by Brian Solis

Credit: Sam_UL via Flickr

Over the weekend, my latest post ran over at TechCrunch to help entrepreneurs, startups and businesses in general, focus on generating revenue and growing their business during this tumultuous and uncertain economic climate. It was time for something constructive, as the doom and gloom crowd have enjoyed far too much airtime. Bottom line, fear is pervasive, and while some fear is generally good for us, widespread panic is the catalyst for poor decision-making. Whether this post is rudimentary or it instills hope and direction, the point is that the business world needs more “halftime” speeches right now.

“Don’t worry about getting ahead, instead, just survive…Cutting deeper and quicker is the formula to survive.” – Sequoia Capital

There’s a distinct difference between survival and real world business and without continuous expert advice specific to the landscape and climate of each business ecosystem, many companies may unwittingly lock themselves in an isolated panic room instead of taking strategic steps to evolving and growing the business opportunity that exists today.

General advice is just that, general. One prevailing set of strategies and recommendations doesn’t apply to all.

In a conversation with veteran CEO and financier Steve Larsen, currently co-founder of Krugle, Inc., he advised, “Of course, don’t be stupid. Have enough cash to run your business, but I think the doom and gloom crowd are getting too much airtime. Look for opportunities. Difficult times are when they’ll most likely occur. When we’re at ‘steady state’ and things are normal, good opportunities are much harder to find with GREAT opportunities nearly impossible. It is during periods of tumult and transition when you can spot things that lead to the greatest returns – if you are alert. So be alert.”

In every recession, abundant opportunities are inherently rife. To simply believe that this is a generic time to step off of the playing field to warm benches or take a seat in the spectator bleachers in the hopes of emerging once again to readily have a shot at winning the game is illogical. Business, and customers, do not stop making decisions – they’re just more discerning during volatile economic climates. But make no mistake, if you choose to stop vying for customer attention, the world will move ahead – without you.

Read:

The full post on TechCrunch.

The unedited version on PR 2.0 (with embedded, printable Word or PDF versions).

UPDATE: Fear Kills Businesses is a “rising blog post by attention” according to Technorati.

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Jaiku or Facebook

Subscribe to the bub.blicio.us RSS Feed.

by Brian Solis

The spirit of entrepreneurialism is what drives all of us to innovate and excel. Economics aside, there is no better time than now to pursue and invest in that next big idea. This is your time to shine and we want to celebrate you, your vision and help you succeed.

Announcing Ignition Los Angeles.

Microsoft Startup Zone, in partnership with The TechSet (Stephanie Agresta and yours truly), is bringing together the tech innovators in Southern California to celebrate the launch of BizSpark, a new program for those who contribute to a dynamic ecosystem that helps startups flourish.

Join us at Beso in Hollywood for free hors d’oeuvres and drinks, and also the opportunity to network with some of the most influential technologists around. All attendees can participate in a “twitter raffle” to win an XBox 360 Elite.

Beso
6350 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90028

Make sure to RSVP here: http://ignition-losangeles.eventbrite.com/

If you’ve missed our previous events, you can relive the experiences below:

New York

Austin

Connect with me on:
Twitter, FriendFeed, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, Jaiku or Facebook

Subscribe to the bub.blicio.us RSS Feed.

By Alison McNeill

If you’ve got a startup in Silicon Valley, or anywhere for that matter, chances are that you’ve heard of Ron Conway. The so-called “Godfather of Silicon Valley” has made over 20 investments in Web 2.0 companies such as Twitter, Digg, PBWiki, Seesmic, the list goes on and on.

Recently, Ron has been very vocal about his advice for startups in the downward economy recommending to his companies that they conserve cash and cut costs, even renegotiate all expenses, including rent.

We grabbed Ron for a quick interview at the Web 2.0 Summit last week to hear for ourselves so listen up!

by Brian Solis

Panic leads to the further declination and eradication of progress.

Yes the market is slipping.

Yes, the financial market is resetting.

But the U.S economy, actually, the global economy, is a yo-yo on an escalator. It might go up and down, but eventually, it’s always going up.

Those who do not proactively contribute to the economy’s escalation are taking away from its ability to instill confidence and rally support.

So instead of running into a cave, shaking your head in disbelief, crying aloud, or scaring the sh!t out of everyone, ask yourself, “what are you going to do about it?”

VCs are calling for startups to cut expenses.

Entrepreneurs hear that directive clearly as, “cut expenses.”

But, which expenses do they cut?

Here’s a simple answer…Don’t cut or eliminate the expenses that strategically and cost effectively help you and your business engage customers and also the respective influencers who reach them and their social graph.

This is the time for entrepreneurs to realize that this is their opportunity to shine – especially if they have built something that businesses or real people can use to streamline their workflow or improve day-to-day routine.

In a down economy, tomorrow’s leaders are born today. It takes vision, focus, and a hyper-connected sense of what customers are looking for and where.

There is still valuable, helpful, and marketable innovation taking place today that people are willing to embrace.

Blindly cutting expenses for the sake of cutting expenses only fuels the hysteria.

VC’s, help educate the people running your investments on how to best navigate these rough waters.

Remember, any company that intentionally pulls itself from the radar screens of potential and existing customers will find itself on a direct path to the Dead Pool.

The question is, what are you going to do about it?

Sequoia Capital (via GigaOM)

Via Inquisitr

Connect with me on:
Twitter, Jaiku, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, FriendFeed, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, or Facebook

by Jackie Peters

The Disruption in the Music Industry session at Web 2.0 Expo NY was one I wanted to make sure I attended. I have a keen interest in the way that the social web is effecting the music industry.

Brothers, and iLike founders Ali Partovi and Hadi Partovi are two pioneers who genuinely understand the potential of the social web to reshape the music industry. While old-school industry heavies have been doing their best to avoid the impending transformation, the Partovi brothers have embraced the opportunity presented and offered artists new ways to monetize and strengthen their brands through closer engagement with fans.

The brothers Partovi gave a clear and concise breakdown of how the shifting landscape in online music has diminished more traditional monetization opportunities, but at the same time created new, and potentially more lucrative ones. While physical record sales are tanking online record sales are growing, and new revenue streams are surfacing.

Downloads
The brothers highlighted emerging trends in the online music space that offer new opportunities. DRM-free music is one trend that they highlighted, sighting that the format allows for expanded innovation and the signal that labels are finally embracing technology.

Artists as Channels
Artists can now establish a deeper level of engagement, and additional monetization models by creating what they referred to as “direct to fan media channels” – artist channels that utilize blogs, video messages, live streaming performances and interviews to create personalized, syndicated streams that fans can tap into and share. Players in this space are channels like MySpace, iLike, Kyte, Nabbr and ReverbNation. Revenue can be generated from advertising as well as subscription models. As an example, the Partovi brothers sighted the band U2.

U2 has leveraged the iLike platform to create a space where their fans can feel more connected and engaged with the band, and it works! The band has nearly 3 million fans on iLike, versus just under 200,000 friends on MySpace. iLike offers a suite of tools to leverage the passion of fans and extend that passion out to their social circles on a variety of networks in addition to the main iLike site.

Live Performances
While album sales are taking a nose dive, ticket sales are at an all time high, and there is a clear path to monetization; sales of physical goods being more reliable than advertising or subscription models. Platforms like iLike, LiveNation and StubHub take advantage of social discovery, alerts and recommendation engines to help bands connect with their fans and fans connect with each other to generate awareness, excitement and attendance for live events.

Streaming
According to the brothers “streaming is the new downloading.” Sites like Pandora, LastFM/CBS, AOL, Video YouTube, Yahoo, Rhapsody, iMeem, MySpace and iLike all offer streaming music. Revenue opportunities in this space come from advertising and subscription models. New opportunities highlighted are mobile and syndication.

Announcing the iLike Music Platform
The brothers also announced the new iLike Music Platform, a developer platform that will allow anyone to add playlists and iLike functionality to their own websites and Facebook applications.

It’s refreshing to see the music industry finally starting to wake up and take notice, thanks to innovators like Hadi and Ali who recognized opportunities early and rose to the challenge. I like to think that the music industry is an early indicator of the direction other industries are heading in. Music makes the most sense as an early entrant as it’s main products can be produced, warehoused, sold and distributed entirely electronically. I think it’s time for other industries, including film and consumer goods to get an early jump on things and take heed to the lessons taught by the music industry.

By Miiko Mentz

Given that Bub.blicio.us readers/viewers are highly tech savvy, I will take the liberty to assume that many of you are broadcasting your life on the Web and following and interacting with your friends using lifestreaming services such as FriendFeed and Seesmic. I enjoy both services so it was great fun catching up with Seesmic Founder Loic Le Meur and FriendFeed Co-founder Bret Taylor recently where we turned over the Bub.blicio.us mic to Bret and had him interview Loic.

The two are speaking at a MIT/Standfor Venture Lab (VLAB) event at Stanford tonight where Kara Swisher, co-executive editor of All Things Digital, Wall Street Journal, will be moderating the “Lifestreaming: The Real-time Web” panel. Softtech VC Founder Jeff Clavier and Pownce Co-founder Leah Culver will be joining Loic and Brett on tonight’s panel. Tonight’s VLAB event is sold out, but there are a limited number of walk-in tickets available. For more information visit: VLAB Lifestreaming: The Real-time Web.

by Brian Solis

We’re looking forward to seeing you tomorrow night, 9/16 at Eden NYC, a stylish and elegant rooftop Oasis from 6 – 10 p.m. Don’t forget to RSVP for the party.

This special event wouldn’t have materialized without the help of our sponsors, so please make sure to visit their sites and see if they can help you. Plus, we have a new sponsor to introduce to you. HeyCosmo just launched its new line of very clever and helpful mobile applications at DEMOfall 2008 and the team is now back in NY to celebrate with all of you.

HeyCosmo adds a pinch of awesome to your life. It becomes your private concierge and secretary available from the Web and the mobile phone for FREE! Want to find out if your friends are available to hang out this evening? Looking for a plumber who can check out your problem within the hour? Want to find an Italian restaurant in NYC to accommodate your party of five at 6:00pm? Deliver your messages and get a confirmation in 60 seconds or less. “Guaranteed.” New services include, Concierge for personal services, Blaster for voice SMS, Prankster, and TelEmoticon, which bringing emoticons to life.

Empressr is the first of its kind rich Internet application that provides users with the tools to create and share multimedia visual stories online. Armed with only a Web browser, users can combine photographs, artwork, text, music, videos, audio recordings and charts to produce anything from a simple slide show to a state-of-the-art business presentation. Empressr embraces the best of what the Internet has to offer with features such as asset tagging, Web mashups, embedded data and a comprehensive selection of rich media features. Once created, an empressr can be published to the community site or your social networking page, sent in an email and even embedded in a blog or wiki.

Mzinga is a leading provider of business social media solutions that drive growth, innovation, and learning. Its combination of highly scalable technology, rich domain expertise, and moderation services enables businesses to harness the collective intelligence of employees, customers, and partners to achieve tangible business results.

Marketing, customer service, and human resources professionals deploy Mzinga’s “pervasive community” solutions to achieve higher revenues, lower costs, greater workplace satisfaction, and improved customer support.

Thank you again Empressr, HeyCosmo, and Mzinga!

Connect with me on:
Twitter, Jaiku, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, FriendFeed, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, or Facebook

by Brian Solis

TechCrunch released the names of the 52 companies debuting at TC50 this week in San Francisco. I’m excited to see so many interesting and promising companies on the list including those started by good friends from Los Angeles and all over the world.

Good luck everyone!

Monday, September 8, 2008

Session 1: Youth and Culture. 9:00-10:15am

Blah Girls – Backed by Ashton Kutcher, Blah Girls is a gossip site that features a group of animated teenage girls who provide opinions on what’s going on in the world of entertainment

Tweegee – A hub for tweens, Tweegee offers the youth market a suite of online tools for social interaction and organization

Schryk – Web-based financial software for children aimed at promoting financial literacy and good saving habits

Hangout Industries- Blends social networking with virtual worlds by creating a 3D, online environment where 16-24 year olds can chat and share media

Session 2: Memes & News. 10:30 – 11:45am

DotSpots – Tracks the memes spreading across the web, aggregates the content associated with them, and gives everyone Wikipedia-like control over that content

Angstro – Lets you set up a feed of news about your friends, instead of news by your friends

LiveHit – Tracks the music, videos, and entertainment sites people are clicking on right now

Quant the News – Creator of Stockmood.com, a service that tracks the sentiments of online news stories about stocks and then measures their potential impact on the direction of those stocks’ prices

Session 3: Enterprise. 2:30 – 3:45pm

Fair Software – Creates virtual shares around software projects that gives eachcontributor a portion of any resulting revenues

Yammer – A web application designed for businesses and organizations that asks its users to answer the question, “What are you working on?”

ConnectiveLogic – Along with the company’s real-time middleware, Blueprint will make it easier for developers to design, generate code, and deploy complex multi-core software applications without requiring expertise in multi-threaded software development

Devunity – A platform for writing code in a browser-based editor that doesn’t force developers to use a proprietary layer

OpenTrace – Traces items through the supply chain and adds them together to show the impact of products on the environment

Session 4: Advertising & Commerce Monetization. 3:45 – 5:00pm

Burt – Collects user data to tailor individual advertising campaigns and target users more effectively

Adgregate Market – Brings online stores to consumers through a display ad that is a fully transactional widget

Adrocket – Contextual text-based advertising for email; assigns keywords to each address depending on known demographic and contextual data

Otherinbox – Provides an easy way to quarantine the spam and the messages you receive from online services

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Session 5: Collaboration. 9:00 – 10:15am

Tingz – Offers a unified platform for delivering internet content across multiple devices including mobile phones and PCs

MIXTT – A group based social network/dating site that encourages real world interaction that’s more comfortable than the 1-on-1 format of most similar sites

Imindi – Based on neuroscientific principles, Imindi’s Thought Engine tries to exceed human thought and help its users find new ideas, concepts, and questions on the Web

Popego – Surfaces the most meaningful information from within your social graph based on your interests and other factors

Session 6: Finance & Statistics. 10:30 -11:45am

PersonalIRA – Allows users to shadow a professional investment advisor’s portfolio, automatically executing trades (which most brokerage sites cannot do)

Emerginvest – Offers commentary and analysis on Emerging Markets and tools that provide you with information on how to diversify globally

ExchangeP – Dubbed a “fantasy stock market,” ExhangeP’s service allows users to sign up for free and start investing in private companies

Me-trics – Lets you see how mood, weight, and goals correlate with other metrics, including web services like Facebook or RescueTime

iCharts – YouTube for embeddable, interactive charts

Session 7: Mobile. 2:15 – 3:30pm

Mytopia – A gaming platform that lets players compete across mobile devices and social networks

Tonchidot -Makes the Sekai Camera, a camera system that aims to merge the virtual and real worlds by using a digital device as a viewfinder

Mobclix – An analytics and monetization platform for iPhone developers

FitBit – Developing a small wireless sensor called the Fitbit Tracker, which automatically records data about a person’s activities, calories burned, sleep quality, steps, and distance throughout the day

Session 8: Language & Communication Tools. 3:45 – 5:00pm

Alfabetic – Translates any blog or Website into another language and places ads alongside it in the new tongue

Postbox – Based on Mozilla technology, Postbox saves users time when looking for particular information within their email

Swype – A new method of text input on touch screens; does away with traditional “hunt and peck” in favor of a more fluid motion

Dropbox – Provides an easy way to backup your files, share them with coworkers and friends, and synchronize them between computers

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Session 9: Rich Media. 9:00 – 10:15am

Videosurf – A visual video search engine that allow users to search across millions of videos for a given actor and to view summaries of videos through a series of detected keyframes

GazoPa – An image search engine developed by Hitachi that uses visual similarities between photos to suggest matches (rather than simply relying on keywords)

Fotonauts – A photo sharing application that turns every album instantly into a Web page

Bojam – Although there are a slew of online music services already on the Web, Bojam is trying to do something a bit different: it wants to connect musicians and allow them to collaborate over the Web

Session 10: Games. 10:30 – 11:45am

Grokit – A “Massively Multi-Player Online Learning Game”

Akoha – A web-based social game played with trading cards aimed at spreading good deeds around the world

Atmosphir – A platform for creating 3D interactive games by selecting blocks (such as a sand castle tower, fireball-breathing bird, or trap door) and snapping them onto a grid

PlaYce – Provides a 3D virtual world inside the browser for games and social interaction that is based on the real world

Session 11: Vertical Social Networking. 2:15 – 3:30pm

Birdpost – A social network for birdwatchers

Closet Couture – Fashionistas need a social network too and Closet Couture is looking to give them one by connecting them to other fashion lovers, stylists, and retailers

Footnote – For those looking to create historical records of loved ones or themselves, Footnote offers a timeline-based archive where you can upload photos and documents linked to historical databases

Causecast – Causecast leverages social networking to connect nonprofits, leaders, celebrities and brands with those who want to make a difference through good causes

Shattered Reality Interactive – A new massively multiplayer online game (think World of Warcraft) that lets the crowd guide the direction of future expansions

Session 12: Research & Recommendations. 3:45 – 5:00pm

GoodGuide – Provides information on the health, environmental, and social impacts of products and companies

GoPlanit – A one-click travel planner that assembles a customized trip itinerary with the click of a button; also supports mobile microblogging

TrueCar – A site that allows users to assess the current market value of their automobiles in a given geographic area

Goodrec – <!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:”Cambria Math”; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1107304683 0 0 159 0;} @font-face {font-family:Calibri; panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:swiss; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073750139 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:”Calibri”,”sans-serif”; mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-size:10.0pt; mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.0in 1.0in 1.0in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –> A mobile and online recommendation service that provides brief, to-the-point recommendations from friends and trusted sources

Connect with me on:
Twitter, Jaiku, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Pownce, Plaxo, FriendFeed, Plurk, Identi.ca, BackType, or Facebook