Real-time tweets from the Silicon Valley Telecom Council's Spiffy Awards Gala

  • At Silicon Valley Telecom Council Spiffy awards, a comedian is warm up act for a venture cap presentation. Who will be funnier?
  • VC won’t have to be too funny to win, I think.
  • Tim Chang, Norwest Venture Partners up now, says trends are good for telecom.
  • Says U.S. consumers are spoiled, over-entitled and living beyond their means. Recession is good time to reset.
  • Says in recessions “good enough” is good enough for consumers, hard times for premium or leading edge plays.
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What the gods would destroy they first give to corporate brand managers


That’s a TikiTag there.

Took a first look at TikiTag. It’s perfect for Santa Cruz. It could put geeks on the beach. If we can save it from the suits.

Saw it at the Showstoppers event at CES last month, and the TikiTag people were kind enough to send me a demo kit.

Technically, it’s simple. The kit contains a USB-enabled RFID reader and ten sticky RFID tags. Download the app from the website, set up an account, plug in the reader, swipe a tag and something happens.… More

Eye contact is next teeping opportunity

Telepresence is to teleconferencing as dining is to eating. One is a mechanical process, the other transforms the simple act into a complete social experience. Or so the hope goes.

Also known as teeping, the idea is to create a completely immersive environment where you forget that the person you’re talking with is not physically present. Cisco is pushing this technology hard, but hasn’t crossed the line from teleconference to telepresence.


Teeping opportunity

I spent some time in a Cisco telepresence demo room this week, during a small business symposium co-hosted by the TIA and Cisco.… More

Confronting the killing ground

Start up companies looking for traditional “A” round financing in the $4 to $8 million dollar range will be left to die over the next 18 months. In fact, the financial killing ground will stretch from the $1 million level up to, and perhaps past, the $10 million range.

That was my take away from yesterday’s small business symposium sponsored by Cisco and the Telecommunications Industry Association. One of the highlights (from an information perspective, anyway) was a panel discussion with three venture capitalists (Ajay Chopra, Trinity Ventures, Michel Wendell, Nexit Ventures, Eric Zimits, Granite Ventures), and moderated by Dean Takahashi of VentureBeat.… More