Hyperbio

TinEye: We do for images what Google does for text

I am sure you have heard about our latest image search service: TinEye. Here is our first video intro:

Secret Common Sense

Via Loren Feldman, Dave Johnston reveals life's Secret Common Sense Knowledge, go read!

• Dandelions are flowers.  Humans just have an attitude problem.

time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana

time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like banana...
... that always makes me laugh because of course the first time I heard it I did not get it until much later when I burst out laughing hysterically. Oh well, those were the days!

Time really flies when you are having fun. What a month it has been. The secret is out now: TinEye is in beta. And the welcome it has received warms our heart. It has been incredible!

TinEye has a little community: 5000 TinEye users, fans, early adopters. In 10 days. You folks are SUPER.

CIX - Canadian Innovation Exchange

If you are coming to CIX (Canadian Innovation Exchange), come say hello.
I am on the Canadian Innovation Success Stories panel and will be around.

CIX is being held in Toronto on April 29th-30th. Participants include a mix of (Canadian and US) VCs, angel investors and some of Canada's greatest entrepreneurs. This is a great opportunity to network with other entrepreneurs, pitch, see pitches (great line up of presenting companies) and check out the innovation and entrepreneurship landscape in Toronto!

You can register to attend here and the full details of my panel is below:

Canadian Innovation Success Stories
Tuesday April 29th
14:50 - 15:45
Carlu Concert Hall, 444 Yonge Street, Toronto

Meet the leader of an innovative company that has made it happen! What
are the key reasons for their success? What adversity did they need to
overcome to succeed and how did they do it? What did they learn along
the way?

Host
Ian Portsmouth, Editor & Associate Publisher, PROFIT Magazine

Speakers
Justin Belobaba, Founder & CEO, Medical Telcom Group
Leila Boujnane, Co-Founder & CEO, Idee Inc.
Ron Neumann, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Communitech
Jeremy Wright, CEO, b5media

The awesome line up of presenting companies includes:

• Accipiter Radar Technologies Inc., Fonthill, ON
• Acquisio, Saint Lambert, PQ
• Akoha Inc, Montreal, PQ
• Big Deal Games Inc., Toronto, ON
• Blueprint Software Systems, Toronto, ON
• Brainpark, Inc, Toronto, ON
• CellWand Communications, Toronto, ON
• Coveo, Quebec City, PQ
• Digital Payment Technologies Corp., Burnaby, BC
• dthree Inc., Mississauga, ON
• HomeZilla, Toronto, ON
• Kaben Wireless Silicon Inc., Ottawa, ON
• Mobidia, Inc., Vancouver, BC
• Octopz, Toronto, ON
• Planeteye Inc., Toronto, ON
• Redwood Technologies, Calgary, AB
• Spatial View Inc., Toronto, ON
• Standout Jobs, Inc. Montreal, PQ
• Streametrics Corporation Inc., Montreal, PQ

Charlie Rose Interview

For the Charlie Rose fans out there: Charlie Rose Interviews Charlie Rose.

StartupCamp Toronto

StartupCamp Toronto is happening next week and it is going to be awesome and I am not just saying that because I will be opening up the sessions with a kick ass presentation... I am saying that it is going to be awesome because so so much is happening in the Toronto startup scene right now. The scene is a far cry from what I saw just a couple of years ago and I am sure, totally sure that it has to do with the maturity of the tech community in Toronto. I am loving it!

I am looking forward to seeing everyone, fresh faces and the VCs who will venture out of their respective dens to grace us with their presence. All kidding aside: I am very happy to be participating at StartupCamp. I can guarantee you:

• smart VCs: oh yeah, the smart ones will be there!
• great entrepreneurs to talk to and learn from
• great sharing of knowledge
• great potential employees to hire (keep your eyes peeled for great talent!)
• a fantastic opportunity to get to know your community and get involved and perhaps join a startup if you are not currently working at one (what are you waiting for?)
• and most importantly a set of innovative companies who may be the talk of town in the months to come

I can't help you with tickets as I think they are now sold out; but if you would have loved to participate, please ping Jevon MacDonald to make sure that he starts working on StartupCamp 3 for Toronto. The great folks at StartupNorth are doing a great job of keeping the spotlight on startups.

The format for the StartupCamp ievening next week is simple: 5 Startups will have 5 minutes each to pitch. The audience will then have 10 minutes to ask them a series of questions, typically "are you a pain killer or an a vitamin" type of questions, marketing plans, growth plans and so forth. The startups will be selected in advance and the list of presenting companies announced before the event. Watch StartupNorth for further details.

Encyclopedia Britannica

Via TechCrunch: Encyclopedia Britannica opens its content to bloggers via their webshare program. A great way to get their content indexed by Google!

Nudge

Catching up on my reading I came across this little nugget from Canadian Business writer Rachel Pulfer writing in Leadership:

Limit, simplify or prime a person's choices in a particular way, and you can influence their decisions.

Pulfer's article talks about embracing nudging in leadership and change:"Putting fruit at eye level is a nudge. Banning junk food is a kick in the teeth." I can see that Thaler's book Nudge: Improving Decisions is going to make it somehow into my reading pile!

Wrigley

A nice little gem today via Paul Kedrosky:

In the 1890s Wrigley's Scouring Soap started bundling baking powder with its products. Eventually the baking powder proved more popular than the soap, so the company decided to focus on that instead. Soon afterward they started bundling two sticks of chewing gum with every can of baking powder, and eventually the gum became more popular than the powder. Naturally Wrigley's decided to start focusing on selling chewing gum, which worked out pretty well.

The audience is now in charge. Turn them into fans.

I enjoy Rob's blog. One of his latest post "a thought on the future of photography" nails it. I have had so many conversations over the years with photographers and it strikes me still how many times I hear: "don't put your images on flickr", "don't show high resolution images online", "don't display your images online as they will just be stolen". I can only find out about your work if it is out there. I can only hire you if I can see your work, I can only recommend you to the 1000 fans you need if you are out there. So be out there. Rob has of course a much nicer way of saying it. And don't forget to read Kevin Kelly's awesome 1000 fan blog post.

You’ve got to make your photos available online for free. Anything that can be distributed digitally must now be distributed for free to remain competitive. Not for commercial use and not without attribution but fans should be able to distribute your photography for free and view it big on your website without watermarks and other barriers. It’s not like you don’t already do this it’s just that there’s a lot of hand wringing going on about the ability of consumers to scrape your photos off your website. It’s not necessary because they’re the fans you want to sell prints, books, lectures, clinics and personal commissions to. You should encourage them to look at and help you distribute your photography so you can bring in more fans. Don’t forget that some of those people will be Art Buyers and Photo Directors.

Unlikely places

A great little look into "Unlikely Places Where Wired Pioneers Had Their Eureka! Moments" from Wired Magazine. The photo above is from one of my moments driving to Alaska from Whitehorse.

Smile

This lady's hair brought amazing happiness and cheerfulness to me during one of my Smithsonian Museum visits. It had me smiling all week practically. She was viewing the photography exhibit. I imagine her getting up in the morning and taking the time to create this look and I can't help but think that the world around her just comes to a total stop until it is done and that nothing around really matters...Perhaps a recipe for happiness, certainly a recipe for making time stop.

DemoCamp

DemoCamp is in the Financial Post this week.

Geek Lunches

Our Geek Lunches happen on Mondays. We have done this a couple of times this month. Typically somewhere close to the Ideeplex (until the Ideeplex patio is fully operational). Sometimes somewhere else. If you have time to join us. Ping me for details. I really enjoyed our last Geek Lunch at the Moss Park Restaurant. Moss Park is a great old fashioned restaurant on Queen street; owned and operated by Spiros for 40 years. It was a nice throwback to yesteryear.

Everywhere Girl

Joey Coleman from MacLeans.ca on the Everywhere Girl. I wish I had seen his blog post about the University of Manitoba using her photograph in their marketing campaign in 2005. Missed it in my initial write up. I am still tracking her. Her last big appearances at Idée where in a series of book covers. I am now seeing if she has ever been used on CD cover; our image recognition technology is working away and soon I will have some results to share with you all.

Experience Tech at Mars

Had a really great time at Experience Tech at Mars last week. Post coming soon.

Will the world depend on free culture

A great read in French. There is an English translation as well, but not it is not as great as the French article.

[...] si la création libre est quasi inexistante dans le milieu professionnel, n'est-ce pas parce qu'elle est incompatible avec le professionnalisme ? N'est-ce pas justement le volontariat qui caractérise la culture libre?

Leila is still alive!

Oh yes, she is! I can not explain how time goes by. I just can't. I would love the days to be longer, the months to be longer, jeez I would love to have a twin, a duplicate or triplicate Leila; that would be awesome - for me mostly - not for anyone who has a hard enough time to cope with one Leila! But boy would I ever be able to get stuff done. Image 2-3 versions of you, working diligently, getting stuff done, knocking items from that to-do list. It sure would be awesome. It sure would be awesome to get up in the morning and not have a to do list to wrestle and tame.

So I am just telling my one reader + you that I have not disappeared of the face of the planet. I am still here. Taming the beast. The private beta release is just about baked. Tomorrow is a big day - internally.

StartupCamp Toronto

The good folks at StartupNorth are organizing Toronto's second StartupCamp. It will be an awesome event to attend. So if you have not already registered, get yourselves to the event registration page pronto. This is sure to sell out. The event will be held at the Carlu following the first StartupCamp format.

The format is simple: 5 startups will be selected to present their respective pitches. Each startup gets 5 minutes. So polish that pitch before you show up! Once each presentation is completed, the audience gets involved in a Q&A and grills the presenting startups. I am sure it is nothing compared to what you would have to put up with if you were preparing to raise a fund so come prepared and have fun.

Event Details:

What: StartupCamp Toronto
When: Tuesday April 29th, 2008
Time: 6PM - 9PM
Location: The Carlu, 444 Yonge Street, 7th Floor, Toronto

Register here.

Angel Investors and The Culture of Innovation

A great post from Austin with an interesting reference to Randy Komisar (VC partner with KPCB and author The Monk & the Riddle) in an interview with Brown Hen where he points to a critical aspect of the Silicon Valley culture of innovation:

Successful people also reinvest in innovation; they want to be a part of the next big thing; they want to help mentor, guide and support aspiring entrepreneurs. This reinvestment is probably the most significant reason Silicon Valley is so prolific in terms of innovations.

To create this community we need to bring together the entrepreneurs and angel investors from successful companies that feed the density of intensity (i.e. Lot’s of deals with experienced mentors occurring quickly within the same geographic area).

Amen to that.