Mogulus: The Revolution Will Be Televised

Imagine having your own live 24/7 television station on the Web. It's a dream that was impossible for most Web developers/producers. Not anymore. NY based startup Mogulus just did a beta launch in late May, and has already spawned 700 new "stations". Rapper Gil Scott Heron used to say "the revolution will not be televised..." Gil didn't envision Mogulus. Founder Max Haot is defying conventional (Joost) wisdom that everyone wants "video on demand stations" and not the "linear model" of live TV.

With Mogulus, you can blend your webcam, video clips from YouTube, and your own original content into your own unique TV program - and you call all the shots. When you’re not broadcasting live, turn on the auto-pilot and let it drive your playlist.

Haot wowed everyone at the NY Tech Meetup two wks ago with his demo. I spent two hours with him yesterday at their headquarters and can say "I have seen the future...."

Bruni PR will be pitching this exciting new startup to key reporters in the coming wks.

MeetMoi

Dating will never be the same after MeetMoi seizes the public's imagination. MeetMoi has already captured the imagination of the VCs. Acadia Woods just invested $1.5m and other major VCs are likely courting this exciting new NY based startup.


Available on Cingular, Nextel, Boost, Sprint, T-Mobile, ALLTEL and CellularOne, the MeetMoi service allows registered members to meet and date other users simply by sending a text message from their phone with a specified location. MeetMoi then registers the user as "available" and sends the user's profile and photo via text message to other users who meet specified criteria and are within a proximity preference. Members have the option of preserving their anonymity while chatting through the gateway of MeetMoi.

MyBlueZebra: "Made In Italy" 2.0

You think of Italy, and you think fashion, food, wine and cars. Think again. Italy is also a hotbed of new technologies. The land of DaVinci and Marconi is moving fast into the Net arena with new products/services that are barely on the horizon here in the US. Case in point: click to call technology. A new Italian-Australian startup that has set up headquarters here in NYC is capitalizing on advanced "Made in Italy" CtoC tech. It's called MyBlueZebra. MyBlueZebra has a deal with PagineGialle (Italy's version of the Yellow Pages) that's amazing. 140,000 businesses listed on the PagineGialle website now have a small icon called Chiamagratis (Call Free) next to their listing. You click on it and call for free from anywhere in the world. Bruni PR is pitching this story to reporters in Italy over the next few weeks. MyBlueZebra plans to invade the US market in the coming months. Why the crazy name? Founder Andrea Tessitore says it's the most "friendly animal" around. Credit Lapo Elkann for the name. The former Fiat marketing director is a key player in the new company. Forza MyBlueZebra!

Mahalo

ValleyWag, the Silicon Valley gossip blog, has a breaking news story about Mahalo, a new venture founded by Jason Calacanis. Mahalo is described as a search engine that will actually have humans working to guide search results, a concept that goes back to the Mining Company of the '90s, a predecessor of About.com. ValleyWag claims that Mahalo will have Wikipedia like features and will debut at a Wall Street Journal conference later this month. I've known Jason since his early days with Silicon Alley Reporter. Bruni PR was an advertiser. I am sure that this will be successful. Good luck, Jason.

Houseparty.com

Last week, the "boys" on HBO's Entourage threw a b-day party for Vinnie and, amazingly, got sponsorships from Victoria's Secret, Grey Goose and others. Models with skimpy Secret garments showed up along with cases of Grey Goose. A great idea, I thought. A few nights later, at the NY Tech Meetup, Silicon Alley mover/shaker Gene DeRose presented Houseparty.com, a website where companies seeking to promote products/services can "sponsor" house parties. Sure, Gene is pushing chocolate, soda and other things right now, but the idea is clearly scalable to the Entourage level.
Gene, a founder of Jupiter Research, impressed the audience with his pitch, one of the best we've seen at Tech Meetup.

DoubleClick deal

Seems like only yesterday. I can remember meeting DoubleClick (all four employees) back in 1995 at a New York New Media Association sponsored event at 55 Broad Street, at that time promoted as NYC's first "wired building" (w/ a T1 line). There were ten companies presenting. Organa, Tumble Interactive, K2 Design, MCNY and others startups which have long ceased to exist. (Organa and Tumble were Bruni PR clients). DoubleClick not only survived the '90s bust, but went on to revolutionize the online ad industry. The DoubleClick deal will surely usher in a wave of acquisitons of NY based online ad and marketing companies. That's a good thing. Hat's off to Kevin O'Connor, a founder and one of those four original employees. He's probably playing golf somewhere in California or Florida, and relishing the success.

Virginia Tech & Citizen Journalism

The coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings surely indicate the importance of citizen journalism and the Web. Tonight's network newcasts (especially ABC World News) featured eyewitness accounts culled from student cell phones videos, Facebook blog reports and even a college citizen journalism site (the Blacksburg Report). The questions raised by citizen/ student journalists themselves are shaping the coverage. NowPublic.com, Newsvine, Topix and other citizen journalism sites are seeing a huge number of views on info related to the shootings. Hopefully, this combination of citizen (or student) journalism and professional newsgatherers will shed light on this tragedy.

Empowering The Phone: 2Recall.com

What if you could record phone calls and store them using the web?
Consumers could empower their phone calls when shopping or doing business over the phone.
2Recall, a new startup, has launched a new service that allows you to record calls and store them for future use in your own personal web folder at 2Recall.com. A sort of verbal contract that can be put to use later -- if that contractor, broker or salesperson renegs or decides to charge you a higher price than was quoted over the phone.

TechCrunch's Michael Arrington endorsed 2Recall this week in his post.
Bruni PR will be pitching 2Recall to the mainstream press during the next few days/weeks, and anticipate substantial news coverage.

Foreclosure Mania

Got a call this morning from Meredith Menz, producer of the Today in New York show at WNBC. Seems TINY is doing a segment on "Buying Foreclosures" in the Real Estate market. A sign of the times, indeed. A projected 1.1 million Americans are expected to face foreclosures. While my client, StreetEasy.com, doesn't list foreclosures, a new site,
Foreclosure.com, does and will surely be a quick hit with the press and the Blogosphere.

The Valley vs. The Alley

From today's Information Week online edition:

"Move over, Silicon Valley, there's a greater call for IT professionals in the New York and New Jersey area than there is in Northern California, according to a new report.

Dice, an online career site for technology professionals, reports that there are 12,377 jobs posted for IT positions available in an area that encompasses New York City, Long Island, and northern New Jersey. By comparison, there are 9,393 jobs advertised for the Silicon Valley area, including San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland."

Ning: Instant Social Networks

I just did a testdrive of Ning, the new "instant social network" app, and have to say it's amazing. Kudos to Gina Bianchini, founder/CEO of Ning. In just three minutes, I set up my social network, called Bruni, with a tag "PR buzz". Check out brunipr.ning.com. Yet another forum for my views on PR trends & Net startups (and my rants on the ethical sins of our nation's biggest PR firms).

Burson Marsteller's Hat Trick

PR Watch, a respected industry watchdog org., takes on Burson Marsteller this week with a report on Mark Penn, the worldwide CEO of BM, my former employer, and points out that he wears "many hats", maybe too many hats. Penn is also chief stategist to the Hillary Clinton campaign and head of a polling firm working for the Senator. BM's head Howard Paster brushes off this huge conflict of interest by stating that WPP, owner of BM, has many units that work "independently". I knew Penn back in the Eighties when I was a political pollster working with Dick Morris, and think he's a smart guy, but doubt he can handle the scrutiny of the mainstream press when this issue becomes a problem for BM. My bet is that he picks Clinton over BM.

The Rise of Niche Job Boards

A newly released study by Borrell Associates indicates a sharp rise in the use of "niche" online job boards. Looks like trouble for generalist online job boards like Monster. This bodes well for New York-based JobThread, a fast growing startup that markets a full service job board product for publishers, recruiters and small/mid size businesses.

NowPublic.com + AP Agreement

NowPublic.com, a Bruni PR client, and Associated Press are hooking up. NowPublic, the largest citizen journalism network on the planet, and AP, the largest news organization, will share news leads, photos, video and other info supplied (or crowdsourced) by NowPublic's 35,000 contributors.

Silicon Alley 2.0

Price Waterhouse Cooper just released a new report indicating that $2 billion in venture capital was invested in approximately 250 New York based startups. It represents a two fold increase over last year's funding. The message in the report is clear : Silicon Alley is back. Kudos to PWC for making the news official. Anyone who attends the New York Tech Meetups has known this for some time, but it's great to see the larger business world acknowledge the rebirth of Silicon Alley.

Urbis.com

Whither the slushpile? The Publishing industry is ripe for revolution. Until now, any aspiring writer had to submit manuscripts to the infamous "slushpile" at major publishers. Now, many publishers are looking to the Internet as a way to discover new writers. Therein lies the potential of Urbis.com, the web's leading literary social media site. A new Bruni PR client, Urbis allows aspiring writers to submit their latest work to a customized group of critics. HarperCollins and other key publishers are looking closely at Urbis.com. Founder Steve Spurgat has created a valuable new platform that will soon disintermediate the slushpile and revamp the way publishers find new talent.

New York City's Price Choppers

StreetEasy.com, a Bruni PR client, is working closely with New York magazine on tracking the latest "Price Choppers" in the NY Real Estate market. Here's an excerpt from the latest issue of New York.


The Year of the Price Cut
Overreaching is so 2006.

* By S.Jhoanna Robledo

So is it a soft market, or isn't it? The consensus is forming: Sellers just can't overreach and expect a huge payout the way they did a couple of years ago. New York asked Streeteasy.com, an online database that gathers information on most listings in the city, to run the numbers and find the largest price drops of the year (leaving out mixed-use and multiple-unit buildings and new developments). Bargain-hunters and bonus-toters, this may be your moment.

read further at nymag.com/realestate/realestatecolumn/25993/index.html/

"Blogola" Scandal at Edelman PR

Edelman PR does it again. From the PR firm that helped coin the term "flog". You don't have to be a PR genius to know that giving out Acer laptops loaded with Microsoft Vista as "gifts" to bloggers is going to backfire. So far, the mainstream media hasn't picked up this story, but will in the coming days. Let's hope that 2007 sees an end to these unethical practices, and Edelman's involvement in the Blogosphere.

Bayonne

Boraie Development and the New Urbanism

Boraie Development, a major NJ based Real Estate development firm and Bruni PR client, has won approval to redevelop the Bayonne Ocean Terminal area, a $900 million project involving a new hotel, condos and a retail complex. In essence, Boraie and several other RE firms chosen, will be reshaping the look of this industrial town, often featured in the "Sopranos". The Newark Star Ledger recently did a profile of Boraie, engineered by Bruni PR.

New York Tech Meetup Xmas Party

The NY Tech Meetup Christmas event this week featured several new startups that will surely succeed. Urbis.com, founded by Steve Spurgat, allows writers, publishers and critics to hookup in an almost social media like format. Cogmap.com promises to disintermediate list brokers. And, uplayme.com offers music play list swapping. It's almost like 1997 in the reborn Silicon Alley, with VCs and key players showing up regularly at these events. One of the VCs predicted that the "next billion dollar Net company" will come out of NYC this coming year. As NYers say, "from your mouth to God's ear...." Kudos to Scott H., our NY Meetup tech organizer and impresario.