For all of you who are not at SXSW and still want to have a great ad-hoc discussion about digital media, check out a random get together I’m trying to put together.

For those who attended my events in the past, they are very laid back and personable.  No egos.  Join a table, grab a chair, and chat.  Anyone can enjoy the conversation at anytime.

I may bring a few copies of my upcoming book for those who are interested.  Please contact me if you’d like me to bring one for you in exchange for a review.

Enjoy!  (click the link for the eventbrite page)

p.s.

We are limited by the seating of the cafe and since I’ve not rented it out; it’s on a first come, first served basis.  We’ll try and take over as much as we can… just bring a few bucks for a drink or something to eat so they don’t throw us out. 

I’ve always been fascinated by the news and the media, so today’s interview is about the emerging digital media news site, CenterNetworks. Allen Stern, CEO and Founder, launched the site in 2006 and it’s grown by leaps and bounds since (traffic chart comparing CenterNetworks to AlleyInsider).

I took some time with Allen and talked about the digital media world and what he’s up to. Please welcome, Allen Stern:

1. State your name, title and years in the digital media scene:
My name is Allen Stern and currently I am the Editor of a social media industry resource named CenterNetworks. In its current form, CenterNetworks went live on September 15, 2006. Previously I was responsible for the Internet marketing department at Georgia-Pacific where I worked for nearly nine years.

2. What are you currently up to? If entrepreunering (my word), tell me about your startup.
I am focused on helping startups make better decisions with the coverage and insights provided on CenterNetworks.

3. Why are you doing this? You could be doing so many other things in the world, what about this particular idea strikes you?
I enjoy providing advice based on my lengthy work experience and education to help others learn from my successes and failures. From my early days as a public accountant, to learning everything about nearly all of the programming languages available today to most recently working for a Fortune 100 company running their Internet marketing, I want to share my knowledge with others just getting into the biz.

4. All startups should be addressing a problem in the market. What is that exact problem and how are you solving it?
CenterNetworks isn’t a startup in the typical sense but I’d like to see more startups come out of the gate with a business plan and revenue model. The grow, wait and see approach might not work forever and for everyone. Also wherever possible, diversify the service’s income. And if the startup is working on a freemium model (free + paid upgrades), make sure that you aren’t giving away so much that users have no reason to upgrade. Free should be a taste, paid is the full meal.

5. Have you thought about your business model yet? I’m assuming so, so tell us a bit about it.
Currently it’s advertising-based but I am considering several additional alternatives. It’s all about revenue diversification.

6a. If you’re looking at an ad-supported model, how are you going about it? Do you have in-house ad sales? Using a rep firm? What are the challenges that you’re facing with getting ad dollars?
Currently we use two rep firms (BurstMedia and TribalFusion) and I handle in-house ad sales as well. The challenge is that most agencies pitch the top 10 sites in a category to advertise on. If you are in the top 10, you are golden. If you are number 11 or down, it’s much more difficult. The $1 CPM default ads just won’t cut it without massive traffic.

7. As an entrepreneur or investor, what are your thoughts on competition? How do you view competition?
Competition helps in two ways. First, it forces you to continue to innovate and build better products and services. Second, competition can help to show a market need for your product or service.

8. If your competitor called you up to have coffee and discuss shop, what would you do? Would you go? What would you divulge?
Heck yea, this isn’t 1940. The key is to go into the discussion with a game plan of what you will share and what you won’t. You never know what your competitor might share that could help you as well!

9. Is the current state of the economy playing to your favor? If so, why? If not, why? What is your forecast of the market throughout 2008 and do you see affects? Macro and Micro economic theory would be interesting to hear about.
Overall, there could be a slowdown in online ad spend but I see it being relatively short-lived if at all. Companies realize that they need to shift even more of their budgets to online and while the larger sites like MySpace and some of the portal sites like iVillage will stand to benefit the most, even niche sites like CenterNetworks stand to benefit.

10. How much of your time is spent working? How much is spent with family? Have you found the entrepreneurial quality of life yet?
I typically work on and off (more on) from 5am-midnight. I enjoy studying subway maps from around the world and fine this very relaxing and so I try to spend some time each day researching a new city each day and how their public transportation system works. I find it clears my mind which allows me to focus when I return to work.

If you have any questions or comments for this interview, please post them into the comments section. Would love to start a dialog around Allen’s interview.

Thank you!

We've launched.

Notches is a free, open, universal platform for reviews. We're building a network of applications, partners and cool tools. Reviews written in any of the network's sites will be part of the Notches system everywhere. All the pieces share a common back-end which handles the heavy lifting.

Today, we have released our developer API as well as a Facebook application and Twitter interface. If you are interested in developing for our API, request a key and get started today. If you are a site looking to integrate reviews, let us know and maybe we can help.

Kaltura has signed yet another smart partnership deal. The Brooklyn-based video startup will work with online home movie digitization service Home Movie Depot to develop a range of video services.

(more…)

Following yesterday’s interview with Jordan and Abby from Haystack Media, I wanted to keep up the media and entertainment topic and release an interview with Nate Westheimer, who is the CEO and Founder of Bricabox, a next generation publishing platform. To see a live example of what they are building, check out the SXSWhere 2008 site.

If you’d like to subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have these interviews delivered directly to your feed reader, click here.

Please join me in welcoming, Nate Westheimer.

Please state your name, title, and years at current company/position:
I’m Nate Westheimer, and I’ve been the CEO and Founder of BricaBox, LLC for the last year and a half. Meanwhile, I’ve also served as a consultant for National Public Media.

What are you currently up to? If entrepreunering (my word), tell me about your startup.
Today, I’m days off of launching my baby, BricaBox.com. BricaBox is a new kind of web publishing platform, focused on the social content market. We aim to power thousands of consumer and publisher generated websites, where, like with YouTube, Flickr, Yelp, and Wikipedia, people come together with the intention of collaborating on a base of content.

Why are you doing this? You could be doing so many other things in the world, what about this particular idea strikes you?
In a word, opportunity: Opportunity in the industry as a whole; opportunity in the web publishing market; opportunity in the social web space; opportunity in the semantic web. With so many opportunities floating around, it’s hard not to be in this business, doing what we’re doing. I really couldn’t imagine doing something else right now.

All startups should be addressing a problem in the market. What is that exact problem and how are you solving it?
The problem has been that tools to create social content sites have had a restrictively high barrier around them. We think there’s a ton of opportunity locked up when those tools are out of the hands of the masses.

Have you thought about your business model yet? I’m assuming so, so tell us a bit about it.
No – we hate business models. Just kidding… We’ve thought a lot about business models. Our model is to charge for premium features that make sense. This “make sense” part comes from our friend David Karp, who founded Tumblr and thinks a lot about “smart monetization.” Like him, we’re 100% against charging for things that have to do with creativity and personal expression. Therefore, an account is free, you can host your site on your own domain for free, you can run ads for free, you can host files for free, and you can skin the site with your own CSS for free. However, we’ll charge for excess storage, for complete white labeling (taking away the “BricaBar” at the top of the page), and for 100% advertising rights (our free accounts let you run advertising, but when you do, we monetize 50% of the page views).

If you’re looking at an ad-supported model, how are you going about it? Do you have in-house ad sales? Using a rep firm? What are the challenges that you’re facing with getting ad dollars?
While we’re still small, we’ll monetize the pages our users permit us to, using contextual ads served by Google. Meanwhile, we’ll forge relationships with brands who want to have an impact on the user generated content space, and look at partnerships with other media brands. In the future, we imagine we’ll be able to sell verticals of content on the platform: enough restaurant review sites, for example, will spawn a restaurant review ad channel.

If you’re selling a product/service/subscription, how is that coming along? What are the challenges? Are you using the freemium model?
We’ll start offering our premium accounts in the second quarter of this year, so the numbers are yet to come in. Nonetheless, the friends we have in the market tell us to expect 1% participation in the premium game.

As an entrepreneur, what are your thoughts on competition? How do you view competition?
We’re in the business of providing tools, and the fact of the matter is that the tools we provide are not provided by anyone else at the moment. That is to say: I’m not preoccupied by competition because anything we do is cutting edge and leading the space. I don’t mean to be arrogant, but that’s just what we’ve found. Our biggest competition is our own slowness.

If your competitor called you up to have coffee and discuss shop, what would you do? Would you go? What would you divulge?
I’ve been having a wonderful time meeting with our so-called competition (those folks the press wants to make our competition). Any time I talk to these folks, I’m very forthright about our vision for the technology. Certainly there are features I won’t discuss, but the overall vision is out there fore everyone, including our competition.

Is the current state of the economy playing to your favor? If so, why? If not, why? What is your forecast of the market throughout 2008 and do you see affects?
I think my business is rather market agnostic, mostly because we’re new and our product is new, which means no direct budgets are being cut. There may be some R&D budgets cut which negatively affects us, but for the most part, innovation will do well in whatever market. Meanwhile, I’m glad I’m not still in the securities market right now. This is not a fun market.

How much of your time is spent working? How much is spent with family? Have you found the entrepreneurial quality of life yet?
I’d say my quality of life is unfairly high. I spend a lot of time with my friends; but, I also spend as much time as possible with my business and folks interested in my business. This means a lot of my friends these days are in my industry, so it’s nearly impossible to separate personal from business. In the end, I’m lucky to be young and independent, because it’s this focus on the business and the industry which gives me an edge. Family will happen for me, but I can wait; business doesn’t wait.

DH: Nate, thank you for your time in answering these questions. I am sure there will be comments on the blog from some readers and appreciate you taking the time to answer them.

A new interview will be released M-F for the next 8 days… leading up to the launch of my book, Coloring Outside the Lines: Confessions of a Digital Native.

NY-based Takes All Types has officially launched this evening after their demo at the February NY Tech Meetup. Takes All Types claims to be, "the first effort that uses social media to recruit blood donors nationwide". I've embedded their demo video below. FYI, the company is setup as a non-profit 501(c)(3).

The idea is simple: add the Facebook application and enter your blood type and location. Takes All Types keeps track of emergency blood needs around the country and if your blood type is needed in your location, they will notify you to go and give blood. Once you signup, you can download a card to keep in your wallet with your blood information.

There are two keys for this application to work: the TAT team must always have the latest information on needed blood requests and there must be enough people using the application to fill the local need.

The founders also suggest adding the application even if you can't or don't want to give blood because then you can share it with your friends.

It's a refreshing idea after all of the poke, kick, piss, shoot, pluck and wiggle apps on Facebook.

Cameron Price, Chief Technology Officer at Mint Digital, explains how the New York and London based company creates cross platform entertainment properties for a variety of clients by fusing new media and traditional media. Clients include MTV Networks, ABC Family and the BBC.

• Focuses on creating a hybrid between new media and traditional media
• Receives revenue from clients who want to use new media to enhance a new or already existing traditional media property
• Creates communities like Islandoo where viewers can interact with television programs

This is the first interview in the CEO & Founders Series blogged exclusively here at DarrenHerman.com. Over the past two weeks, I have reached out to a handful of my friends who are Founders/CEOs of their respective startup or established digital media company and conducted a simple email interview for all to see. I hope you enjoy as I’ll be posting a new one each morning (EST).

If you’d like to subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed to have these interviews delivered directly to your feed reader, click here.

Please welcome, Haystack Media, a silicon alley based media company and current nextNY participants.

1. Your name and title:
Jordan Garbis - Founder, Chief Strategy Officer
Abby Schneiderman - Co-Founder, Chief Creative Officer

2. What are you currently up to? If entrepreunering (my word), tell me about your startup.

Well, where Haystack is now and where we started are two different animals. 2 years ago we launched a music social networking site all about connecting passionate music fans to new music, through trusted sources. We called them Tastemakers. We wanted to bring the John Cusack character from High Fidelity, the guy behind the record store counter, to the web. The idea was that if people thought that a guy like Darren Herman (yikes!) had great taste in music, they could go to your profile on Haystack, see what you had in your playlist, and listen to it right there.

As we continued to grow Haystack, we realized that no one destination was going to be able to able to reach the dominance of sites like Myspace. We asked ourselves how we could future proof destination-based music marketing and still allow an artist to reach the targeted masses that so desperately were seeking their music. In our view, the ad supported music model of the future was one that would an enable an artist, brand or label to float with the user. In mid 2007, we created The Haystack Network, which is now our primary product to address that need. To date, we’ve aggregated publishers representing over 42MM monthly unique visitors that provide ad space on their website to serve viral widgets containing music sponsored by advertising. The widgets themselves can be spread to individual users’ Myspace, Facebook and social networking pages and we can centrally control the release of both music and ad campaigns on an asset ID level.

Advertisers love it, because they can reach users in a real way, paired with the music they’re already looking for. Artists are happy because those advertisers sponsor the distribution of their music to sites they would never be found on otherwise. And, the publishers love it because they’re getting paid premium CPMs for the placements.

3. Why are you doing this? You could be doing so many other things in the world, what about this particular idea strikes you?
We’re doing this first and foremost because we love music, love helping others find music, and love the excitement of being young entrepreneurs growing a business. Every single person on the Haystack team has some background in music (both on the business and performance side). Whether or not it’s through the destination or through Haystack’s distributed widget platform, ultimately what we’re doing is helping to bridge the gap between artist and fan, and enabling advertisers to reach users in a targeted way. We believe that distributed models are the future of the web and we’re excited about advances that will bring further portability to the content we’re distributing in the future. That just means we’ll have even more ways of helping people find music in the places that they already exist, on and offline.

4. All startups should be addressing a problem in the market. What is that exact problem and how are you solving it?

Artists spend a lot of time building destinations. Whether thats on Myspace, iMeem, iLike, Last.fm, or even Haystack, they make a very large investment on building out a central home for their fans to find their music and listen to it. But the fans themselves are fickle. Recent news suggests traffic on sites like Myspace and Facebook are declining as users shift from new hot website to new hot website. We want to enable an artist with the means to future proof against that and build portable applications that can live anywhere. That way, when their fans move off of a destination they can take that music and promote it wherever or however they please. And ditto for the advertiser that’s getting the benefit of riding along with an artist.

5. Have you thought about your business model yet? I’m assuming so, so tell us a bit about it.

Of course we have. We’re ad supported and always have been. We believe that we’re producing a premium CPM product and we’ve proved that with our early clients.

6a. If you’re looking at an ad-supported model, how are you going about it? Do you have in-house ad sales? Using a rep firm? What are the challenges that you’re facing with getting ad dollars?

We have both in-house and sales and ad sales partnerships across the industry. We publicly announced a partnership with Clearspring in September, and that has been going great. Haystack encourages the publishers that are working with us to throw resources at it as well, and we give them financial incentive to do so.

6b. If you’re selling a product/service/subscription, how is that coming along? What are the challenges? Are you using the freemium model?

It’s all free and all ad supported. Guess you can call it freemium if you consider that music has an inherent value and we’re monetizing that and delivering it free to the consumer.

7. As an entrepreneur, what are your thoughts on competition? How do you view competition?

We love competition; it drives us to create better products, and keeps us on our game. Some of our competitors are brilliant and offer unique approaches that we would never have thought of. We use their products every day and are always thinking of ways we might be able to work together rather than independently.

8. If your competitor called you up to have coffee and discuss shop, what would you do? Would you go? What would you divulge?

It happens all the time. In fact, on Monday, we’re having lunch with a company some might definitely call one of our competitors. We’re totally excited to meet with them and we will most likely tell them everything we’re up to. The way we view it, the minute one of our ideas launches, anyone on the web with any know-how will be able to copy us. It’s a matter of finding the right partners and seeing how we might be able to leverage each others’ strengths to be able to build the best product possible.

9. Is the current state of the economic market playing to your favor? If so, why? If not, why? What is your forecast of the market throughout 2008 and do you see affects? Macro and Micro economic theory would be interesting to hear about.

The economic market affects everything. When there is less money flowing through the economy it has a trickle down affect to the advertising market whether the big guys like Google publicly acknowledge that or not. The market is in a downturn right now and historically those cycles suggest that we should be able to pull out of it. What it means for us now is that the discretionary budgets at many agencies and major brands are being cut, so we’re having to make pricing concessions in order to entice those buyers to buy. But with anything, if the value is there, and we can create valuable and limited supply, we eventually should be able to stabilize price competition and have a healthy flow of ad dollars coming in.

10. How much of your time is spent working? How much is spent with family? Have you found the entrepreneurial quality of life yet?

Let’s just put it this way: over the course of the last few years a LOT of time has been spent on Haystack and we’re lucky to have such supportive friends and family who have been here cheering us along the whole way. There have been many sleepless nights but it’s all been fun and worth it. We’re both always thinking of new ideas and bouncing new concepts off each other. You have to be in it for the love of it, because at a startup you certainly won’t get rich unless you’ve built a product that users or businesses are dying for. We know this is a long road and we’re fully prepared to stay on this amazing rollercoaster ride that is the life being an entrepreneur.

DH: Jordan & Abby, thank you for your time… I’m sure there will be a few comments on this blog and we look forward to you participating in answering the readers questions.