Archive for the ‘Podcasts’ Category

TWiST #38 with Stefan Weitz

Saturday, January 30th, 2010

 
 
Download the MP3 Here!

This week’s guest was Stefan Weitz, Director of Bing Search at Microsoft.  Not only was the show insightful as always but I think this was one of the funniest shows I’ve seen in awhile.  Not to mention Jason’s recent Twitter iPad joke, shame on the journalists who fell for that, Jason and Loren Feldman of 1938 Media put them in their place.  One last comments about the iPad, No USB No iPad.

In the “Ask Jason” segment we hear from Dewayne Carel, who asks “How do I keep momentum with my blog (Modders Inc), the uniques spike then plateau back to original values?”.

During “Jason’s Shark Tank” we get to hear Andrew Hillman pitch MaroonDoor a solution for sometimes sticky Home Owners Association politics.

During the interview we hear a great discussion about, why Bing turned out so well.  Stefan’s past with Microsoft and his vision for search.  One interesting feature that was brought up was Bing and Twitter information.  If you go to Bing.com/twitter you can search Twitter content, I urge you to try it I thought it was interesting, try searching #TWiST.  Lastly Stefan mentioned the theme for the Bing Friday T-Shirt contest “Airports” if you’d like to win a Bing T-shirt simple @Bing with a query that exemplifies the theme and the team randomly picks a winner.

Rich DeMuro finishes with the news:

  • Facebook and a Foursquare killer
  • Roku seeks private funds for engineering and marketing
  • AT&T to launch Yelp competitor Buzz
  • iCurrent know available to everyone
  • Square announces Angels
  • Startup raises $230,000 using only LinkedIn

Please rate the show in the comments : 1-10 (10 being best)


TWiST is brought to you by our generous sponsors:

Bing Logo PowerVPS Logo webspy

TWiST #33 with Shawn Gold

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

Jason’s guest this week is Shawn Gold, CEO of online invitation startup, Cocodot.   Shawn and Jason have a long history together, including at Weblogs, Inc (where he was the President).  Shawn’s most recent venture, Cocodot, is looking to reshape the way people handle invitations for high end events – it’s the first online service that presents and invitation of high enough quality to use for important and elegant events like receptions and weddings.  Tune in to hear Shawn’s take on what it’s like to launch at TechCrunch50, his history with MySpace, and the lessons he’s learned from working at numerous tech startups.

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TWiST #32 with George Naspo

Saturday, December 12th, 2009

Jason’s guest on this week’s show is George Naspo, CEO of IKANO Communications.  George has tons of experience (30 years plus) in the business world during which he’s bought and sold numerous companies – he’s got some great insights into how to evaluate companies that you don’t want to miss.  George has built up a reputation over the years as a “fixer”, brought in to fix up companies and turn them into power houses – check out the full episode to see why he was brought in to turn around IKANO Communications and the great job he’s done there.

We’re also running a special contest this week thanks to IKANO and PowerVPS, we’re running a special contest this week.  We’re giving away free VPS hosting for life to 5 lucky TWiST viewers.  Just head on over to Twitter and tweet why you should win free hosting for life.  Just make sure to include both “#TWiST” and “@PowerVPS” in your tweet.

Finally, we’re very excited to welcome Bing (yes, that Bing) on as the newest sponsor of TWiST.  Stay tuned over the next few weeks to see some of the great programs that Microsoft will be working with us on to help out everyone in the startup community.  And in the mean time, make sure to head over and check out the amazing new Bing Maps beta, with a truly amazing interface and capabilities.

See you all next week!

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TWiST #31 with Jack Andrys

Monday, December 7th, 2009

Coming into the TWiST studio this week is Jack Andrys, CEO of WebSpy. Jack’s been running IT startups since about 1994 (prior to that he was a commercial diver for the construction industry, interesting change, right) and has built WebSpy into one of the leading providers of log analyzation software, with its products being used the world over.  Check out the full episode to see how Jack made his transition, what it took to start WebSpy and where its going in the future.

If you haven’t tried out any of WebSpy’s products, make sure you head over and take a look at them.  They’re rolling out a new Soho product soon (you can even help vote on the official logo for it) that’s perfect for parents and bosses who want to see how much of what traffic is being used, without breaking anyone’s privacy.

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TWiST #30 with Annie Duke [BONUS #4]

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Another bonus episode of TWiST – and Jason’s guest is the world’s best female poker player, Annie Duke!  Annie has one over $3,000,000 in tournaments, won the World Series of Poker and is a noted writer, blogger, philanthropist and TV personality (she was recently on Season 2 of “Celebrity Apprentice“).  Most impressively, she’s managed to turn her hobby of playing poker into a full on career and brand.  Plus, she’s launching her own startup soon, but its probably not what you’d expect.  Check out the entire episode to find out how she got started, what keeps her going, what’s coming up from her and so much more.

We’ll be having another TWiST bonus episode coming up this Wednesday @ 11am when Josh Williams, CEO of Gowalla stops by the studio, so make sure to tune in.

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TWiST #29 with Jim Lanzone

Wednesday, November 25th, 2009

On this episode of This Week In Startups, Jason is joined by Jim Lanzone, former CEO of Ask.com and now current CEO of Clicker. Clicker brings together a wide array of programming from traditional television to web originals. The site could quite possibly be the next gen version of TV guide with features such as listings, recommendations, show infos, and live streaming clips of the shows of your choice. Jason digs deep and chats with Jim about their debut at TechCrunch 50 to what the future holds for, what could be, a site that will integrate with people, families worldwide and become a household name.

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TWiST #27 with Matt Coffin

Sunday, November 15th, 2009

Our second episode this week (making up for the missed one last week), Jason is joined by Matt Coffin, angel investor and founder of LowerMyBills.com. Matt founded LowerMyBills back in 1999 (full details about his inspiration come during the first part of his interview) and later sold it to Experian for over $300M. Since then he’s become an angel investor and advisor to startups around the world (including Mahalo).

Check out the full episode to find out about his management style, the type of companies he really wants to invest in, and how to get funding with your next project.

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TWiST #26 with Matt Mullenweg

Sunday, November 15th, 2009


Live from the Business of Software conference in San Francisco, it’s This Week in Startups! Jason’s guest on this special episode was Matt Mullenweg, founder of Wordpress. Matt’s accomplished an incredible amount, especially considering he’s only 25! Tune in to hear how he created Wordpress, the decision to split off the project to non-profit and for-profit entities, and how he likes to run his companies.

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TWiST #25 with Mark Suster

Monday, November 2nd, 2009

Joining Jason on this week’s episode of TWiST is LA-based venture capitalist Mark Suster.  Mark is a highly experienced VC with GRP Partners – he’s also an entrepreneur who built and sold two companies before starting with GRP.  If you want to talk to someone who knows about building, funding and selling companies, Mark is your man.  He’s also a fixture in the LA tech community, frequently appearing at events and counseling local startups.

Tune in to see how Mark got his start and the advice he has for entrepreneurs of today.  And what do you think his take is on the entire angel controversy….

Just a quick reminder, no episode this week as Jason is in NYC for the Audience Conference (giving his final keynote ever).  But we’ll be back the week after with 2 episodes, including one live from San Francisco!  See you then!

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TWiST #24 with Gary Vaynerchuck

Monday, October 26th, 2009

Jason’s guest on this week’s show was everyone’s favorite Twittering wine guy, Gary Vaynerchuk. Gary has a new book out (Crush It!) detailing how to turn your passions into businesses and achievements. Of course Gary and Jason are both very passionate speakers (and very engaging) so check out the full episode to see this amazing level of energy.

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