These past few months we have seen the rebirth of virtual worlds. With sites like TurnTable.fm, Chill, and Shaker to name a few. Although Worlize may be news to some they have been around for just over a year and they are based right here in Los Angeles. Worlize is a user-created social gaming and chat platform for Facebook and social networks including Twitter, MySpace and OpenSocial.
In this interview, we catch up with an amazing TechZulu Spotlight alumnus, Joey Flores, CEO of Earbits, a hand-curated music discovery engine that allows its bands and artists to advertise and promote their own material, events, announcements, contests, whatever. Earbits provides value to the listeners with awesome new music without non-pertinent commercials about California cheese, car insurance, or whatever; and provides value to the musicians by giving them an additional voice.
Morris May is a computer graphics (CG) film big wig—or at least he was. It is not that Morris is no longer a ‘big wig’ or even an FX supervisor credit for that matter, but rather he splits building ‘ 3D nebulas’ for Reliance Films with surfing. He is not the average computer nerd, one might say.
It’s no mystery that smartphone competition is higher than ever, especially with the holiday season creeping up on consumers all over the nation. Samsung has brought the fight for consumer attention right to Apple’s doorstep, using the long-lines and “unrecognizable upgrades” as targets for their brass-knuckles boxing approach to marketing.
As you all know TechZulu is a huge supporter of Startup Weekend, and when we had the chance to be part of the very first Orange County (my home town) Startup Weekend we jumped on board. We are going to do what we do best and bring you all the awesome presentation action live tonight at 5PM PST.
It’s going to be a HUGE weekend here with the LA Auto Show in town. Expected to be one of the biggest shows yet, the Convention Center will see thousands of gearheads and enthusiasts ready to set their eyes on (and their asses in) the latest developments from Detroit, Japan, and Europe. We got an early peek at the cars earlier this week through the Autoshow’s press days and honestly, it just wasn’t enough time to experience every vehicle on the floor.
Mike Jones may be known for his most recent role as CEO of MySpace, but this Internet entrepreneur is no stranger to the startup world. He’s had multiple exits (his company Userplane sold to AOL for nearly $40 million and Tsavo Media drew a cool $75 million from Cyberplex) and also advises private startups
So you have a startup idea, perhaps some level of execution or traction, but you or your co-founders are doing it blind; you trudge along with a little advice or knowledge you’ve picked up in torrented audio books after finally having made that decision to quit the 9-5. You continue to build your venture as lean as possible and hit a personal make it or break it point with a couple of unsuccessful investor meetings and very little guidance. So what’s the next step? You have faith in your idea and your company but the littlest things are occupying the biggest blocks of your time and you feel like you’re getting tunnel vision.
Today marks another great day for the Los Angeles startup scene as Hello Music, a portfolio company of the Elevator Labs, has reached a major membership milestone – 100,000 active members. This is a monumental milestone for the musician-focused marketplace. The company was founded in 2010 and has since been on the rise offering a digital marketplace full of opportunities for musicians all around the world. In 2011 Hello Music became the fastest growing musician-focused company in the U.S thanks the to 42% month-over-month growth.
Only a few weeks ago, Google executives announced that Google+ Pages for brands and companies were on the way. Anticipation of Google opening up the doors to businesses on Google+ has been a long awaited feature-add to their fast growing, and widely used platform. Well, by the end of today – according to Louis Grey – that wait will finally be over.
