Klout, PeerIndex, Kred, and even Empire Avenue need to go away. These metrics-application rely on our need to know our “value” and will only continue to perpetuate the dilution of online engagement. This is an open call to the people that use these services, or are simply indexed by them, to opt-out and delete your presence on Klout, Kred, PeerIndex and Empire Avenue.

Brandon Hance, Founder and CEO of Los Angeles based GoodThreads, went through college as a student athlete playing football for USC while studying business. Soon into college realized that he didn’t want a career as a professional athlete and instead quickly caught the entrepreneur/startup bug. That little bug took Brandon for an exciting ride in the world of business.

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.

I was reading an article by Robert Scoble earlier today about how amazing Spotify and some other news app are on Facebook, and how awesome frictionless sharing is for the Internet. I openly can’t stand OpenGraph. It’s the one feature that stuck with me the most from the F8 conference this past September.

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.

Getting “Leads” does not mean money in the bank. Having paying “Customers” is what makes the cash register roar. This article will cover two things; First, the top mistakes small business owners make that end with inquiries leading you to the exit door before making a sale. Second, how to get leads.

Among some tech press releases from this week include a few announcements from local LA-based venture, ImageCollect, a micro-stock celebrity photo library, high-res and all all prelicensed. In just over three months, they’ve doubled their library to 3 million photos and are adding 40,000 images per day. The immediate goal is to reach 5M photos by early 2012, all accessible via their streamlined subscription-based service with real time celebrity photo coverage and older archives.

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.