We’ve graduated!

Today Jordan* and I finished fiddling with servers and moved into new digs at Media Temple. For those of you subscribed to the WordPress.com feed here directly, please follow us over to the Feedburner powered http://blog.bootuplabs.com/feed.

*yep, Jordan Behan is working with us here at Bootup. That needs a longer post, which we’ll do over on the new site.

East meets West BBQ at Redwerks

Sunir from Fresh Books emailed me a couple of weeks ago to let me know that he was coming out West in order to help break the continental divide. How? With a traditional Canadian summer time BBQ!

Sunir, Colleen, and Redwerks are hosting a roof top BBQ this evening starting at 5:30pm, and they’re going to kick everyone out at 10:30pm to find another watering hole. Let them know you’re coming via the Upcoming entry.

It’s great when we have more people traveling physically between different high tech centers in Canada. I already feel bad enough that I don’t make it to Victoria or Calgary often enough, and that the most often connection between the Canadian Internet Mafia tends to happen at conferences…in the US So thanks to Sunir for taking the initiative and to Colleen and Redwerks for hosting.

And yes, a thousand apologies for the extremely last minute notice – I had originally planned to be down in San Francisco at the Structure 08 conference, along with Trevor O and Layerboom (his virtualization / cloud computing startup that we’re working with here at Bootup). C’est la vie! Now I get to enjoy charred meat in Canada, instead!

Bring Caterina, Stewart, and Sonnet Home!

Brendon threw up a facebook group.

Jordan created a Strutta game: Most compelling reason for Caterina and Stewart to move back home contest!

So, upload your video to Strutta and let’s get them to move back.

Also, you’ll be able to find everything here: www.bringcaterinaandstewarthome.com soon.

 

 

Loud3r Launches

Here’s a very cool concept for a site that can generate a ton of equity value vs. the effort put into building it.  I actually know that Lowell has put a lot of energy into building out Loud3r, and it shows, but compared to what DWave is trying to do, it’s no huge technical accomplishment.  It just works.  On the web, what matters most is a fast, clean, easy to use site that give me only the information I want. In fact, I’m sure my friend Brian Sugar over at Sugar Inc (home of the popular site popsugar.com among others) would agree with Lowell’s approach to chunking up vertical content sites based on domain name vs sub-domain name like Guy Kawasaki‘s Alltop.  Regardless of what you think, you should check it out, bookmark/subscribe to the sites that are relevant to you, and see how it goes.  As for me, I’ve pointed my RSS reader to found3r.com.

PS: I’m still holding out hope for similar, more personalized, feeds to starting coming out of the Something Simpler offices.

Write-up about tech industry in the Province

Donat Group‘s Rochelle Grayson was profiled in the article on Sunday.

“What I love about the tech industry is that it’s incredibly creative. It really thrives on creativity and innovation,” says Grayson, 39. “You have to be adaptable and prepared to re-think things all the time.”

Founders and Funders Vancouver Postponed

Unfortunately, we’ve had to postpone the Founders and Funders event that was to be held tomorrow, June 17th. We’ll be updating this post with details on the new date once it is finalized.

Where are all the Angels?

Everyone knows about Bob’s angel forum, and Mike’s angel network, and don’t forget about Dave’s Canadian Financing Forum, but those all attract a certain type of angel.  Someone who is already interested in investing in tech companies, AND who is already being courted by 10 other companies.  

You can also check out Basil Peter’s Angel Blog for some really good hints.

Many people ask me, where you find Angel investors?  If you’re really enterprising, and want to think outside the box, look no further.  My friend, and Angel investor, Alison Lawton, is helping to organize Unite with Art Gala for Unicef.
 

Hello friends!
Surprise, it’s another event invitation! Fortunately, my work with UNICEF has given me the opportunity to bridge my love for the Arts with my passion for social change. Please join me as we showcase pieces from internationally renowned artists (such as Bill Reid, Gabryel Harrison, Tiko Kerr, Fred Herzog and Robert Davidson) while raising funds for the fight against HIV/AIDS at this unique, worthwhile event. Entertainment, great food and wine are all included for your enjoyment. I really hope to see you there!
In appreciation of your support,
Alison

Hope to see you hanging out with all the other Angels that should be there.  And who knows, maybe you’ll pick up some art that suits you.

Lypp adds Outlook conference calling automation

I was talking to Eric Lagerway, CEO of Lypp.  He mentioned that they released their Outlook plug-in for Lypp today.  You simply schedule a meeting like you normally would, and then press the conference button, which sets up a call in number for you and informs the attendees all in one shot.  A very cool addition to an already easy to use and low cost conference calling solution.  

Disclaimer: I’m a board advisor to Lypp

Save the date for Founders & Funders Vancouver June 17th

I am pleased to announce the first West Coast Founders & Funders event. I attended the first iteration that took place in January in Toronto, and immediately started scheming with David Crow on how and when to expand it. I just spoke with David, and he’ll be flying out to join us for the event. The next Toronto event is June 4th, and there may be a few slots still available. I missed the Montreal event on May 14th, but I do intend to continue cross pollination with other cities and I hope that other Vancouverites will continue to come along.

After the success and excitement of the visiting VCs at VC Forum last week, I expect several visitors from the US to be in attendance, as well as an excellent selection of local founders and funders.

What:	Founders & Funders Vancouver June 17th Founders & Funders is a private, invite only social event. Founders and Funders is dedicated: to helping Canadian entrepreneurs to meet each other; meet potential funders: angel, VC or other money sources; to have fun; and see how we can help each other create the NEXT BIG successful company.
When:	Wednesday, June 17, 2008 5:30 PM to 10:00 PM

We are limited to 100 seats. The fee for the dinner is $100 which will include drinks and dinner. This is a private networking event and we are selecting the audience to ensure a quality group of attendees. And to provide the best chance to network together.

How do I get an Invite?

If you would like to attend the dinner, please fill out the following form and let us know who you are.

We will be contacting those invited with details on the registration and attendance details for the dinner in the next week.

In addition to Bootup Labs, we are looking for sponsors, so please contact us if you are interested.

Headed to Under the Radar

I’m off to Under the Radar Monday. Looks like Colleen, CEO of hot, recently funded, Vancouver startup Movieset will be presenting, or should I say representing. And also I’m looking forward to hearing Lowell talk about Loud3r. He’s good friends with my brother and has been keeping me up to date as he progressed with his company — very cool concept. Other companies that will be there are:

PRESENTING COMPANIES:

• 33Across - Identifies influential online users
• Animoto – Create personalized, professional-quality videos from images and music, offering a new alternative to traditional online photo slideshows
• AudioMicro – Stock music and sound effects licensing platform
• Aviary -Suite of web-based applications for people who create and a marketplace to sell that content
• BigStage – Animate yourself with cutting-edge virtualization technology
• Comedy.com – aggregated comedy entertainment site
• CrowdSPRING – crowdsourcing of creative talent.
• Curse – MMO gamer community.
• Dizzywood – A virtual world that allows kids to dress up 3D avatars, play games, explore worlds and meet new friends in a safe environment
• ffwd - Organized, multi-platform, video content delivered via a browser, with social network awareness, and predictive recommendations.
• GumGum - A licensing and distribution platform for online content
• Hollywood Interactive Group – A mass casual mmo based on reality TV concepts and Hollywood stardom.
• Jacked – Browser-based “second screen” for TV viewers, which provides synchronized content and a real-time interactive experience that complements what they’re watching on TV
• Jygy – Mobile social networking with SMS
• Keibi – Moderation and classification of user generated content (UGC)
• Kosmix – Categorization engine that crawls billions of Web pages in a unique manner to create algo-generated home pages
• Lil’Grams – Tracking your babies memories in real time.
• Loomia – Social recommendations bridging established social networking sites with media websites
• Loud3r – Aggregating and publishing semantically searched content
• MediaForge – We’ve got widgets comin’ out our ads
• Mochi Media – Provides independent game developers with analytics, distribution, tools and monetization while providing advertisers with turnkey opportunities to reach the one in three Internet users who play online games.
• MovieSet - Platform that brings behind-the-scenes filmmaking online, giving fans authentic access through its proprietary toolkit for Producers.
• Mytopia -Social gaming community for Web, Mobile, Smartphone and TV
• Nesting – Organizing family activities; scheduling, networking and more
• Overlay.tv - video commerce platform that overlays contextual information directly onto online video content
• Pikum! – A new kind of betting game
• PluggedIn – Enjoy stunning, broadcast-quality music videos from your browser
• PutPlace – Media storage all the way from Ireland
• Shift Control Media – Shift Control Media is a branded entertainment company, specializing in the creation of original Brandworthy Games, as well as the development of game and emerging media strategy
• SocialMedia Networks – enables developers of social media applications to monetize their traffic
• Sometrics – Social Analytics and Social Ad Platform
• Verismo Networks – High quality video over broadband without a pc.
• Vivaty – Brings together your friends, photos and videos into a personal virtual scene, in your browser
• Vusion – HD Quality Video over the internet
• Wetpaint – Wiki powered websites
• Xumii – Take all your contacts from your social networks with you — on your phone!