Think you’re ultra competitive? Did you win the sack race at your last company picnic? You have nothing on the folks at Culver City-based Fonality, which is holding a mixed martial arts (MMA) competition between their employees. I just spoke with CEO Chris Lyman and VP Corey Brundage, who gave me the details — and [...]
I’d like to welcome our newest sponsor of socalTECH.com: Microsoft’s Bizspark program, a program which provides nearly-free Microsoft software to web and software startups. Microsoft is eager to make its program available to the many, innovative startups — of all stages — here in Southern California, and they’ve asked us to help get the word [...]
Michael Jones and Jason Hirschhorn have just been appointed COO and Chief Product Officer, respectively, over at MySpace. Most of the folks in Los Angeles will know Michael well, from his days bootstrapping Userplane (sold to AOL), as well as his recent efforts with both Tsavo, as well as his efforts (along with Peter Pham [...]
Jason Calacanis, the CEO and founder of Santa Monica search site Mahalo, is rumored to be in the running to replace Chris Dewolfe. Calacanis is not commenting on the rumors, but just posted a long email on what MySpace’s new CEO ought to do. Number one is “buy a search engine.”
Among the tidbits surfacing this Earth Day: Los Angeles has just rolled out a “solar map” which shows where across the Los Angeles County different solar power installations has so far been installed. The mash mapup shows how much solar power has been installed in different ZIP codes in the city, along with some details [...]
While most of the world’s eyes are on the acquisition of Sun by Oracle, it appears that there’s a merger and acquisition frenzy happening in Orange County this week. Just this morning, two of Orange County’s biggest high tech employers — Broadcom and Emulex – were in the news, as Broadcom launched a hostile bid [...]
Here’s a great post — worth reading from every entrepreneur or wanna-be entrepreneur — by Jason Nazar, founder of Docstoc, on the unintended consequences of startups. Jason says: …anyone who has chosen a path of starting a business can tell you the unintended consequences of startups. For the past 2 years I’ve neglected my health, [...]
Just a heads up, I’m anticipating that posting will be somewhat more irregular than usual on our news this week, as I’m traveling.
Not too many people realize that Google has operations in Santa Monica. But, ever wonder what Google’s Santa Monica engineers are working on? Apparently, creating giant, penny-melting, popcorn-popping Fresnel lenses.
Google is talking up its data center efficiency efforts today. As part of that, the firm posted a tour of its own water treatment plant. Can someone tell me why Google has a water treatment plant in the first place?
Thoughts and commentary from Benjamin F. Kuo, publisher of socalTECH.com.
