Awards. This screening event is being held as a service to IAWTV Members, but is open to the everyone. Please, come, hang out, drink, laugh, and enjoy these shows of which we are so proud. Space is limited, RSVP soon!

Time: 7:00pm to 9:30pm

Location:
Cinespace Hollywood
6356 Hollywood Boulevard
Los Angeles, Ca

Tickets: RSVP

Where Do You Draw The Line In Over Sharing? (NSFW)

Laurie Percival — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:29:55 +0000

This past Sunday night most people were celebrating the victory of New Orléans Saints over the Colts in this years super bowl. Well according to my Twitter feed and the noises coming from the apartments around me that’s what they were doing. I not being a sports fan was playing on the internet and occasionally checking out links on Twitter.

One particular link caught my eye so I clicked.

What I was rewarded with was a Twitpic of two completely naked girls, a full frontal shot you could say. I couldn’t believe my eyes! The tweet was normal sounding enough, I though maybe some drunken debauchery would be shown but there was no hint that there would be nudity in it. I immediately got Sean’s attention and showed it to him. We joked about it for a minute or two and then let it go.

*Black bar was added to the picture by us

A few minutes later more tweets from this user started flowing in, along with them came more naked pictures. This time they had a clear explanation:

*Black bars added to the picture by us

Again, I was surprized but didn’t think much of it. I am not the kind of girl who shy’s away from nudity. I have no problem with out of the ordinary things that may cross my path. However the next day this got me thinking. What about the people who are not so casual about these things? I wonder what their reaction to seeing these pictures would be? Better yet, what about the teens that are supposedly on Twitter, are they coming across this kind of material?

The first thing to consider would be the user that was putting this info out there. It was Olivia Munn, one of the hosts of “Attack of the Show” on the G4 network. I follow her because we watch the show and I am a fan, probably much like the other 114,647 people that follow her. (Which I would have to assume includes young men). I have seen her tweet about her Maxim pics and heard her talk about her Playboy spread but up until that moment I had never seen Twitpics of a totally naked girls coming from her links. I didn’t expect these kinds of pictures from her account.

I went back to the pictures a few days later and found that over $20,000 people had viewed the first full frontal nude one, and 53 accounts had re-tweeted the two pictures. I honesly thought they would have been taken down by now, considering the network she works for is fairly conservative.

With all the tools we currently have available that allow us to instantly share our experiences and feelings, when and where do we draw the line and decide, maybe I shouldn’t share that? Should Twitpic have some responsibility for hosting the nude pictures? Should Twitter be monitoring what’s out there? Or should we as adults monitor ourselves and know that some things just shouldn’t be shared. What about the women in the photos? Yes they are strippers but that doesn’t mean they want naked pictures of themselves floating around the internet.

Who decides when we have crossed the over sharing line and invaded other peoples privacy? Do we need someone to tell us or can we be responsible enough?

Google Super Bowl Commercial

This Week In Events: Feb 8th -12th

Laurie Percival — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 22:36:32 +0000

Here’s what’s happening in Los Angles tech events this week. There’s also a networking event happening in Orange County on Wednesday if you dare leave the city.

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

Startups Uncensored – Google Adsense for Websites - This month’s Startups Uncensored will be on the “Google AdSense Tips for Startups”. It will be an open and frank town-hall conversation talking about how to best optimize and monetize your website with Google Adsense.

Time: 6:30pm to 8:00pm (Reception to Follow)

Location:
Santa Monica Public Library (Auditorium)
601 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401

Tickets: Free, RSVP
*This event is capped at 140 attendees. Confirmation will be required or your spot will be given up for our waiting list

ThinkLA’s Interactive Mixer – Mingle at this mixer geared towards the interactive community.

Time: 6:00pm to 9:00pm

Location:
Rush Street
9546 Washington Blvd.
Culver City CA 90232

Tickets: Registration is closed, walk-ins welcome $40

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Digital LA -The Actor Producer Panel – We’re teaming up with SAG’s New Media group for our panel on how actors can use online tools to create, develop, distribute and market their web stories. We will be covering Creation, Development, Distribution and Marketing.

Panelists:

Brett Register – Actor/Creator, The Crew, @brettregister @theCrewtv
Jodi Binstock – Producer of Web Therapy, starring Lisa Kudrow; (formerly at E!, Disney ABC TV)
Aaron Grasso, Producer of Closure, part of the 30 Day Film Challenge; appeared at Sundance Tweethouse panel @30dayfilm
Amber J. Lawson – Babelgum, Comedy Publisher
Brandon Martinez – Abrams Artists Agency, New Media Agent
Marc Hustvedt – Tubefilter, Editor-in-Chief; Ex.Pr. Streamy Awards, SAG @MarcHustvedt @Tubefilter
Mark Friedlander – SAG @SAGnewmedia

Moderator: Kevin Winston – Digital LA founder @kevinwinston @DigitalLA

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
SAG
5757 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Tickets: $20 advance registration required. Tickets increase to $30 on February 8th.
*Free for SAG members, email name and SAG number to specialevents@sag.org.

ProductCamp Preview – ProductCamp SoCal is just a few weeks away! If you’ve never been to a ProductCamp, you need to come to OC Product Managers’ ProductCamp Preview. Following an hour of networking, we will have a session that will follow the format that you’ll see at ProductCamp SoCal. Drinks and appetizers will be served.

Time: 6:00pm to 8:00pm

Location:
JT Schmid’s @ The District
2415 Park Ave
Tustin, CA 92782

Tickets: $15 pre-register online and pay at the door, ($20 if not pre-registered)

Thursday, February 11th, 2009

Tech Happy Hour Mixer – Gravity Summit, Tech Supper Club and iHollywood have teamed up to host a happy hour mixer for you to meet executives with a passion for digital media, social media, sales and marketing. Come mix and mingle and learn more about the Gravity Summit taking place on February 22nd at UCLA. They will also raffle off the new Cisco HD Flip Camera at 7:00pm. (Must be present to win).

Time: 5:00pm to 7:30pm

Location:
Acapulco Restaurant
1109 Glendon Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90024

Tickets: $10 for one, $15 for two

*Special thanks to Nicole Jordan for some of the events included. Taken from her LA Tech calendar on Kickingsand.com.

Battledish: Adventure Game For Foodies

Laurie Percival — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:04:54 +0000

Battledish has announced their inaugural dishcrawl, taking place this weekend following the Gov2.o unconference. For those of you who are not a “foodie”, a dishcrawl is an experience that takes the participants through four dishes in four different restaurants all in one night. Dishcrawls give participants the opportunity to mix, mingle and connect offline while enjoying delicious food. The best part is, you set the evening at your own pace.

Merging social media and food together, the Battledish Dishcrawl will take you on a culinary mission around Los Angeles. The location based food adventure consists of five missions. Each mission is a dish in a restaurant. To play, simply pick an adventure, go on missions, and get foodie prizes.

Battledish is still in private alpha mode, but if you’re lucky, you’ll get a peek inside. Sign up here. You can follow them on Twitter at @battledish.

Details

Date: February 6th and 7th

Time: Happy hour kicks off at 7:30pm at Little Bar

Location:
Around Los Angeles, more information here

Tickets: Free, Register here

(Photo from steelheadstudio.com)

Track Down Your Favorite Food Truck With Cluster Truck

This Week in Events: February 1 – 5

Laurie Percival — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:00:34 +0000

It’s February now and that means there’s a whole new month of tech events to attend. There are some pretty cool ones happening this week that are not your usual monthly event. We’ll be at Cafe 50′s on Thursday to support their tweetup. What kind of Mayor would @Percival be if he didn’t show up?

Monday, February 1st, 2010

Web TV Prep Classes - Are you a writer compelled to finally produce your passion project? Are you an actor inspired to take control of your own career? Are you an independent producer ready to jump into new media?

In just four short weeks WebTvPrep will take you from an aspiring actor, frustrated writer, or stagnant producer, to the star/producer of your own show. The course will cover the four major areas of: creative development/casting, production, Post Production/Web Design/Technology, and Social Networking/Viral Marketing/Sales.

Date: February 1st to February 24th

Time: 7:00pm

Location:
Dogma Studios
4136 Del Rey Ave.
Marina Del Rey, Ca 90292

Tickets: Discounted Tuition for New Media Vault Members $225 or pay by individual week, prices here

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

New Music Seminar Los Angeles – The day will kick off with a keynote speech, followed by four sessions filled with vital information on how to see it and how to do it, accompanied by the New Music Seminar Guide Book filled with important contact information and vital new music business basics. With a focus on Social Media impact.

Speakers and Presenters

Time: 7:30am registration begins, Schedule

Location:
Henry Fonda Theater,
6126 Hollywood Boulevard
Los Angeles, Ca 90028

Tickets: Online Registration closed but you can register at the door

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

GDP Talk – TechZulu has partnered up with GDPWealth to bring you a night of amazing talks with some of the brightest minds in Southern California, Startup interviews, and networking. Join the conversations enlivening the courtyard, in an evening filled with lovely music, good food, and fine libations. When you aren’t mingling, come listen to some of LA’s great minds as they present ideas about trends and realities facing today’s world.

Speakers:

Scott Bell, Founder, Gross Domestic Product, Inc. — Everything Your Broker will Never Tell You
Greg Ferenstein, UC: Irvine Researcher, Fast Company Expert Blogger — American Education: “What is Litrarcy?”
Kurt Daradics Founder of CitySourced, Co-Producer Digital Family – The Future of Civic Communication
Adam Mefford, Co-Founder MindShare.LA — The iPod Generation Goes To Work!

Time: 6:30pm to 10:00pm

Location:
The Belamar Hotel
3501 North Sepulveda Blvd.
Manhattan Beach, Ca 90266

Tickets: $15 (all of which will go to charity) or $0 if you are a bit strapped for cash at the moment.
*Ticket includes appetizers & Hosted Wine/Beer for 2 hours. Discounted cash bar for sprits.

Cafe 50′s Tweetup – Watch @percival try to defend his mayorship at the first Cafe 50′s tweetup. Ever since they started on Twitter, Facebook, Yelp and Foursquare they’ve met a lot of great people online. Even though many are regular customers, they don’t have all the names and faces paired just yet and have decided it’s about time to change that. Come in after work and enjoy drink specials, discounts and freebies.

Time: 5:00pm to 8:00pm

Location:
11623 Santa Monica Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90025

Tickets: No RSVP needed, anyone can come

Friday, February 5th, 2010

Gov2.0 Camp LA – Join government, industry, and nonprofit new media leaders at the first West Coast unconference on social media and government. Together we will work to make “Gov 2.0″ more accessible to the public, share advice, and solve common problems both at the Camp and beyond

Date: February 5th – 7th Agenda

Time: TBD Check the Schedule for updates

Location:
BlankSpaces
5405 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Tickets: Register

Twiistup 007 Casino Royale Pics

Laurie Percival — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 00:45:13 +0000

Twiistup 7 took place last night, January 28th, at the Skirball Cultural Center. Check out the amazing shots from the James Bond oo7 themed after party taken by LA resident tech photog Wm. Marc Salsberry.

Austin Passy with his super sweet and cute girlfriend Jeana Arter

By Wm. Marc Salsberry

Kurt Daradics with Mark Jeffrey and his date “the hottest girl at Twiistup”

By Wm. Marc Salsberry

Marketing Pro Nicole Jordan and Serena Ehrlich from Social Media Club

By Wm. Marc Salsberry

Pete Cashmore, CEO and Founder of Mashable and Neil Patel, SEO Ninja and Twiistup Owner

By Wm. Marc Salsberry

Eston Bond with Read Write Web’s Jolie O’Dell and Mike Prasad

By Wm. Marc Salsberry

See the rest of the evenings photos here, and check out Wm. Marc’s other work here.

(Header Photo of Neil Patel by Wm. Marc Salsberry)

Live Coverage: Apple’s ‘Come See Our Latest Creation’ Event

Michael Arcand — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 05:06:20 +0000

Invitations went out earlier this month to a highly anticipated Apple event where many believe that Steve Jobs will unveil the Apple tablet. Some photos have been making their way around the Internet showing a supposed tablet that looks much like an over-sized iPhone, claiming these are the actual product. There’s no way to tell until the actual announcement is made, but typical to true Apple event form, the rumors are flying high prior to this event. The media event is being held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, California, starting at 10:00 a.m. PST.

My Thoughts on the iPad

Now that the presentation is over, I’ll share my thoughts on the iPad device. It seems to be a great price for an entry level device, but my concerns come in when you start looking at the power under the hood. I’m not convinced a 1GHz processor is going to hold up to what they are trying to throw at it. Some of the games involved and that will be developed will definitely push it to it’s limit, not to mention the iWorks suite. Overall it looks like an giant iTouch (not an iPhone, since it has no phone component). Another downside that is readily apparent is the lack of a camera. I’m not sure with a tablet if you would want one on side facing the user or the other side, but given that most laptops and smart phones have cameras these days, I think they’re missing out on an opportunity by not including that option. Maybe that will be included in the iPad 2.0. Finally, another item that was conspicuously missing was any mention of Flash. Apparently that didn’t make it into the iPad either. I think it will end up being a great product for low-end users and even some people who are current laptop users. However, the biggest draw appears to be the iBook Store and I think that could definitely give Amazon and the Kindle a run for their money.

(Thanks to Engadget, Gdgt.com and Leo Laporte’s live team, whose coverage allowed us to blog this event today.)

Live Blog Coverage Below

11:35 – He invites the event participants to go and get some hands-on experience at the demo tables and this concludes the live event.

11:34 – Jobs also says, “We’ve always tried to be at the intersection of technology and liberal arts — we want to make the best tech, but have them be intuitive. It’s the combination of these two things that have let us make the iPad.” Really? I’m not sure how that fits into tech today unless Jobs is channeling his inner hippie from his early days.

11:32 – Jobs: “The iPad is the most advanced technology you can imagine in a magical & revolutionary device at an unbelievable price.”

11:31 – Jobs says over 75 million people will intuitively know how to use it (based on iPhone and iTouch sales)

11:30 – Video ends to a round of applause.

11:26 – Video presentation going over the features we’ve already seen, highlighting the iPad’s ease of use, simplicity of functions as well as top notch multi-touch design.

11:23 – Showing video that will be available online soon … basically a commercial for the iPad.

11:21 – Steve announces a special item no one (I think) was expecting: a keyboard dock! Nice accessory.

11:20 – 60 days for shipment of WiFi models

11:19 – Entry level pricing: $499 for 16GB models

11:18 – Pricing is up next … hold your breath …

11:16 – ALL iPads will come unlocked, so they can be used with current GSM cards and may work overseas.

11:15 – These offers are for the US market only, working on international deals for this summer.

11:14 – AT&T also throwing in free WiFi at all their WiFi hot spots. Additionally, there are no contracts and no plans to sign. You sign up for the plan directly from the iPad. YES! Now this is a selling point, finally!!!

11:13 – Two iPad data plans: 1) 250 Mb data only $14.99, 2)Unlimited for only $29.99 via AT&T.

11:13 – Every iPad will come with WiFi and 3G models will be available.

11:12: – Jobs is back up and talking about iTunes. It will sync with everything, literally, that you have on your iPhone or iPod Touch, via USB.

11:11 – Price for iWorks apps? $9.99 for each app. Wow. Now that’s pretty impressive!

11:10 – That concludes the demo of iWorks on the iPad.

11:08 – Moving on to Numbers now. How the heck can you do spreadsheets without a mouse or a keyboard? Over 250 formulas available from within the app. Lots of tapping and dragging, but it seems to be functional.

11:06 – Now he’s going over the demo of Pages for the iPad. Briefly went over functionality and ease of use.

11:03 – Navigation seems to be fairly easy. This would have been one of my concerns, using a touch screen exclusively to navigate any robust software package. Tapping is used to advance sliced, also to move groups of slides as a bundle. It’s a basic review of the Keynote product, adapted for a touch screen version.

11:00 – Phil is up now to demo the iPad version of Keynote.

10:59 – Steve has just announced that a version of iWorks has been developed for the iPad. Now I’m starting to be impressed!

10:58 – Several major publishers have already signed up to sell books in the iBook Store and he’s opening up the store today for others to join in.

10:54 – Steve has announced a new native app called iBooks (after mentioning the Kindle, lol). It will connect you with the new iBooks Store, which looks like a bookshelf. Nice touch.

10:52 – Scott makes a point to mention that the iPad will run all of our current apps as well while we’re waiting for new apps. Steve comes back to the stage.

10:50 – Major League Baseball is demoing their app (apparently the last developer demo) for the iPad, which features computer models of live games, inline video and replays. Very interactive, and again, taking advantage of the screen space.

10:48 – EA ‘s Travis Boatman demos “The Need For Speed” app. Nice screen views and the game seems to really take advantage of all the additional space on the screen.

10:45 – Next demo was for an app called Brushes, an art and painting app. Up next is EA.

10:43 – Up next is The New York Times demonstration of their new iPad app. It seems to integrate with their site as well as the iPhone app. Overall design looks very sleek. Will it be enough to keep the NYT going in the digital newspaper revolution?

10:41 – If you’ve played many Gamesoft iPhone games, then you probably know about NOVA. Here’s a shot of the iPad demo of the modified app for the larger screen.

10:39 – They invited some of the Gamesoft developers into a preview several weeks ago so they could see what theycould do with the larger display and games. They are coming out to demo some of their work.

10:34 – Scott Forstall has come out for the next demonstration, which revolves around accessing the current iPhone App Store. It is interesting but the sizing of the apps appears to be something they are trying to work around on this size of a device.

10:31 – Battery life of 10 hours? Say what? If that’s true, that is quite an accomplishment. Combine that with over a month of standby time and I don’t know anything that will beat it.

10:30 – It’s hooked up with 802.11n wireless, WiFi and Bluetooth 2.1

10:29 – Apple is using their own proprietary chipset, the A4, running at 1 GHz coming with 16, 32 or 64 GB of flash memory.

10:28 – Going back to hardware specs now … “.5 inches thin, 1.5 pounds — 9.7 inch IPS display”

10:26 – Steve is now demonstrating the video capability of the iPad to view HD video from YouTube. He’s pulling up a Star Trek clip. Who knew he was a Trekkie?

10:24 – Using map features to find restaurants and other items. You can zoom in and out and view the actual place using built-in Google maps street view. Nice.

10:22 – Using picture features and iPhoto along with easily created slideshows.

10:20 – Takes the crowd through using e-mail on the iPad.

10:18 – “More intimate than a laptop, more capable than a smartphone.” Really? I’m not convinced yet, but we’ll see…

10:17 – Steve has demonstrated Internet browsing on the iPad, showing portrait and landscape views. Sites visited included YouTube, Apple.com, Fandango and Time.

10:15 – It really does look like an over-sized iPhone … seriously.

10:12 – Going over the details of the features of the iPad.

10:10 – Announcing the Apple iPad!

10:09 – Jobs is going over what the devices can currently do and says a new device has to be more than a smart phone, and ebook reader, etc. He just dissed the netbook saying, “A netbook isn’t better than a laptop at anything.”

10:06 – Apple is the #1 mobile device company in the world. Okay Steve, tell us something we didn’t know. Anticipation is building.

10:04 – Steve Jobs is on stage and announcing progress of the company including 284 retails stores and the fact that they are now a $15 billion company.

10:03 – We’re ready to rock and roll now and apologize for the delay.

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