Nerd Stalker

 Nerd Stalker interview with YourVersion CEO, Dan Olsen at the 2009 FailCon conference in San Francisco. YourVersion continuously discovers new and personally relevant web content based on your interests, and lets you easily bookmark and share your discoveries with friends.   The web is growing bigger every day. The rate at which new websites and content are being added is accelerating and overwhelming web users with a sea of information. At the same time, people are increasingly busy and have less time to find new and relevant content on the web. They designed YourVersion to solve this problem by giving people an efficient way to continuously discover new and relevant web content based specifically on their interests. 

   Nerd Stalker interview with co-founder Hans Chung of Mokugift at a recent Failcon conference in San Francisco. http://www.mokugift.com/About mokugiftOur MissionTo create fun and meaningful gift experiences that benefit the environment.Our nameDefinition: mokugift [m?e-koo gift]moku means "tree" in Japanese.moku means "island" in Hawaiian.Our missionOur mission is to foster environmental solidarity by making it easy and rewarding for anyone to fight climate change and by providing the tools to inspire others to do the same. Mokugift makes it possible for concerned citizens, even those lacking access to planting space, to plant real trees for $1 apiece, either for themselves or as gifts to others. Gifting a mokugift tree is similar to sending an e-card, and recipients can display their trees online at Facebook, MySpace, MyYahoo, iGoogle and other popular Web sites. Award-winning nonprofit organizations specializing in agroforestry project—which restore depleted lands and boost the agricultural productivity and incomes of indigenous peoples in some of the poorest parts of the world—plant the actual trees purchased via mokugift.Why trees?Trees and forests help regulate the climate by absorbing heat-trapping carbon gasses, and there's a growing consensus that tree planting in tropical latitudes is one of the most efficient way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. On average, each tree planted in the humid tropics absorbs 50 pounds of carbon dioxide every year for at least 40 years, amounting to one ton over the course of the tree's lifetime.In addition, although the majority of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere comes from burning fossil fuels, unsustainable, slash-and-burn agriculture and other poor land-management practices have resulted in forestry itself becoming a leading source of greenhouse gas emissions. Restoring tree cover through agroforestry programs, and ensuring that local communities receive a fair share of the benefits, is the most effective long-term approach to the problems of deforestation and land degradation.Our platformMokugift is not just a Web site for planting/"gifting" trees but also a platform that enables individuals to inspire others to plant trees. Visual and interactive elements make receiving a mokugift tree fun, uplifting and memorable. Businesses and nonprofits can also leverage this technology to reward and motivate customers, donors or employees. As an eco-reward, mokugift is a great way to motivate up-sells and tap into growing environmental awareness and interest in sustainable lifestyles.Mokugift provides personal Web pages (Tree Islands) that track and display tree-planting achievements. As individuals plant trees themselves or "gift" trees to friends and associates (who in turn receive their own Tree Islands), the system tracks how inspiration spreads from one person to another. You receive recognition not only for the trees you've planted but also for those planted by your friends and their inspired friends (3 degrees). You can see the total number of people you've inspired and the total number of trees planted by them. You can also see which friends you've inspired and their individual achievements. Active promoters of tree planting are rewarded with free tree planting.Mokugift is an excellent fit for companies looking to reinforce a brand's environmental equity and reward customers for making environmentally responsible choices. To learn more about how businesses and institutions can use mokugift for rewards and incentive programs, click here.Mokugift provides a fast and easy fundraising option for schools, religious groups and non-profits. Your members can promote tree planting online in support of your organization and mokugift takes care of all order taking and processing. Your organization will receive 50% of all proceeds. Focusing on online promotion makes it easier and more effective for your members.PartnershipsMokugift is an official partner of the United Nations Environment Programme's "Plant for the Planet: Billion Tree Campaign. Launched at the Climate Convention meeting in Nairobi in 2006, the campaign originally set a goal of planting one billion trees but has since issued a new target of seven billion trees—roughly one tree for every living person on the planet."We are honored to partner with mokugift as part of the UNEP Billion Tree Campaign. Mokugift is taking creative approaches with its online gifting service and iPhone application to help the Billion Tree Campaign achieve a target of seven billion trees. In the spirit of the Billion Tree Campaign, mokugift empowers ordinary people to be part of the solution." — Satinder Bindra, Director, United Nations Environment ProgrammeMokugift seeks to expand distribution through partnerships with relevant sites and services. We have, for instance, partnered with eBase Solutions in a joint venture to bring mokugift to Japan (mokugift.jp). Please contact us about partnerships via our contact form, and we will get back to you promptly.Artists & Athletes ProgramThe idea: to inform, inspire and empower fans to plant trees in support of UNEP's Billion Tree Campaign. By visiting Artist & Athlete Tree Islands on mokugift.com, fans can plant trees and send a message to the artist or athlete. Anyone planting a tree with a participating artist or athlete can see their message posted on the Tree Island, along with the number of trees they've planted. For their part, artists and athletes can build goodwill by offering to plant a tree for each tree they receive as a gift. To help generate awareness, mokugift is approaching media companies for PSA ad spots and encouraging interested artists and athletes to participate in the spots and assist with outreach.NewsPlease refer to our blog for the latest news about mokugift: mokugift.blogspot.comParticipateMokugift's affiliate program offers rich media ads that are engaging and stylistically consistent with our Web site. To join our affiliate network, click here.FoundersMokugift co-founders Hans Chung (Idea Guy) and Krates Ng (Build-It Guy) are high school friends who both gravitated to the San Francisco Bay area's technology sector. The selling of "virtual gifts"—teddy bears on Facebook, roses on dating sites—sparked the idea for mokugift. Why not have virtual tree gifts represent real trees planted in places fighting deforestation?Their pursuit of online tree "gifting" coincided with a growing awareness that climate change was no longer just an abstract scientific and public-policy topic, but also a lifestyle issue calling for tangible action on the part of ordinary people everywhere. In researching agroforestry and prospective tree-planting partners, they realized that planting trees not only benefits the environment (by absorbing greenhouse gas emissions) but also can serve as a foundation for sustainable economic development for communities that have been adversely affected by poor land-management practices. Conceived as a social venture focused on customer experience, profit and tangible, positive benefit to the environment and society, mokugift launched on November 20, 2007.Prior to mokugift, Hans founded CrispAds, a blog advertising network that wound up being acquired by a lead-generation company. He also worked at consulting firms such as The McKenna Group, as a strategy consultant for technologies companies including Japan's NTT. Hobbies: martial arts, cooking, furniture design. Residing in San Francisco's SOMA District, Hans has been on a mission to reduce his apartment's power consumption. He takes public transportation to work and the gym, and shops for local groceries at the farmers' market and Mission District grocery stores.Krates is a typical startup engineer, preferring to join a team early on. Prior to mokugift, he was with a real-time computer server monitoring company, Wily Technologies, which was acquired by Computer Associates. Before that, he was an engineer at Andromedia (acquired by Macromedia, which, in turn, was acquired by Adobe). Hobbies: ice hockey, triathlon, cooking, scuba and travel. Krates lives with his wife and cats in the San Francisco Bay area, drives a Honda Civic Hybrid, eats less meat than before, recycles everything he can, and shops for local groceries at the farmers' market.     

  Nerd Stalker interview at the 2009 Failcon conference in San Francisco with the co-founder of ScrumNinja David Lowenfels.ScrumNinja—the world’s most elegant, intuitive, easy-to-use agile tool that does all the awesome things you want and need it to do. From the ScrumNinja site:Deliver the goodsScrumNinja empowers you to deliver the goods. Your management, product owners, and customers get what they want, and you get what you want—an elegant, intuitive tool that doesn’t create obstacles for your creativity and flow.Wield the sword of simplicityScrumNinja was designed with conceptual integrity as its foremost goal—it does simple things very well. It retains the intuitive simplicity of index cards while providing the benefit of real-time updates and automated metrics.Engage your peopleCollaboration and interaction are the heart and soul of agile. ScrumNinja’s intuitive user interface makes your team’s contributions instantly visible and understandable to each other, as well as to management—resulting in a more dynamic and proactive team. Unlike many tools that just get in the way, ScrumNinja’s refined workflow cuts to the chase of collaboration.Respond confidently to changeScrumNinja’s tracking capabilities keep your finger on the pulse of your project, allowing you to spot trends and be confident about the project decisions you make.Deploy to suit your environment ScrumNinja is available as a hosted application on our SSL-secured servers, or as a licensed software product that can be installed on-site.   

  Nerd Stalker interview with Julian Cash, Geek Executive Officer of Creative.ly at the FailCon conference in San Francisco. Watch out Flickr and Corbis this new crowdsourced way of bookmarking photos could make a run for the money.  Bookmark Images. Collect the best images from the webCreative.ly is a fun place to find and collect the best images from all over web. Catalog your favorite photos from flickr or other great websites. Show off the images you love and discover new images from people who share your taste.Share with friendsFollow people who's taste you appreciate. Make friends with the people who love the images you collect and import.Create Collections. Enjoy other peoples collectionsBy building your own image collections you can access images from across the net that inspire and thrill you with one simple click. The more images and collections you add, the more people will discover your collections and the artists that inspire you.Promote artists you appreciate When you add an image to Creative.ly, it links back to the original location where the work resides, giving the artist credit and exposure to new admirers. This is a benefit to artists and photographers who value this type of promotion. Creative.ly is about sharing and exploring. Share what you love and explore what others love. 

 Interview with the CEO of Fido Factor, Justin O'Neill at this years FailCon conference in San Francisco.  From the Fido Factor site: "The goal of Fido Factor is to:To make dog friendly policies the norm rather than the exception. It's our magical little dream that dogs will eventually be welcome everywhere!Provide dog owners with information on which places are dog friendly and how to visit each safely.Let the community determine which dog friendly spots are the best of the best.Here is what you can do on Fido Factor:Find local dog friendly restaurants, stores, bars, parks, lodging and attractions as well as pet stores and dog services!Use your iPhone or smartphone to find dog friendly locations on the go and submit reviews and add locations through our free iPhone/iPod Touch application.Learn important dog policy information for each location, e.g. permitted dog size, leash policy.Become a local ambassador and add to your city's dog friendly listings. Our system supports the entire country, but we need your help adding locations. If you know a place is dog friendly that we don't have, plug it in!Read and write dog-specific reviews for each location you visit.Share your reviews with your Facebook friends through Facebook Connect.Post questions and let your opinion be heard in our forums.If you're local to the Bay Area, take advantage of the Fido Factor San Francisco SPCA training discounts.Charitably support The SF/SPCA when you add or review locations in our home base of San Francisco.  Fido Factor has made giving back to the community a top priority. Each time one of our members adds or reviews a location in San Francisco, Fido Factor will make a donation out of our own pocket to The San Francisco SPCA to shelter, care, and place homeless dogs in new homes."

Nerd Stalker interview with CEO of Caduces, Lydia Sugarman at this years FailCon conference in San Francisco. Caduces is in pre-release (Nerd Stalker scoop!) looking for a 2010 first quarter alpha launch. Caduces is looking to be the secure web application for you to store your families health information and history. 

Nerd Stalker interview with Business Development Manager, Jagat Bhuyan of Sun Startup Essentials. The Sun Startup Essentials program delivers an affordable infrastructure that can be put into service fast, backed up by world-class support. The program includes hardware discounts, free support and training, and other ways to get your startup flying high in no time.   

Nerd Stalker interview with Cassie Phillipps founder of the amazing FailCon conference happening on October 27th 8:30am - 6pm. We talk startup stories, amazing speakers, lessons learned.“SNAP Summit: FailCon” is a full-day conference focusing on the trials and tribulations of successful entrepreneurs. You aren’t a real entrepreneur until you’ve had to deal with failure and recovering from it - financially emotionally and practically - can be challenging. Hear how some major players in the industry have dealt with startup troubles recovered and kept a positive tenacious and energetic attitude through it all. The conference will debate questions such as: * How do VCs handle failing investments? * How NOT to build a social app * What are some social web branding failures and how can you avoid them now? * How do you financially prepare for the possibility of failure: legally fiscally and in your team? * What have some of the leading executives today learned from their past experiences? * What are you watching out for with the current social web and rising companies? * How do you recover from a failed product or marketing campaign? * And how do you let it all go if you must? Our speakers include the founders of some of the leading social web and VC firms in the bay area including: * Max Levchin; CEO of Slide * Lynne Johnson; Senior Editor of Fast Company * Mark Pincus; CEO of Zynga * Sandy Jen and Seth Sternberg; co-founders of Meebo * Adeo Ressi; Founder of TheFunded.com * Christine Herron; Partner at First Round Capital * Brandon Schauer; Experience Design Director at Adaptive Path * Kevin Barenblat; CEO of Context Optional * Lane Becker and Thor Mullen; co-founders of GetSatisfaction * Max Ventilla; Founder of Aardvark * and many more!

 Nerd Stalker interview at a recent SF New Tech with co-founder of Outspokes, Sean Ahrens. With Outspokes, you instantly gather the feedback of your entire team by doing nothing more than sending them a link to your site. No more arduous screenshot annotation or endless email ping-pong. Empower your team to express their feedback about your website the easy way: on the site itself. Who is Outspokes for?Teams of All SizesRemote Development TeamsFreelancersOutspokes began as a class project for UC Berkeley's Software Engineering course, Computer Science 169, taught by Professor Eric Brewer in Spring 2009.

Nerd Stalker episode 51 - Adolfo Foronda interviews Chris Saad of tech startup JS-Kit at a recent SF New Tech. JS-Kit has a new product called Echo, it/'s the next generation commenting system. It’s the way to share your content, and watch the live reaction. You can quickly embed Echo on WordPress, Blogger, or any website and turn your static pages into a real-time stream of diggs, tweets, comments and more.  

/n/n/n /n/nInterview with Newton Software co-founder Joel Passen. Newton provides a streamlined approach to recruiting with all the essentials built-in. Taken place at an SF New Tech at Mighty in San Francisco, 5mins. Distributed by Tubemogul./n/n

/n/n/n /n/nInterview with co-founder of Bandize, Andy Miles. Bandize helps bands take control of their careers by giving them a simple way to get organized. We created a suite of DIY tools all available and packaged in one smooth, cohesive web application. Distributed by Tubemogul./n/n

/n/n/n /n/nNerd Stalker video interview with the guys working on Vidizmo at the Microsoft Mix09 conference in Las Vegas. Vidizmo adds interactivity to videos, makes them more engaging, capture responses and allows you to measure results. Distributed by Tubemogul. Mevio {Mevio-4aa24afce30611a04adfbcbeae604ca8}/n/n

/n/n/n /n/nNerd Stalker interview with Sonar6 at SF New Tech. Sonar6 provides the best possible way to create in-depth performance reviews online, then use the information collected in those reviews to create a helicopter view of all of the people in the business. Distributed by Tubemogul./n/n

/n/n/n /n/nNerd Stalker interview at MIX09 with Senior Product Manager, Vikram Dendi ont he Microsoft Translator team. The Microsoft Translator webpage widget allows you to bring real-time, in-place translations to your web site. Distributed by Tubemogul./n/n