Could Photos Be the Sav...

Did you know that Google+ is currently running a conference in San Francisco specifically aimed at photographers? Me, either, but it’s true. The conference description goes like this: Scott Kelby is bringing Google+ photographers together for a history making conference to help photographers refine their photography skills, grow their online brand, and get the most out of Google+. This amazing conference brings together some of the biggest photographers on Google+, some of the best instructors of photography and some of the geniuses of social media. You’ll learn from these a-list instructors during two jam-packed days of photo walks, live photo shoots, one-on-one portfolio reviews, panel discussions and photography workshops. Here’s a picture from the event courtesy of the conference Google+ page: Hmm. . . looks like the photographers need a few more lessons. Venture Beat covered the conference and they say Google+ is working hard at becoming the biggest site for online photos. They want to be the next Flickr or maybe even the next Pinterest. Or maybe just a social network that people want to visit everyday. Photos could work. Hangout is one of the few Google+ successes and Facebook is horrible as a photo album, so maybe Google+ can make this work. Vice president of product for Google+ Bradley Horowitz told the crowd that he thinks the secret is in gathering more data, right up to the blood pressure of the person taking the shot. He says this will help determine how emotionally attached the photographer is to the event being photographed. His wish is to have everyone store their photos on the great Google cloud, then edit them with a variety of web tools so that each photo can make a statement. It’s a good idea. People love sharing photos online and right now it feels like the tools haven’t caught up to the dream. If Google+ can find a way to make a family photo album sparkle it could be the key to their continued success. The only issue I see is one of priorities. Can Google+ lean heavily on photos and chat and still become a wide-reaching social network? Or maybe a better question is, does it matter? Maybe they’d be better off if they concentrated on the visual niche and left the socializing to Facebook. What do you think? Has Google+ got a chance of becoming a powerhouse in any form? Or are they already over? Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community

Empty Walls Got You Dow...

Over the last few years, a number of startups have begun to tackle the musty old industry that surrounds fine art. While approaches vary, they all in some way seek to capitalize on the Web’s ability to level the playing field, leveraging digital technologies to make art more accessible to a broader range of consumers. Paddle8 , Artsy , Zazzle , and Art.com , for example, are all taking steps to democratize the purchase, discovery, and enjoyment of art by bringing it online. In August 2010, Boston-based TurningArt launched its own unique spin on the democratization of art commerce with a Netflix-esque model that allows any and all to “rent” and enjoy contemporary art. To support its mission to transform the way people buy artwork, the startups is today announcing that it has raised $1.5 million in funding from a number of institutional and angel investors. As a result of its new round, one of its angel investors, Fouad Elnaggar, who is currently an SVP at CBS Interactive (as well as a former VC at Redpoint Ventures) will be joining TurningArt’s board of directors. Elnaggar joins NextView Venture’s David Beisel, who was added to the board when his firm invested in TurningArt’s $750K seed round in May of last year . Niraj Shah, Steve Conine, Thomas Lehrman, and Will Herman also contributed to the startup’s initial seed round. While TurningArt declined to disclose further information about the participants in its latest financing, we do know that NextView re-upped its investment this time around and that angel investor Andy Rankin joined as a new investor. All in all, with $2+ million in outside funding raised to date, TurningArt plans to build on the 350 percent increase in its customer base its’ found so far this year, using the capital to expand its artwork collection, build up its core team, and introduce a handful of new delivery options. As to how it works: TurningArt partners with independent artists from across the country to allow consumers to test out (i.e. rent) prints of their original artwork, without having to commit to purchasing the piece, which in many cases would be far more expensive than one is willing (or able) to afford. For $10 a month, customers can search the startup’s repository of thousands of independent works, with the option to ship whenever a particular piece strikes their fancy. The print arrives framed and ready to hang on the wall right out of the box (it even includes a nail) and users can keep the piece for as long as they’d like — although, admittedly, this sounds like the same policy that got Blockbuster into trouble with its late fees. However, as you show the piece off to your friends, loved ones, and cats, leaving it to hang on the wall, you earn credit towards a purchase. If you don’t like the print, you can just head over to your Netflix-like queue and prompt TurningArt to send you the next piece on your list. What’s more, the startup’s handmade frames make switching prints easy — no tools are required — so you don’t even have to send the prints back, as you might with a Netflix DVD. Obviously, TurningArt’s value proposition is twofold. The thousands of consumers now using the startup’s platform have a simple way to discover cool contemporary art, test those artworks at home, live in 3-D, and then purchase the piece if they’re so inclined. However, on the flip side, the company has already attracted hundreds of artists for the simple reason that TurningArt provides them with an easy way to expose their work to a whole new set of customers — at no cost. What’s more, since all of the original works that the rentable prints represent are available for purchase directly through the startup’s site (prices for the works tend to frange from $50 to $5,000), artists have the opportunity not only to reach new customers and increase their own brand recognition, but to convert renters into buyers. TurningArt gives the lion’s share of all sales to the artist, on top of a portion of the subscription revenue that comes from users “renting” their prints. Going forward, the startup will look to introduce its platform to a broader segment of the $26 billion art market, iterate on its delivery options, and go after more high profile contemporary artists. While companies like Zazzle offer cool AR technologies that allow customers to customize and visualize their products online, the potential market for actual, in-home art test-driving has to be huge. Applying a Netflix-style rental model to the ways by which consumers experience and purchase art is appealing, of course, it’s all about inventory. Scaling this distribution model, Netflix style, can be expensive, but it all comes back to quality. Too many steps in the process, or art that’s equivalent to something that can be found at Walmart likely won’t result in any significant customer retention. What do you think? Also: For readers interested in taking the service for a test drive, TurningArt is offering a TechCrunch sign-up code, which will give the first 100 people to follow this link to try their first month of TurningArt for free.

Introducing Our 2012 Di...

After nearly 24 hours of fighting fatigue and crafting code, our Disrupt NY 2012 Hackathon is finally drawing to a close. Not a moment too soon — I think some of our hackers are about ready to keel over at this point. Nevertheless, we just got an eyeful of 92 projects that our wonderful hackers have been slaving away on through the night, but only three teams will be able to show off their work on the main Disrupt stage this Wednesday afternoon. In addition to that, our API sponsors — about.me, CityGrid, Microsoft BizSpark, Mobli and OpenTok — have offered up prizes of their own to the groups that made best use of their services, so there will be plenty of winners here today. Our panel of judges have carefully sifted through these 92 submissions, but who exactly decided the fates of these hackers? The panel of judges include Tarikh Korula of Mahaya, Christina Cacioppo of Union Square Ventures, Kip Voytek of MDC Partners, David Tisch of TechStars, Dinesh Moorjani of Hatch Labs, Nora Abousteit of Kollabora, and Dave Jagoda of Andreessen Horowitz. So, without further ado, meet our newest Hackathon winners! Thingscription A service that tracks user impressions to figure out what products to offer as a recurring subscription to customers. PoachBase A recruiting service that uses Crunchbase data to determine which startups may soon fold, and who’s worth swiping away from them. Practikhan A platform that lets teachers create their own online quizzes to share with their students. Can’t get enough of the Hackathon? I don’t blame you — here are a few more photos of the closing festivities to tide you over until next time. Click to view slideshow. Disrupt NYC is set to be one of our biggest shows yet, with returns from Michael Arrington and MG Siegler , along with a variety of big names like Marissa Mayer , Sarah Tavel , Fred Wilson , and David Lee and more. It’s going to be huge. If you’re interested in checking out Disrupt and/or the Hackathon yourself, tickets are still on sale here and info on the Hackathon can be found here . Companies who want to join the Battleground can apply for the last remaining spots in Startup Alley . You can find the full agenda here .

Meet The Disrupt NY 201...

It’s been about eight hours since our big Disrupt Hackathon kicked off , and all of our intrepid hackers have been busy letting the code (and the caffeine) fly ever since. I managed to tear a few of them away from their work (these folks are pretty motivated, so it took a bit of doing) to tell us a little bit about themselves and what they be trying to crank out during the wee hours of the morning. Devon Peticolas Devon is a senior at Rutgers University (and the newly-minted president of the school’s undergrad CS club ). As you might imagine, he’s no stranger to hackathons either — he can’t quite put his finger on it, but he’s probably in the “double digits” at this point. He’ll be spending the night working on a mobile web app that allows users to find their friends in a crowd through sort of a hot-and-cold approach — if all goes well, a phone will vibrate when it’s pointing in the direction of a user’s friend, and will vibrate even stronger as the two people get closer to each other. Peter Verrillo Peter is the CEO of a company called EnHatch, and during the day he works on creating apps to help promote, demo, and sell medical devices for use in surgery. He and his team specialize in creating those 3D apps for the iPad, but he’s looking to spend his time at the Hackathon bringing that 3D experience to the iPhone. The app he’s working on tonight deals with slightly less gruesome fare — instead, it aims to walk users through the process of putting together Ikea furniture. “If Ikea had a good app, this would be it,” he told me. Dasara Kushi This is Dasara’s second Hackathon (her first was a photo-centric event), and this time around she and her partner Ronn have decided to spend their night building a web app that uses a computer’s built-in webcam to analyze a user’s face and suggest places for them to go in real time. “If you look sad, it’ll tell you to go to a comedy club,” said told me. Their project makes pretty extensive use of the faceAPI, but there’s still plenty of work to do — they’re both still looking at pulling in new data from different APIs, to make the service more robust, but thankfully the night is still young. Jared Zoneraich Jared is a 14-year old hacker who attends Bergen Academy, and he’s quite excited to stay up and have fun here at his very first Hackathon. His project of choice? Nothing less than an ad delivery service, of course. “If I weren’t doing this, I’d be doing homework,” he said. His hacker idols include Mark Zuckerberg as well as seasoned iPhone cracker George “geohot” Hotz, who just so happened to attend Bergen back in the day as well. Pavan Krishnamurthy Pavan and his teammates are cranking away on an iOS app that will tell you what sort of music people in different cities are listening to – a noble and clever goal. Cities that tend to listen to faster-paced music on Rdio are labelled ‘hot,’ while more laid-back cities (Chicago in their mockup) are tagged with the “chill” label. His team’s mockups look pretty darned solid, but we’ll soon see if the finished product lives up to their ambitions. When he’s not hacking, Pavan works at Bloomberg and (like Jared) looks up to Mark Zuckerberg as his own hero hacker. Jon Gottfried Jon works for Twilio (during the day) and dons his hacker cape when night falls. He and his buddies are working on a system for A/B testing Amazon products tonight — not the sexiest idea the in the world sure, but that system is only part of his team’s plan. They hope that their testing system can be used to determine consumer desires, and use that information to whip up a subscription service — Thingscription — that’s focused on delivering those goods to people on a regular basis. Octavian Costache The royally-named Octavian (or Vivi, as he’s also known) and his teammates are working on a second-screen app that provides users with additional context they watch Game of Thrones , which is probably one of the geekier endeavors we’ve spotted today. Need to figure out why that guy just got stabbed? Or some lesser-known facet of some clan’s convoluted family tree? Keep your eyes peeled on this guy. Incidentally, he is totally in love with the Khalisi (because of the dragons, not the other thing) and his Twitter is Okvivi . Karina Ruzinov Karina goes to Rutgers (there’s a pretty large contingent of Rutgers kids, it would seem) and is spending her summer interning for Refinery 29. She studies Computer Science and Math and she says the student parties are real ragers. She and her team are working on a app that helps people come up with names for their Hackathon projects. It’s not quite ready for primetime yet, but when it is, it aims to inspire people by providing synonyms and rhymes for words that embody their particular project’s spirit. Victoria Mo Victoria is a Master’s Student in Computer Science at Columbia University and her tech role model is none other than Google’s Marissa Mayer. She and her team are working feverishly on an app that helps users find the hottest clubs in town (and not the hottest clubs in Ontario, as it sounded when we first heard the pitch). They aim to accomplish that by posting images and videos of the clubs’ exteriors so people will be able to quickly determine how popular a particular venue is.

The Disrupt 2012 NYC Ha...

The anticipation is palpable. Hundreds of hackers have congregated outside Manhattan’s Pier 94, planning, strategizing, and praying to baby Jesus that their fates will be similar to those of Group.me and Docracy . We’ve seen plenty of Hackathon winners go on to do incredible things , make millions of dollars, and rise to startup stardom levels, but the journey isn’t a simple one. Click to view slideshow. Let me paint a little word picture for you: The hackers will be in a massive warehouse for the next 24 hours and beyond. They’ll have API sponsors and helpful workshops, sure, but the challenge of creating a product, or even a prototype, all comes down to them. Red Bull will be an unavoidable temptation, especially after a couple hours staring at white code on a black background. They know they might crash, but they don’t care. They need the energy. Snacks will abound, and snacks are all they have time for anyway. A huge meal is sure to weigh down the belly and slow their pace. After a few hours, fights are destined to break out. Maybe it’s a disagreement over which API to use, or which color the UI should be, or really anything. They’re under an insane amount of pressure, and even the slightest frustration or hindrance can cause a major break. Teams will turn against each other, and joyously reunite after a few moments of pensive reflection. When the clock strikes midnight, that’s when things get loopy. The empty cans of Red Bull will be joined by full cans of beer, heads and shoulders will begin to slump, and the fights that have since been resolved will resurface. Certain members of various teams will begin practicing their presentations, most certainly distracting other teams from their work, but this is, after all, a competition. The coffee pot will be refilled twice as often for the rest of the Hackathon, and bean bags, tables and even cold, hard floors will be converted into napping pads. And alas, the sun will rise. Obstacles will be overcome. Prototypes will be completed. Presentations will be perfected. And perhaps, just maybe, the beginning of a beautiful story will be written. Disrupt NYC is set to be one of our biggest shows yet, with returns from Michael Arrington and MG Siegler , along with a variety of big names like Marissa Mayer , Sarah Tavel , Fred Wilson , and David Lee and more. It’s going to be huge. If you’re interested in checking out Disrupt and/or the Hackathon yourself, tickets are still on sale here and info on the Hackathon can be found here . Companies who want to join the Battleground can apply for the last remaining spots in Startup Alley . You can find the full agenda here .