16 Startup Trends That Will Be Huge in 2015

PREDICTIONS<http://www.entrepreneur.com/topic/predictions>
9 min read
16 Startup Trends That Will Be Huge in 2015





Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz has invested in some of today' most talked-about startups, including Slack, Buzzfeed, and Instacart.

Andreessen Horowitz has its finger on the pulse of what's happening in tech. Over on the firm' website<http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/16-things/>, its investors have shared 16 trends and themes they're excited about this year. It' a sort of State of the Union for what' happening in tech.

We've compiled Andreessen Horowitz' predictions for the 16 startup themes that will be big this year.

1. Virtual reality
"Computer enthusiasts and science fiction writers have dreamed about VR for decades. But earlier attempts to develop it, especially in the 1990s, were disappointing. It turns out the technology wasn't ready yet. What's happening now - because of Moore's Law, and also the rapid improvement of processors, screens, and accelerometers, driven by the smartphone boom - is that VR is finally ready to go mainstream," Chris Dixon, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, says<http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/virtual-reality/>.

We've already started to see the emergence of virtual reality: people are still excited and curious about<http://www.businessinsider.com/oculus-ces-2015-booth-shows-how-popular-virtual-reality-has-become-2015-1> Oculus, which Facebook announced it was acquiring last March<https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10101319050523971>. Microsoft<http://www.businessinsider.com/xbox-one-virtual-reality-headset-will-compete-with-oculus-rift-2014-12> and Apple<http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-virtual-reality-job-listing-2014-11> are also reportedly exploring virtual reality too.

2. Improving enterprise software design

Andreessen Horowitz partner Scott Weiss says this is the year for enterprise to play catch-up<http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/sensorification-of-the-enterprise/>. Enterprise companies need to get up to speed with consumer-facing startups, which have already created beautiful, functional interfaces, especially on mobile.

"Enterprise UI is woefully behind," he says. "All those well-understood motions that have taken hold from our everyday smartphone behaviors - pinch, zoom, swipe, tap, speak, even just moving stuff around with our fingers - have yet to take hold in the enterprise. The user interface has always been an afterthought, the last thing one did after building a database. That is changing now."

3. Machine learning and big data

Andreessen Horowitz' Peter Levine says we're going to continue to see big data as a trend this year<http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/machine-learning-big-data/>.

"Where business intelligence before was about past aggregates ('How many red shoes have we sold in Kentucky?'), it will now demand predictive insights ('How many red shoes will we sell in Kentucky?')," he says. "An important implication of this is that machine learning will not be an activity in and of itself ... it will be a property of every application. There won't be a standalone function, 'Hey, let's use that tool to predict.'"

4. The full-stack startup

Chris Dixon thinks you should put your money behind "full-stack startups<http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/the-full-stack-startup/>" - companies that "build a complete, end-to-end product or service that bypasses incumbents and other competitors," he says. He uses Apple as an example of a full-stack company - it makes its own chips, apps, and retail stores.

Dixon thinks Lyft and Uber are full-stack startups. "Companies like Lyft and Uber said: 'You know what? Instead of trying to sell software as an add-on, we're going just going build the whole service using our modern software.' They asked: What would this industry look like if it were rebuilt from scratch using technology we have today?"

5. Containers

Computing has become more efficient since it first started, but Peter Levine says containers will be huge in 2015<http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/containers/>.

"Containers aren't actually a new thing. They've been around for a long time, but are taking off for a few reasons," he says. "One reason is because Windows has become less prevalent in the datacenter; one of the downsides of containers compared to VMs is that they can't run multiple operating systems, like Windows on top of Linux. Another reason is 'microservices' app architecture driving enthusiasm for containers; these app architectures are especially suited to containers because they have discrete pieces of functionality that can scale independently, like LEGO building blocks."

6. Digital health

A lot of medicine that' being practiced today - a lot of the devices doctors use - is being designed by people without medical degrees. Andreessen Horowitz' <http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/digital-health/> Balaji Srinivasan says <http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/digital-health/> the trend of mobile and digital health will continue to increase this year.

"One center of action is likely going to be the mobile programmable medical record - the container for all diagnostics and test results - something like what Apple's HealthKit may evolve into," he says. "All this diagnostic history isn't necessarily 'big data'; it's just never been tracked and cross-correlated before in one place. Once technologies like HealthKit get a little more traction, millions of software engineers without MDs can build new applications on top of that data store (perhaps collected by other applications) without injuring the phone owner."

7. Online marketplaces

Online marketplaces like eBay and Craigslist have been super successful. But Jeff Jordan, a partner at Andreessen Horowitz, says the next trends to watch with e-commerce and marketplace spaces include businesses that are built by fleshing out niche services you'd find on Craigslist, like ridesharing or sublets; "mobile-first" marketplaces; "people marketplaces," where you can find niche services like Instacart or Glamsquad; and marketplaces for new segments, like B2B.

8. Security

2014 was not a great year for password security. Between the Sony leaks<http://www.businessinsider.com/sony-movie-scripts-leak-2014-12>, the large-scale iCloud photo hack<http://www.businessinsider.com/4chan-nude-photo-leak-2014-8> that resulted in private, naked pictures of celebrities leaking online, and security breaches at companies like Target<http://www.businessinsider.com/target-data-breach-cost-update-2014-8> and Home Depot<http://www.businessinsider.com/home-depot-potential-data-breach-2014-9>, it seemed everyone was vulnerable to having their privacy breached.

So it comes as no surprise that one trend Scott Weiss is predicting will be big in 2015 is security<http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/security/>. Companies that can identify when and where data breaches occur and then lock everything down and do damage control will be invaluable.

9. Bitcoin (and blockchain)

Even though the price of bitcoin has been dropping<http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-price-drop-2015-1>, Balaji Srinivasan says there are three things to consider in regards to the cryptocurrency this year<http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/bitcoin-and-blockchain/>. First, he says, bitcoin is still really new - so we should except adoption to increase significantly in 2015. Srinivasan also says we can expect new payment applications to develop for bitcoin, and that we should consider bitcoin as infrastructure.

10. Cloud-client computing

Peter Levine says there' a lot of potential with computing today to make your devices work more efficiently.

"We have more processing power in our hands today through smartphones than we did in large computers decades ago. So why shouldn't some of this processing move out of the cloud and back into the endpoint, into the phone?," he says<http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/cloud-client-computing/>. "Doing processing locally has its advantages. For instance, the cost of an endpoint CPU and memory is a 1000x cheaper than the cost of CPU and memory in the server. And in many places around the world, connectivity and transmission costs are sometimes far more expensive than the device."

11. Crowdfunding

When we think of crowdfunding now, we think about sitting at our computers and occasionally donating to someone' potato salad project<http://www.businessinsider.com/potato-salad-kickstarter-2014-7> or a movie campaign<http://www.businessinsider.com/first-veronica-mars-movie-trailer-after-kickstarter-campaign-2014-1> on Kickstarter. Jeff Jordan says this will change<http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/crowdfunding/>. "With smartphones in our pockets, we not only have access to crowdfunding platforms whenever we want, but to the crowd that comprises the various social circles of our lives - from family to school, work, and the region we live in," he says.

12. Internet of Things

Scott Weiss says the solution to our society's culture of planned obsolescence - where you constantly have to replace old or broken devices because they're not built to last forever - is the Internet of Things.<http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/internet-of-things/> "We tend to focus on the glorified outcomes [of IoT] but the mundane ones are equally if not more powerful," he says.

"The IoT could change things here, and create a new culture of repair. If you're a small family-owned restaurant that can't afford to constantly upgrade equipment or fix things, you can answer a whole new set of questions with the IoT: Is that freezer working extra hard because someone left the door open, or because its compressor is about to fail and you're about to lose $6,000 in food?"

13. Online video

YouTube has been around for a decade, but Jeff Jordan says online video is still just ramping up now<http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/online-video/>. He predicts YouTube will be carved out by entrepreneurs and companies for their own purposes. Besides new ways of monetizing video, Jordan says new forms of video advertising will emerge, and YouTube will start taking better care of its stars. Jordan also says other players could get in on the online video game too - it doesn't have to be all about YouTube.

14. Insurance

Software and data have improved, Andreessen Horowitz's Frank Chen says, so shouldn't the way we purchase our insurance also change? "Software will rewrite the entire way we buy and experience our insurance products - medical, home, auto, and life," he says, in three major ways<http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/insurance/>: "By changing the way insurance companies price risk; by empowering an ongoing relationship between an insurer and insured; and by changing the way insurance companies pool capital."

15. DevOps

DevOps - a portmanteau of the words "developer" and "operations - is a skill-set that any modern programmer should have, Scott Weiss says<http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/devops/>. He says there' a lot of opportunity for DevOps to grow this year.

"The rise of the hyperscale cloud datacenter has now made this job much harder as developers have had to hack together tools and complex scripts for pushing code to thousands of pancake servers," he says. "This complex cloud infrastructure<http://a16z.com/tag/cloud-infrastructure/> - coupled with the growth of the DevOps movement today - has opened up many opportunities, starting with helping developers and companies to manage the entire process ... to much more."

16. 'Failure'

"'The goal is not to fail fast. The goal is to succeed over the long run. They are not the same thing.'...Enough said," the VC firm says<http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/failure/> on its website, paraphrasing a tweet by known tweetstormer and Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Marc Andreessen<https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/510486200776290305>: "My goal is not to fail fast. My goal is to succeed over the long run. They are not the same thing."

Disclosure: Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, is an investor in Business Insider.

Como imprimir um pdf em frente e verso (numero PAR de páginas)

Como imprimir um pdf em frente e verso
INFORMÁTICA<http://www.sabercomofazer.com/temas/informatica/> post_visualizacoes: 1021

Uma das maneiras de imprimir que poupa bastante papel, é imprimir frente e verso.

Nem todas as impressoras tem a possibilidade de usar essa função e nem o utilizador normal tem necessidade de adquirir impressora com acessórios para o efeito.

Uma opção possível é mandar imprimir e ir voltando a página à medida que se vai avançando, tarefa morosa e passível de erros e encravamento.

Esta maneira que vou sugerir é bem mais simples e está acessível a todos, pois não requer nada de especial.

1º - Ao mandar imprimir o pdf (CTRL+P), escolha nas propriedades da impressão, imprimir primeiro as páginas impar (Odd Pages) e inicie a impressão.

[http://sabercomofazer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/imprimir-frente-verso-I--300x297.jpg]<http://sabercomofazer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/imprimir-frente-verso-I-.jpg>

2º - Ao finalizar retire as folhas impressas e recoloque na impressora de modo a imprimir o lado vazio.

3º - Faça novamente imprimir (CTRL+P), e nas propriedades, escolha páginas pares (Even Pages)

[http://sabercomofazer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/imprimir-frente-verso-II--300x290.jpg]<http://sabercomofazer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/imprimir-frente-verso-II-.jpg>

4º - Marque "Reverter páginas" (Reverse pages) e inicie a impressão

[http://sabercomofazer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/imprimir-frente-verso-III--300x287.jpg]<http://sabercomofazer.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/imprimir-frente-verso-III-.jpg>

Com este sistema imprime qualquer manual em pdf, poupando no papel e ficando com uma impressão de frente e verso perfeita.

What to expect next: A cloud platform for the Internet of things

Image Credit: Arduino Labs/Flickr

January 8, 2015 8:03 PM
Jesus Rodriguez, KidoZen

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The Internet of things (IoT) is becoming one of the most relevant trends in the history of the software industry. As connectivity, storage, and compute become more pervasive, we’re seeing an explosion of IoT solutions, from sports to public safety. The trend is clear: The IoT is here to stay. As with any other trend in the history of computer software, it’s starting to produce a new generation of platforms.

While the initial generation of IoT solutions have focused on frameworks like Arduino or Raspberry Pi that enable communication with smart sensors, I believe a new generation of platforms that enable backend capabilities for IoT solutions is about to emerge. To use industry terms, let’s call this type of platform an IoT platform as a service (PaaS).

The need for IoT backend services

The rapid evolution of the IoT market has caused an explosion in the number and variety of IoT solutions. Additionally, large amounts of funding are being deployed at IoT startups. Consequently, the focus of the industry has been on manufacturing and producing the right types of hardware to enable those solutions. In that model, most IoT solution providers have been building all components of the stack, from the hardware devices to the relevant cloud services or the solutions. As a result, there is a lack of consistency and standards across the cloud services used by the different IoT solutions.

As the industry evolves, the need for standard models to perform common IoT backend tasks, such as event processing, storage, and firmware updates, is becoming more relevant. In that new model, we are likely to see different IoT solutions work with common backend services, which will guarantee levels of interoperability, portability and manageability that are almost impossible to achieve with the current generation of IoT solutions.

The need for standards and consistency is becoming more relevant in IoT deployments. As a result, we are seeing the first generation of standards, such as MQTT or XMPP, being widely adopted as the transport layer for IoT solutions. However, transport protocols are not sufficient to establish a complete IoT backend layer. More sophisticated services that abstract common IoT backend capabilities, such as storage, event aggregation, and firmware management, are needed.

The emergence of the IoT PaaS

Meanwhile, backend services and infrastructures are becoming essential elements of IoT solutions, which can be seen as an extension of general PaaS. But they’ll have to feature IoT-optimized infrastructure services in order to be relevant for IoT solutions in the real world.

Mobile device management

In the enterprise mobile world, mobile device management (MDM) created a multi-billion-dollar industry that produced quite a bit of M&A activity, as well as at least one public standalone company, MobileIron. If we think about IoT deployments, we can find some of the same challenges that MDM tools addressed, but with much greater complexity. In that sense, I believe the IoT industry will produce platforms that mainly enable the management and operation of smart devices in an IoT topology.

Real-time analytics

In industrial IoT deployments, processing high volumes of data in real time and to provide meaningful analytics are essential for providing true business value. In that sense, I think IoT PaaS should include real-time analytics that can be used immediately. It could work with well established complex event processing platforms to perform real-time aggregations of the data smart devices produce.

IoT solutions testing

The emergence of mobile solutions has lead to new types of testing platforms that validated mobile solutions functionally across different types of devices, networks, and carriers. Following this pattern, I believe the arrival of more industrial IoT solutions will produce platforms that enable functional and integration testing capabilities across a variety of devices and topologies. From that perspective, this new generation of IoT testing platform should enable capabilities like dynamic message simulation, throughput generation, and the ability to record and replay message traffic under specific conditions.

Integration with enterprise systems

Integration with enterprise backend systems is incredibly important for industrial IoT. Consider, for example, a manufacturing plant equipped with sensors that monitor parts of the production line. Information the sensors produce gets aggregated and processed in real time by the IoT platform, which, upon detecting a condition, will update records in a production control system. Clearly, in this scenario, the information produced by IoT devices must be integrated with existing systems. To achieve that integration, IoT PaaS ought to provide the right level of connectors and backend integration capabilities that are optimized for high-traffic scenarios. Well established computing paradigms such as complex event processing will be incredibly useful to enable this sort of IoT integration.

Standing on the shoulders on existing platforms

While the concept of the IoT PaaS might seem novel, it’s fairly simple to deliver from a technological standpoint, due to the advances in cloud computing and mobile platforms. Today, most cloud infrastructure and platform technologies are equipped with high-throughput event processing services that can adapt to the needs of IoT. Additionally, these platforms address elastic scalability models.

Similar to cloud computing, the IoT PaaS concept can be built on the technology produced by the rapid evolution of the enterprise mobile industry over the past five years. If you think about mobile as a subset of IoT, then it’s safe to assume that well established enterprise platform concepts, such as MDM, mobile analytics, and mobile backend as a service, already offer a foundation for IoT PaaS solutions.

When is the right time to start? Follow the money

As with any emergent enterprise software trend, the IoT PaaS will take time to enter the mainstream. For enterprises, it might be hard to determine the right time to invest in this type of solution. For starters, one could follow the investments in the space. While there have been a few flavors of IoT PaaS solutions getting early funding, there haven’t been any major investments in the space. This is a clear sign that the industry is still maturing and framing out the capabilities of what will become the first generation of IoT PaaS solutions.

Jesus Rodriguez is a cofounder and chief executive of enterprise mobile application platform KidoZen.

 

Five Rules for Strategic Partnerships in a Digital World

Five Rules for Strategic Partnerships in a Digital World

Partnerships have always been a critical strategy for businesses looking to grow in unfamiliar markets, tap new customer segments, or sell additional products or services. They have also always been notoriously tricky to make work. Too bad, because in today's hypercompetitive, hyper-connected marketplace, partnerships have taken on even greater strategic importance and complexity. Both business-to-consumer and business-to-business companies are in an arms race to develop innovative user experiences, expand distribution, and capture new sources of monetization. Digital leaders are discovering that their future depends not just on what their own companies can do, but on the capabilities, functions, channels, and insights they can tap by partnering with others.

Through our work with leading companies, and in thoughtful discussions with more than 300 senior leaders who gather regularly in forums conducted by Digital Services at Strategy&<http://www.strategyand.pwc.com/digital/>, we've developed five key rules for successful partnerships in today's digital world.

Rule 1. Never innovate alone.

Companies can rarely reimagine their business for a digital world within their own four walls. Whether via joint ventures, acquisitions, strategic investments, or ad hoc collaborations, partnerships are now essential to scaling the talent, investments, and other innovation-focused resources required to support transformational new businesses, products, and user experiences. More open source development is a related imperative. This stands in stark contrast to traditional siloed approaches to innovation.

Example: Citigroup is actively using its Citi Ventures unit and its relationship with the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz to source disruptive startup opportunities that have the potential to create significant value for the company. Citi is focused on six key areas: data monetization, big data, security, mobility, emerging IT, and next gen banking/financial services.

Rule 2. Understand that no single company has a lock on user preferences.

Consumers are moving targets. Companies need to realize they don't have all the killer insights or data by themselves, and must engage with others that have complementary information assets. Partners are now essential to building market advantage through superior knowledge capital, and robust information exchange is fast becoming the new normal for high-performing partnerships.

Example: General Electric and Intel created a joint venture,CareInnovations<http://www.careinnovations.com/>, to aggregate more than 6.8 billion patient data points and provide insights to players in healthcare that can improve care delivery, reduce costs, and drive behavioral changes.

Rule 3. Focus first on a great user experience, not the value exchange.

Today's most valuable partnerships are built around creating great user experiences, not just exchanging value between companies. Embracing this approach requires a human-centered design<http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00258?pg=all> emphasis that pushes the partnership to solve a real user problem, versus concentrating entirely on transactional benefits.

Today's most valuable partnerships are built around creating great user experiences, not just exchanging value between companies.

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Example: Roku, a leading provider of devices and channels for streaming video and other media, has partnered with the home electronics manufacturer TCL to produce a simplified "smart TV" built around the Roku operating system. The result is an integrated video user experience that combines Roku UX/UI capabilities in personalization, curation, and video discovery with TCL expertise in hardware design and manufacturing.

Rule 4. Strike the right balance between scale and customization.

Creating a broad network of partnerships can be expensive, because major partners will typically demand differentiated solutions that are unique to their needs. Developing a partnering approach that combines scalability (maximum reach) with low-cost customization (something special for each partner) is critical. Here, designing technology and tools such as apps and software development kits around specific partnership objectives can give your company a broader and longer-term advantage.

Example: As Netflix has expanded its member base and the number of devices it supports, the company has evolved its API (application programming interface) strategy to meet its business objectives. During the early stages of its successful transition from a distributor of mail-order DVDs to an Internet streaming service, Netflix had an aggressive public API program designed to encourage third-party developers to create new offerings based on its data. Now, with close to 50 million global subscribers. Netflix has reassessed its API program and is focusing more on working with a smaller group of private partners, reducing the cost and complexity associated with a more public approach.

Rule 5. Treat your partnership like your business.

Too many strategic partnerships never come close to achieving their intended outcomes. Why? The partners never dedicate the resources, ongoing commitment, and ownership needed to drive meaningful impact. Achieving success with joint go-to-market or product development collaboration is hard work. It takes time. It costs money. And it doesn't happen overnight. To get it right, you have to run the partnership more like a true business and less like a deal.

Example: Acxiom has prioritized expanding its partner ecosystem to support growth of its Audience Operating System (AOS), which is key to its overall strategy as a provider of marketing and enterprise data services. Acxiom has invested in partnering with Publicis Groupe's Starcom MediaVest Group (SMG) as a channel partner in order to reach more customers. And as of September 2014, Acxiom had trained about 400 SMG employees to use AOS, which accelerated the adoption of the AOS platform with SMG clients.

The strategic importance of reinventing approaches to partnerships cannot be understated. If it's not already on every leadership team's agenda, it should be. As customers or users jump from experience to experience with increasing speed, and traditional sources of scale and differentiation decline in value, the need to build capabilities for managing and delivering against these new partnership rules has never been greater.

What are the biggest challenges you have in building fruitful strategic partnerships? How are you making these investments work? Share your thoughts in the comments.

My 12-Step Digital Detox for a Healthier and More Productive 2015 | Martin O’Leary

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martin-oaleary/my-12-step-plan-to-a-heal_b_6322356.html

My 12-Step Digital Detox for a Healthier and More Productive 2015

If you're like me, you probably sleep with your smartphone and tablet at arms reach. Then start checking email, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and several news sites before you fully wake up each morning. Do your friends and family constantly nag you to stop looking at your phone?

In my previous posts, I talked about how we've been digitally seduced and how technology is distracting ourselves from the reality of the present moment.

Time to Unplug and Recharge

We spend so much of our time these days charging our phones, tablets and ebook readers that we sometimes forget that us humans too need to recharge. Without taking the time to properly recharge it is very easy for someone to experience burnout in this digitally wired world.

Thanks to cloud computing we all now walk around with supercomputers in our pocket.

I've decided it's time to fight back and take action against my digital overlords. However, the reality is I actually love these digital distractions, so rather than going cold turkey, I've come up with a realistic 12-step plan to a healthier and more productive life in this digital world.

My 12-Step Digital Detox:

1. I signed up for an eight-week mindfulness course (for any friends reading this I was not abducted by aliens and reprogrammed). I also recommend downloading an app called Head Space, which offers really great 10-minute guided mediations.
2. I'm going to take Arianna Huffington's advice in Thrive (essential reading) and remove all technology from my bedroom except for one old beaten up alarm clock and reading light. I'm still debating if I should remove my Kindle or not.
3. Okay, this one is going to be tough, as I plan on not checking my phone when I wake and instead wait until after breakfast! To achieve this I'll probably need to hide my phone outside the bedroom. What's even tougher is the fact I actually plan on having breakfast!
4. Reduce and eventually stop drinking coffee. Instead I'm going to start drinking more green tea, so I don't have to miss out on those all important coffee break catch-ups.
5. I plan to exercise at least three times a week. I'll try to mix it up by playing five-aside soccer, gym work and maybe go for a run or play some tennis.
6. I will turn off all phone alerts and notifications, as these are probably my biggest distraction and productivity killer.
7. Eat healthier during the day and remind myself that small changes can produce long-lasting effects. Include some vitamin supplements for those days I fall off the wagon.
8. When at work actually focus on what needs to be done and avoid needless distraction. Some people see staying late at work as a badge of honor but in reality chronic lateness is just poor time management. It also dilutes ones earnings and reduces one's overall quality of life -- tilting the scales of work-life balance!
9. I decided I will no longer constantly check my phone when I go to a bar for a few drinks with friends. Instead I will turn it off just before I meet them. The upside is this will stop some of the nagging.
10. I'm going to reduce the number of people and sites I follow and read online. I'm going to focus on creating a curated list of interesting people and sites which actually add some real value in my life.
11. As much as I love my Kindle I've decided to only have real books in my bedroom and for a start I'm going to read The Power of Now followed by rereading the less spiritual Getting Things Done.
12. Get serious about time management. The problem is not really about technology; it's about time management. Make a schedule that includes time for everything -- work and personal activities -- and then stick to it.

Bon Voyage and Wish Me Luck

In a couple of months, I'll write a follow-up post to let you all know how these hyper-dis-connectivity (if that's a real word) changes are working out over the long term.

To quote Paulo Coelho: One day you we will wake up and there won't be any more time, to do the things we've always wanted. Do it now.

If all else fails you remember you are not alone and maybe it's time to attend a professional Digital Detox Camp.

Follow Martin O'Leary on Twitter: www.twitter.com/martinoleary

Sent from my iPad

Measuring Global Audience Is Labor Intensive

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Measuring Global Audience Is Labor Intensive

11/17/2014

WASHINGTON—Imagine trying to measure your audience in third-world countries where people can’t afford a television set or a radio.

You can’t exactly ask these viewers and listeners to carry a portable people meter or fill out a diary. And call-outs don’t work either.

Yet that’s the audience Broadcasting Board of Governors-led U.S.-government-backed overseas broadcasters like VOA, Radio Liberty, Radio Marti are trying to reach. And to justify continued funding, the BBG needs to prove to the U.S. government that its broadcasters are relevant, impactful players.

BBG contracts with Gallup Poll to ask respondents about their media habits. In turn, Gallup works with local polling firms in the countries to get that data using in-person interviews.

Such interviews are typically 45 minutes in length and BBG keeps the data in its audience “wheelhouse” from two to five years. Think of it as an Arbitron/Jacobs Media Bedroom Project, a 2007 study of how young adults use digital media in their everyday lives, butfor overseas listening, where interviewers ask respondents, in their local language, about their media habits for TV, AM/FM and shortwave radio, online and social media sites. In many countries, much of the audience is reporting out-of-home media consumption because they may not own a TV set or a radio receiver, or perhaps the government restricts their power use or for some other reason, like war.

Figures released today for something like 100 markets show BBG has a global audience estimate of 215 million weekly people 15+ in unduplicated audience, including radio, TV, and Internet, up from 206 million in 2013. Markets where BBG is unable to conduct audience research, like North Korea, Tibet, Cuba and others are excluded.

The overall takeaways, according to audience research officials for the BBG, is the television, and online audience is growing at 124 million and 25 million people weekly while radio is stable at 111 million weekly people.

The largest audiences by country in 2014 were in Indonesia, Nigeria and Iran, compared to Indonesia, Nigeria and Mexico in 2013. You can see how the top countries measured by BBG rate later today as part of a larger report on the BBG website.

When I asked whether the analog or digital radio and television audience is measured, officials said it depends on the “local regime” in each country — meaning the method of delivery by the local media affiliate that BBG partners with (some 2,300) in a particular country.

Of interest is how programming delivered by BBG broadcasters Alhurra and Radio Sawa to the Middle East and Northern Africa is counteracting propaganda by ISIL, data they hope to have soon.

Though overseas audience data-gathering is different from such data gathered for a U.S. audience, where advertising markets are key, I have some context for what BBG is doing. One of my news radio jobs was at Voice of America. In 1986 when Dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier was ousted, the U.S. wanted to add more hours of democratic programming aimed at Central America. I was the English news anchor and writer for a daily VOA program broadcast mainly in Creole to Haiti. Our shortwave frequency was changed often to counteract jamming by the Russians and Cubans. We announced slowly, to counteract the variable shortwave signal and wrote with no jargon or contractions, to account for the fact that the majority of listeners spoke English as a second or third language.

BBG broadcasters are still aiming their content to countries that have what they politely call “challenging” news environments; the advent of digital means now they have more avenues to try and reach those audiences.

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#SFMusicTech Summit | Recap & Remarks - hypebot

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2014/11/sf-music-tech-recap-reflection.html

#SFMusicTech Summit | Recap & Remarks

Let's start by admitting that I'm about to break several basic rules of journalism. While there's reporting in this piece, I am also a newly minted fan of SF Music Tech. So, it is with heartfelt gratitude that I take to my computer at 11:30pm to gather my thoughts after a whirlwind day at SF Music Tech Summit. Gratitude for Brian Zisk and the incredible team that worked tirelessly to pull of an impeccable conference; for the countless enthusiastic individuals who I crossed paths with both intentionally and circumstantially; and for the ideas shared, expanded upon, and set in motion throughout the day. While there is entirely too much future content for one blog post to handle, there were a handful of recurring themes worth highlighting.

Opportunity makes a follower. Experience makes a fan. 

"I believe all music fans have moments like this with their favorite artists. They see an amazing performance at exactly the right time in their life or they get to to meet a member of the band and they really like that person and the go from someone who really likes an artist to someone who is a true fan of that artist." - Ethan Diamond, Bandcamp 

The secret to making money? Knowing who's going to spend it. 

"The question around is recorded music an important part of a musicians life is, I believe, absolutely yes, how you present that recorded music is changing. Everything we've talked about are great ideas for monetization, but in order to make them work, you must first truly understand your fans - both who they are, and what they want." - Amy Dietz, INgrooves

Think like a Startup 

"I think we need to shift our mindset as musicians to looking at music as a small, medium, or large business depending on where you are in your career. It's like a startup, and if I were starting, I'd knock on every venue door, talk to every band that's playing, try to get in front of their audience, put my work out there for free, play as many shows as possible to try to best understand who my customer is and what they want." - J Sider, BandPage

System + Spirit = Success

"We never got a free pass. Our fans wanted our best. So our mantra was it's that 10% extra that makes it 100% better than anything else. Thats the work ethic we walked into every rehearsal with - our fans demanded it. That knowledge of our fanbase is what forced us into working for the credibility we came to have in this space." - Jimmy Chamberlin, Smashing Pumpkins

Dan Berkowitz, of CID Entertainment said yesterday, "Every single person in this room right now could sell words on the internet. Selling experiences is one thing, creating those experiences and over-delivering for those people is everything." That is exactly what, as an industry, you did for me at SF Music Tech Summit.

So, that being said, I want to personally thank each and every one of you for an informative, invigorating, and inspiring conference. I am eternally grateful to those of you who welcomed me into your tight knit community with open arms - I look forward to following your journies and to learning more from you along the way. 

I close out the day hopeful for the future of the music industry. Not because there aren't obstacles, but because there are people out there like you who are committed to overcoming them.

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"Trava química" impede que duração da bateria cresça com rapidez do celular - Notícias - Tecnologia

http://tecnologia.uol.com.br/noticias/redacao/2014/11/12/avancos-das-baterias-nao-acompanham-evolucao-de-celulares-diz-perita.htm

"Trava química" impede que duração da bateria cresça com rapidez do celular

A principal reclamação dos usuários dos smartphones --independente da marca ou do modelo--está relacionada à durabilidade das baterias, que os tornaram reféns dos carregadores e, consequentemente das tomadas.

Se há uns três ou quatros anos as cargas chegavam a durar até uma semana, atualmente, no entanto, o tempo entre uma recarga e outra dificilmente ultrapassa 24 horas. Por que isso acontece? Será que as baterias não acompanharam a evolução dos celulares? Ou será que não se adequaram ao novo comportamento dos usuários?

Maria de Fátima Negreli Rosolem, perita em sistemas de energia do CPqD (Centro de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento em Telecomunicações), afirma existir uma desproporção dos avanços dos celulares e das baterias. Uma diferença que, segundo ela, 'atravanca' de certa forma o desenvolvimento do setor de telecomunicações. 

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Bateria do smartphone pode durar mais com ajustes simples; saiba como25 fotos

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Quem usa smartphone sabe que um dos pontos fracos do aparelho, independente da marca, é a duração da bateria. Isso ocorre justamente porque as funções ""inteligentes"" consomem a energia do celular para funcionarem. Mas alguns ajustes pequenos nos smartphones podem fazer a bateria durar mais nos sistemas Android e iOS; veja a seguir Arte UOL

Mas, como justificou Maria de Fátima, as pesquisas nas áreas de materiais são muito mais demoradas, principalmente por trabalharem diretamente com compostos químicos. "Não é algo que se possa lançar de um dia para noite. Depende muitos testes para que se possa garantir que os elementos não sejam agressivos ao meio ambiente, não comprometam a saúde dos usuários e, além disso, seja eficiente", explicou ela.

Para João Carlos Lopes Fernandes, professor de Engenharia de Computação do Instituto Mauá de Tecnologia, não dá para dizer que não houve uma evolução tecnológica das baterias, mas elas ainda são insuficientes para atender a demanda dos usuários.

"O perfil dos consumidores mudou significativamente. Antes os celulares, que serviam basicamente para receber e fazer chamadas, passavam a maior parte do tempo no modo standby. Hoje esses mesmos usuários passam 24 horas por dia conectados à internet pelo dispositivo móvel."

Consumo que, segundo ele, ganha ainda mais peso com a velocidade das redes. "Antes o acesso à internet era garantido pela rede 2G, que está sendo substituída pela 3G e 4G, e quanto maior a velocidade, maior o consumo da bateria." Ainda assim Fernandes cita evoluções consideradas importantes dos sistemas de recargas: "Nos primeiros celulares, na década de 1980, a bateria durava entre 5 e 10 minutos de uso. Sem contar nas recargas que levaram até 24h para serem concluídas", acrescentou ele.

Mesmo reconhecendo o aumento das funcionalidades dos smartphones --que levaram o computador para o celular-- e demandam uma potência cada vez maior das baterias, Maria de Fátima também destaca a intenção do setor de materiais em criar produtos que tenham durabilidade maior, menor tempo de recarga e vida útil superior aos atuais quatro anos. "A evolução está constante, mas é mais lenta do que a eletrônica. E essa lentidão, para os mais leigos, chega aparentar uma estagnação. Mas isso não é verdade", afirmou.

"Países asiáticos, assim como os Estados Unidos, têm investido muito dinheiro para encontrarem soluções mais eficientes. O setor ganhou ainda mais força com a chegada dos veículos elétricos, que também demandam evoluções nos sistemas de baterias ainda mais complexas do que as de celulares, mas que podem ser adaptadas", apontou Maria de Fátima.

O UOL Tecnologia levantou alguns dos protótipos de baterias e carregadores que, quando lançados no mercado, podem diminuir a dependência dos usuários de smartphones com as tomadas. Veja:

Protótipos de baterias e carregadores

• Nanyang Technological University

  Cientistas da NTU (Nanyang Technological University), em Singapura, desenvolveram uma bateria que demora cerca de três minutos para ser recarregada, além de ter uma vida útil de 20 anos. O grafite que tradicionalmente reveste o polo negativo foi substituído por nanotubos de dióxido de titânio. O material químico possibilita acelerar as reações químicas que acontecem na bateria. Foto: Divulgação

• Universidade de Stanford

  Uma equipe de pesquisadores da Universidade de Stanford, nos Estados Unidos, desenvolveu um novo tipo de bateria de íons de lítio, com capacidade de durar até 3 vezes mais que as que se encontram no mercado. A tecnologia utilizada evita o desperdício de energia, controla quaisquer possíveis instabilidades químicas, além de garantir mais eficiência na parte da bateria que descarrega os elétrons. Foto: Reprodução

• StoreDot

  A startup israelense StoreDot estava desenvolvendo um sistema bio-orgânico capaz de recarregar uma bateria de smartphone em apenas 30 segundos. Com o uso de peptídeos, compostos que contêm aminoácidos, os cientistas identificaram o aumento da reação química para produzir energia extra. O protótipo da bateria e do carregador, segundo a empresa, deve chegar ao mercado em 2016. Foto: Reprodução

• uBeam

  A startup americana uBeam criou o protótipo de um carregador capaz de transmitir eletricidade através do ar. O carregador converte a energia elétrica em som, que por sua vez é enviado sob a forma de ondas ultra-sonoras pelo ar. Em seguida, o aparelho celular, que também possui um conversor, consegue captar essas ondas e as transforma de volta em eletricidade para ser recarregado. Foto: Reprodução

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Gadgets portáteis recarregam bateria de smartphones e tablets; veja opções 24 fotos

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Nem sempre quando a bateria do seu smartphone ou tablet acaba você está perto de uma tomada para recarregá-los. Para evitar o contratempo, gadgets portáteis e capinhas podem dar energia extra para os dispositivos -- você só tem de se lembrar carregá-los previamente e depois levá-los na bolsa ou na mochila. Veja a seguir algumas opções à venda no Brasil | Preços consultados em março de 2014 Reprodução

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Spain’s Economic Recovery Helping Local Startups - Digits - WSJ

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/10/10/spains-economic-recovery-helping-local-startups/?mod=ST1

Spain's Economic Recovery Helping Local Startups

The South Summit has 3,000 startups attending this year.

Spain Startup

MADRID— Spain's fledgling startup scene is hoping the country's recent economic recovery rubs off on them.

The Eurozone's fourth-largest economy is growing at one of the fastest clips of any in Western Europe, unemployment is dropping and investors are flocking to previously taboo sectors such as real estate and banking.

They're also starting to look into startups. Data compiled by Venture Watch, a Spanish research firm, shows that investment in the sector rose 6.5% in the January-September period from last year.

More available financing is helping some firms— like Scytl Secure Electronic Voting, S.A., a provider of e-voting systems, or Focus S.L., which transforms existing fiber networks into early warning sensors for industrial clients— take advantage of bigger rounds of investments that allow for expansion plans.

"We started with Spain Startup in 2012, when all the talk was about a European Union bailout for Spain's government," says Sofia Benjumea, a cofounder and Chief Executive of Spain Startup, a company that organizes the South Summit, a three-day conference for Southern European and Latin American startups.

This year's summit, which runs through Friday in Madrid, has 3,000 startups attending this year, twice as many as in 2012, she said. Most are young, small-team app developers, with a smattering or more sophisticated firms looking for funds to grow existing businesses.

"The challenge for everyone is how to secure more funding," said Jeff Clavier, founder and managing partner of Softech VC, a U.S.-based venture capital firm. "At the moment, 99% of the startups are coming to us now, rather than us coming to them."

There is also a rise of entrepreneurs in Spain, surveys show, with increasing numbers of undergraduates preferring not to become civil servants—for decades, the preferred career path in countries like Spain, Portugal and Greece. They'd rather start their own businesses.

Still, despite the economic recovery hype, Spain's tech sector is far behind Europe's other startup powers. According to Venture Watch, in the first half of 2014, the U.K. attracted 658 million euros in IT startup capital, and France 353 million euros. Luxembourg, Belgium and Netherlands combined for 172 million euros. Spain received 81 million euros in the same period.

Experts cite several key challenges to overcome: a legal and bureaucratic system with byzantine paperwork requirements, and a low social tolerance for failure.

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There’s Something Going On In L.A. | TechCrunch

http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/08/theres-something-going-on-in-l-a/

There's Something Going On In L.A.

Editor's Note: Mark Suster is a 2x entrepreneur and VC at Upfront Ventures. Follow his blog at BothSidesoftheTable.

"There's something going on in L.A."

It's the new refrain I hear from investors and even entrepreneurs these days. I hear it right after people decide to come by for a few days to "check out what all the fuss is about." I hear it when I visit LPs all across the country: "Yeah, I haven't been out there for a few years but I keep hearing that something is going on there."

So what is actually going on in L.A.? Is it true that the ecosystem has changed? Has it begun to mature or is it just better marketed than in was, say, five years ago? These are the questions I set out to answer with our master of analysis at Upfront Ventures, Glenn Poppe (who deserves the bulk of the credit for our work).

L.A. By The Numbers

When you peel back the onion, some surprising data presents itself. Let me start with the obvious baseline: Los Angeles is the third-largest technology startup ecosystem in the US. Since our city is the second-largest metropolitan area in the country, this is hardly surprising.

When answering the actual question "Is there something going on in LA?" in 2014, the data seems pretty conclusive. LA has now become the fastest-growing tech startup region by the number of companies being started. And those of us here have noticed this pace accelerating.

I know that many VCs instinctively recognized this, even without the data, because I've noticed the frequency of high-profile VCs (from Andreessen Horowitz, Benchmark, KPCB, and Sequoia) recently backing companies in L.A.; or spending time throwing dinners and events. Some very experienced VCs (David Lee, Chris Sacca, Erik Rennala) even relocated to Los Angeles.

In fact, data released in this report by the LA Economic Development Council and the L.A. mayor's office showed that the city now has more people employed in high-tech jobs (368,500) than any other metro region in the U.S. They're accounting for 9 percent of all of L.A.'s jobs and 17 percent of total wages (that's obviously highlighting some other issues that need to be addressed).

They estimate that high-tech work contributes $108.3 billion dollars of regional GDP. What's perhaps different from other regions is that we have a large indigenous aerospace industry and a big high-tech import/export trade instead of a lot of software companies. But even this is changing.

Given how efficient markets are, when a large market like L.A. starts to blossom, it attracts capital pretty quickly. In the last full year for which data is available, L.A. attracted $1.5 billion in venture capital for its technology startups — and 2014 will shatter that figure.

Over the past four years, financing for L.A. tech companies has grown at a 30 percent compounded annual growth rate (CAGR), which is greater four times the U.S. average (at 7 percent).

In the last month alone (not captured in the $1.5 billion 2013 figure), there have been massive financings at Honest Company ($70 million), JustFab ($85 million), ZipRecruiter ($63 million) and whatever figure (lord only knows how much) Snapchat has actually accumulated.

What Has Given Birth to This New Movement in L.A.? 

Many people don't realize that the majority of the monetization of the Internet originated in Los Angeles but was perfected in Silicon Valley.

When my friend, and the father of L.A.'s tech startup community, Bill Gross, first demonstrated his company GoTo.com (renamed Overture) onstage at a TED conference he was actually booed (True story. You can hear many other amazing stories in this 1:1 interview). What was Bill Gross's heresy that rankled the tech elite? He presented a system where your search results would be ranked based on companies bidding for placement and where merchants would be charged on a "cost per click" basis.

Booed.

So much so that if you read "Googled" you'll see why Larry and Sergey stated they would never do paid search results. The monetization engine of the Internet that powers its most profitable business was invented and perfected in Los Angeles and is what you now know as Google AdWords. The patents that Overture held became known in small circles as Google's '361 problem. Yahoo acquired Overture for $1.63 billion (Upfront Ventures was an early Overture backer).

Yes, Google won. My point is that historically the ecosystem in L.A. has bred innovations in monetization and technology, but to date hasn't reached the kind of scale of our major NorCal brethren.

And it wasn't just Google AdWords that originated in Los Angeles. Google's AdSense did, too. AdWords, as you likely know, are the paid results you see when you do a Google search. Google AdSense delivers the results you sometimes see on non-search pages that show you ads that are seemingly relevant to the words on the page.

This method was perfected by Gil Elbaz and his team at Applied Semantics in L.A., and in what some have called "the most important acquisition ever made by Google," the search giant acquired Applied Semantics for $102 million before Google had even IPO'd.

What do Bill Gross and Gil Elbaz have in common that portends well for the future of L.A. tech?

Both graduated from Caltech, one of the most premier science institutions in the U.S. Both are massively funding other L.A. tech companies through what Fred Wilson once defined as "recycled capital." Both had talented senior executives that are now running (and funding) tech startups in their own right, like Gil's brother Eytan Elbaz or the countless graduates of Overture. Both Bill Gross and Gil Elbaz are building their next companies in L.A.

There's also no denying the role that Richard Rosenblatt has played in building the L.A. tech ecosystem. He built and sold iMall in Internet 1.0 for $565 million to Excite. He led and sold Myspace to Fox for $650 million. He built and IPO'd Demand Media. And while none has had the lasting power of the much bigger NorCal successes, I imagine his next moves will continue to be closely watched. And the younger L.A. entrepreneurs, who count Rosenblatt as a mentor, may leave an even more lasting impact.

But the "monetization heart of the Internet" doesn't stop at Overture or Applied Semantics. Over the past decade we've had high-profile exits at many companies that pioneered monetization techniques now used across the web, including Commission Junction, Value Click, ShopZilla, Price Grabber and LowerMyBills along with a newer breed including Invoca, Burstly, Shift, Retention Science and so forth. Many of the early winners sold for over half a billion dollars.

Success begets success. The rewards reaped by those who came in the 90's have 15 years later created new seed capital, blossoming new entrepreneurs and an ecosystem of experienced operators that nourished L.A. 1.0 and are cultivating L.A. 2.0.

But Is This Really That Surprising? 

All of this success raises the question whether the flourishing of Los Angeles is just emblematic of the long tech boom we've seen nationally. Of course it is — to some extent.

But this time there really is something happening in L.A. It's different. More substantive. Lasting. Structural. This time we won't stop at a half a billion, but we seem destined to create the kind of tent-pole successes that have brought lasting change to markets like Seattle.

Of course most of you know SnapChat, Tinder and Whisper. And many people (who wouldn't be wrong) immediately associate the success of Los Angeles under the SoLoMo banner (Social, Local, Mobile). But they  forget that we have 2 relatively recent IPOs that are substantive companies: TrueCar (Upfront backed) and Cornerstone OnDemand. We don't seem to get credit as a community for SpaceX or recognition as one of the fastest growing communities for commerce: Honest Company and JustFab. You probably know that Disney recently paid nearly $1 billion to acquire Maker Studios (Upfront backed) and that's just the first inning for online video companies hatching out of LA.

If you throw in Oculus into the mix along with TrueCar, Rubicon, Burstly, Beats and others, L.A. tech has seen more than $8 billion in exits in 2014 alone. As Adam Sandler would say, "not too shabby."

L.A. 2.0: This time it really is different.

From Infrastructure to Applications – The Three C's

In order to contextualize the opportunity that exists for the Internet outside of Silicon Valley, take inspiration from the history of technology evolution across many markets throughout history. In her well-regarded book "Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital: The Dynamics of Bubbles and Golden Ages" Carlota Perez outlines the history of many of our great leaps forward in innovation.

Each followed a predictable path of building out infrastructure followed by a bubble then a crash followed by a more rapid deployment of the technology throughout industry and society. No less than Fred Wilson has credited Carlota's work with having a major influence on his investment strategy at USV.

In order to have the great companies we now know today (Uber, DropBox, Airbnb, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook and so forth) we first needed the "Internet rails" beneath us. We needed routers, switches, databases, caching software, load balancers, application servers, browsers, compression algorithms, streaming technology, low-cost storage, management consoles, programming libraries and on and on. We saw booms and bubbles in both telecom infrastructure and Internet infrastructure and now, of course, those two things are largely the same.

Once the railways are built most countries (except the U.S.) start to build better versions of their infrastructure. So you get high-speed railways in Japan, Germany, China, France — and now even connecting France and the U.K. So I'm not arguing that the "infrastructure building" phase of the Internet is over – to the contrary. We see big data storage solutions and processing platforms. We see improvements in wireless transmission and in real-time programming languages.

But.

With the foundation laid, the application layer is having its moment. It's no surprise to see billion dollar companies like Honest Company and JustFab in L.A. We are the largest textile and apparel center in the country and now we have a way to reach billions of people in this globally connected Internet. Deflationary Economics now favors us.

Is it any surprise to see Zulily in Seattle, Wayfair in Boston, ExactTarget in Indianapolis, TrueCar in Los Angeles, Groupon in Chicago or BuzzFeed in NYC? I think it's the era of the application.

And our belief is that consumer applications that ride on this Internet infrastructure layer fall into just three buckets we call "the three C's": content, commerce and communications. These are industries ripe to succeed in LA and NYC. These are industries that start to open up new commercial zones like Cincinnati (home to P&G/Kroger) and Chicago.

Content. It should be intuitive to most that L.A. is well-suited to take on the world of content meets tech as we've seen with Maker Studios, Fullscreen, AwesomenessTV and Big Frame. With all of those companies gobbled up the market is now focused on the next generation startups like Tastemade, MiTu Network, StyleHaul and so forth. We believe there is no denying that the future virtual reality (VR) world will be stimulated in LA where you have the great 3d special effects companies, content creators and movie studios.

Commerce: What is less known is just how important LA is as a commerce hub. Around $400 billion of imports & exports pass through the L.A. ports each year, which set the national high-water mark in 2012. Thirty-six percent of all apparel jobs in the U.S. are in Los Angeles. And L.A. is the largest retail & trade employment metropolitan zone in the country.  It's not accident we have so many great startups targeting commerce including Tradesy, DailyLook, NastyGal, Honest Co and JustFab just to name a few.

Communications: Of course comms companies are springing up globally including WhatsApp, Line, KakaoTalk, WeChat and the dominant platforms of Facebook & Twitter. But there's no denying that we have more than our fair share of great startups in this space that have emerged recently including Snapchat, Tinder, Whisper and textPlus (which while much smaller still has millions of monthly active users – Upfront is an investor).

Stuff you may not know about LA?

It's probably worth pointing out that LA is a town built upon entrepreneurship even if not always underpinned by technology. We're a land for people who left their stable East Coast homes in search of opportunity and a chance to start fresh. LA has more entrepreneurs as a percentage of its population than anywhere else in the country.

Intuitively, most people know that L.A. is also the heart of creative capital. L.A. is the largest metropolitan area in the U.S. for people employed in art, design and media and the local creative economy of L.A. generates more than $140 billion in economic output – more than the GDP of many countries. In fact, 1 in 7, or nearly 15 percent, Angelinos are employed in a creative field.

But what about tech talent?

Yeah, we got that, too.  It may surprise you to learn that L.A. graduates more engineers than anywhere else in the country. We also have more grad student enrollments each year in computer sciences than anywhere else in the country. So we produce them with deep knowledge and en masse.

Of course many of these graduates have been employed for years in the video and music industries and a larger amount have even been pulled into aerospace and defense over the past 30 years. As a result, we have a large number of locally employed engineers with video experience that will fuel the next boom of the Internet (Americans watch 5.3 hours of television per day – and much of this video is now moving online).

Equally important is that we are now a rich source of hardware expertise and innovation that is increasingly becoming important as the hardware markets boom.

While our best Internet software engineers have historically been exported on a net basis to the Bay Area, I'm sensing that trend reversing. Companies like Snapchat have been able to import large volumes of Stanford grads lured to creating a next-gen Internet powerhouse in Venice, Calif., GQ magazine just dubbed it "the coolest block in America.").

You may also be surprised to know that not only does LA graduate more engineers than anywhere else in America but we also have more top 25 engineering programs than anywhere else in America with nationally acclaimed programs at Caltech, UCSD, USC, UCLA and Harvey Mudd.

The Road Ahead

The infrastructure phase of the Internet is over. It will still attract investments as it improves in terms of quality, speed and reach; but the application layer will rise in its import. The three C's will ride on the tracks that have been laid for us and L.A. has shown itself to be a prominent player in this application phase.

We have the engineers who are graduating from top engineering schools; we now have second- and third-time entrepreneurs fueled by recycled capital and mentors who have built startups to successful outcomes and have seen scale; and we have our emerging tentpole companies like SnapChat, Oculus, TrueCar along with large investments and teams from Google, Facebook and Microsoft.

I also surveyed the list of local VCs and while we are slim on total available local capital I also realized just how many new funds were created over the past decade and how much more modern the skills are of this generation of local VCs are than those of the past.

With the founders, the funds, the application layer of the Internet, the attractiveness of Los Angeles in terms of cost-of-living and climate I think it's fair to say that our moment in the sun has just begun.

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