Benjamin Kuo’s Blog

The deadline for the Tech Coast Angels’ Fast Pitch competition in Orange County is approaching rapidly. The event — where you can pitch your startup to angel and venture investors through a quick “elevator pitch” — is coming up in May. If you’ve never attended, the event challenges startups to pitch their company in less than 60 seconds, with the top prize being a screening session with the Tech Coast Angels. From an email to me from Atticus Wagner, the Investment Screening Director for the LA and OC chapters:

Tech Coast Angels

8th Annual Fast Pitch Competition
Monday May 19, 2008   6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Anaheim Marriott, 70 West Convention Way, Anaheim, CA 92802
Meet, greet, and learn the art of the pitch from the Tech Coast Angels, the nation’s largest and most active network of angel investors.
APPLY NOW @ www.PitchTheAngels.com

Applicants to Fast Pitch – You must apply by Thursday April 10th

The companies I’ve talked to about the process give high marks to the event, but even more to the one-on-one coaching that the angels provide ahead of the event to finalists. Go to www.pitchtheangels.com to apply.

There’s a tradition in the media of publishing “April Fool’s” articles — false articles which are meant to fool or surprise a reader. Unfortunately–and maybe I’m in the minority–blog sites and new media sites have also gotten into the game, and posting legitimate articles which are actually April Fool’s jokes. I know it’s “all in good fun” but given the yet-fully-proven legitimacy of online media outlets, I think it’s only detrimental to bloggers to post fake news and articles.

For one thing, April Fool’s — which is a very western thing — is not observed or understood fully in the international audience which is the web. What — to someone in the US — is an obvious April Fool’s day joke may not appear so to someone in many other countries where April Fool’s isn’t a tradition.

For another, the lifetime of articles on the Internet means that often, something posted on April Fools shows up as what may appear to be a legitimate article later–often with a difficult to see or obscured date–which makes it very tough for someone to realize that an article was false. Unlike a traditional newspaper, which was printed and thrown away April 1st, that blog/news post now stays forever floating around the Internet.

Anyway, my own humble opinion.

Okay, we’re back temporarily to our old home page layout. It seems that we might have triggered some issues with Google indexing due to the home page changes (or perhaps something else; we’re still looking into this –anyone at Google who might be able help, feel free to email me).