Welcome!
February 14th, 2007 by Benjamin KuoI’m Benjamin Kuo, founder, editor, and publisher of socalTECH.com. The purpose of this blog is to highlight some of the other coverage of Southern California technology companies (aside from our own coverage on socalTECH), share some of my personal thoughts and insights into the market, and provide a way to interact with readers and others in the community.
I won’t be duplicating the day to day coverage we already provide in socalTECH, but instead hope to illuminate Southern California’s high tech industry and share some additional thoughts.
Despite a lot of great success stories, like MySpace, Overture, Rent.com, LowerMyBills, Shopzilla, ValueClick, Move.com, Proflowers.com, Userplane, and many, many others, there’s still a somewhat persistent (but wrong) idea that Southern California is not a technology center.
You often see posts like this one (from Paul Graham) talking about technology centers and Silicon Valley dominance — where he mentions Silicon Valley, Boston, Seattle, Austin, Denver, and New York–but glosses over Southern California’s huge presence in the industry. You also get arguments like this one on Wikipedia where you have people claiming that the only technology firms in the region are MySpace and branches offices of Silicon Valley firms like Yahoo.
The fact is, the area is now number two in terms of venture funding in the nation — ahead of Boston and only behind Silicon Valley–according to PricewaterhouseCoopers, and is home to a lot of brand name, technology firms like Broadcom, Buy.com, Citrix Online/GoToMyPC, Conexant, Day Software, Emulex, eHarmony, Gateway, Gemstar/TV Guide, Idealab, Ingram Micro, Internet Brands, Iomega, JAMDAT Mobile, Jazz Semiconductor, Filenet, QLogic, Qualcomm,Viewsonic, and WebSideStory — just to name a few. Both Yahoo and Google maintain several operations here, and the number of companies acquired by Google alone from Southern California is huge.
Anyway, I’ll be posting here on occasion, and I’d also like to encourage any other Southern California, technology-focused bloggers to let me know, as I’m trying to create a blogroll pointing to other relevant venture capital or high tech blogs of interest to our readers.
Ben
February 14th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Ben,
I am reading your email every day and I like the idea of an INTERACTIVE blog (if it wasn’t interactive you could put that directly on your website). My concern though is the challenge to manage at least four different ways of communication now: website, email, blog, RSS. I am too old (fashioned) for juggling the ever growing communication channels. I am more one of those guys wanting to have ONE portal for communication and decide when and what to digest. If that is not only my concern I’d suggest you either combine your website, RSS and the blog into one (sounds like a great area for a wiki, check out xwiki.com for example) or just enhance your website with more RSS sources. With the availability of RSS2Email tools one could even think of subscribing to only the categories one likes to be pinged about.
February 14th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
Thanks for the suggestions, we’re looking at some further subdivided RSS feeds on the main web site, and I realize the potential for information overload with “one more” feed. The idea is that this one will not nearly be as intense as our daily news feeds, and really serve a different purpose.
February 14th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
I agree with your blog that Socal has not yet received the recognition that it deserves but through time and more successes it will change. Socal needs more “colorful” characters like Steve Jobs that can outshine the many celebrities in Hollywood.
February 14th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Looking forward to checking in here form time to time.
Congrats and Thanks!
February 14th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Ben - good point and no one ever talks about this. People also forget that there are a lot of very talented and creative people here. The future of the web is content - and content will be king (just like Steve Case of AOL said years ago before merging with Time Warner). We are just at the cusp of this growth. Socal will be the center of digital media and online advertising. When everyone has a cell phone, a PC, and a skype account - the only thing that will be left to innovation - will be content.
I love LA!
February 14th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Nice blogging start. Just a short comment. Many outside of Los Angeles/Southern California do not realize the extent of the technology industry here because of a number of factors:
1. Much of the development of technology is in primary research and early development. We have a large concentration of research institutions in a diverse geographic area;
2. Much of the research and development is in non-consumer goods - aerospace, transportation, homeland defense. Many individuals think of the large corporate names in technology rather than the multitude of technology successes. In addition, the Hollywood/ media industry is not usually associated with technology although a significant technology industry; and
3. A strong community college system supplies trained technology workers
February 14th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
Excellent commentary Benjamin!
Facts are just that - facts…..However, in the world of technology and VC, the development cycle includes tremendous forces of intuition, human emotion, ego, negotiation and compromises. These get left on the table when the facts are reported. To develop dialog with those in the SoCal technology trenches is wise, as we will gain insight otherwise not (publicly) available.
As your responders have said, a single communication portal is preferable, due to time limitations. Keep up the great reporting!
February 14th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
Ben,
Awesome Blog. I’m glad someone is finally giving us Southern Californians some credit where its due.
So we’re second in VC money to the Bay Area. That’s very respectable.
On your list of Socal companies, don’t forget Vitesse Semiconductor. A pioneer of Comm IC’s and still a leader in GPON, Storage, and ethernet.
February 15th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Great idea Ben. The lack of respect for SoCal is also a result of minimal PR and your blog will help in the process.
I do believe you need to have a good flow of posts (at least daily) to get people accustomed to it. I personally like the Blog since I can just add it to my yahoo homepage where I read all my other blogs.
Keep up the good work.
February 17th, 2007 at 7:37 am
Congratulations Ben for an important marketing strategy for an important organization.
February 26th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Ben, I have found all of the content you have generated over the years to be very useful. Congratulations on this newest venture.