This video is Part 1 of 3, taken at the fbFund REV Demo Day on 9/1/09 that features an introduction by Cat Lee, Sheryl Sandberg, Dave McClure, Thread.com, Funki, Sociable, GeckoGo, DropPlay, Photos I Love, Vittana and Workstir.

This video is Part 2 of 3, taken at the fbFund REV Demo Day on 9/1/09 that features Backlight.org, NetworkedBlogs, Wildfire, NutshellMail, Cash.io, Gameyola, RunMyErrands and Samasource.

This video is Part 3 of 3, taken at the fbFund REV Demo Day on 9/1/09 that features MyChurch, RunThere, Zimride, Sortuv, Life360, RentMineOnline, and an outro/wrap-up from Enrique Allen and Dave McClure.

“fbFund is a fund focused on continuing to create incentives for the development of applications on Facebook Platform. Initially, the fund will make available $10 million in capital which may grow over time.

The fund is now accepting applications for $25,000-$250,000 non-recourse grants from anyone interested in building their business on Facebook Platform. Any individual or company, anywhere in the world can apply as long as they have not raised any formal venture funding.

We are forming this fund to help grow the Facebook application ecosystem. By decreasing the barrier to start a company, we hope to entice an even larger group of people to become entrepreneurs and build a compelling business on Facebook Platform. We hope this is also a funding model that other venture capitalists will follow.

fbFund will be administered by Facebook and funded by Accel Partners and The Founders Fund. The investment committee will be comprised of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO, and Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook vice president of product marketing and operations. Facebook board members Jim Breyer (Accel Partners) and Peter Thiel (The Founders Fund) will also be part of the committee. Additionally, the fund will rely upon an advisory council that includes Reid Hoffman, founder and chairman of LinkedIn; Josh Kopelman, founder of First Round Capital; and Rajeev Motwani, professor of computer science at Stanford University and early advisor to Google.”

Please submit your application at http://www.facebook.com/developers/fbfund.php.

Video filmed and produced by Shaun Tai.

Technorati is an Internet search engine for searching blogs. As of June 2008, Technorati indexes 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media. The name Technorati is a portmanteau, pointing to the technological version of literati, or intellectuals.

Peter Hirshberg and Andreas Weigend have a fascinating discussion covering the following topics: the future of Twitter, People 2.0, Web 2.0, TV and books: are they going away?, the use of media and its meaning, shared moments, early film & stage (D.W. Griffith), birth of radio, Facebook, Google and much more!

A Silicon Valley executive, entrepreneur and marketing specialist, Peter Hirshberg might just be the definitive voice on how new technology affects business and culture.

The Internet would change everything: it’s a truism now, but for some, this took years to sink in. Not for Peter Hirshberg. A marketing specialist at the epicenter of emerging technology, he has spent a quarter of a century charting the reverberations of all things high tech in culture and in business. (It’s big business, too.)

Hirshberg first helped bring Apple into the online services arena., then acted as strategic adviser to Microsoft, AOL and NBC. Along the way, he was CEO of Gloss.com and Elemental Software. He’s built a deep understanding of the fundamentals of content production and consumption – and how they’ve changed, both online and off.

Andreas Weigend is a former Chief Scientist at Amazon.com and the author of over 100 scientific papers on the application of machine learning techniques to finance and business problems.

Video filmed and produced by Shaun Tai.

Thursday, June 18th 2009. TECHAFFAIR was fortunate to have been invited to “Oceans: Finding the Balance – A Voyage with an Oceans Pioneer and Google Earth” featuring 2009 TED Prize Winner, Dr. Sylvia Earle. Dr. Earle, a Deep Sea Diver, Oceanographer and Author, made a strong case for a ‘call to action’ combining great visuals which included a tour of the oceans using Google Earth.

Dr. Sylvia Earle was named Time magazine’s first “hero for the planet” and is an explorer-in-residence at the national Geographic Society. Dr. Earle was chief scientist at The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) from 1990-1992 and advised several presidents on our marine environment. She also received the Rachel Carson Award from the National Audubon Society on May 19. Sylvia has logged over 6,000 hours underwater and recently inspired the program demonstrated, Oceans in Google Earth.

About E2: "Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) is the independent business voice for the environment. E2 is a national community of individual business leaders who advocate for good environmental policy while building economic prosperity. Working with NRDC, E2 takes a reasoned, economically sound approach to environmental issues by relying on fact-based policy expertise. As the independent business voice in the debate, E2 is effective and delivers results at both the state and national levels through its bipartisan efforts." Get involved.

About NRDC: "NRDC is the nation’s most effective environmental action group, combining the grassroots power of 1.2 million members and online activists with the courtroom clout and expertise of more than 350 lawyers, scientists and other professionals." Get involved.

Although TECHAFFAIR was not allowed to film this intriguing E2 event, our staff was able to capture some engaging snapshots of the Google environment and lifestyle surrounding Google Campus located in Mountain View, California (Photos courtesy Shaun Tai for SHAUN TAI Films ©2009):

TECHAFFAIR would like to thank E2, NRDC, and Google for allowing us access to this ‘deep diving’ event.

Widget Summit 2008

Widget Summit hosted its third annual conference November 3rd and 4th at Hotel Nikko in San Francisco. Widget Summit is the premier widget conference educating hundreds of attendees a year on business and development best practices in the emerging widget industry.

The Widget Summit 2008 conference program included a detailed look inside the widget platforms changing the way users interact with rich content across multiple environments. Widget Summit will help you reach and engage new audiences across multiple platforms including over 180 million Windows Vista desktops, 25 million active Facebook users, 10 million iPhone smartphones, or the millions of users that call My Yahoo! and iGoogle home every day. The world of widgets reaches beyond a standard web address and into the desktops, mobile phones, social networks, blogs, and personal homepages of today’s fragmented online engagements.

Check out the following Widget Summit 2008 videos:

Jonathan Carrigan of CBC shares business lessons learned while completing his MBA and in practice with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Lessons Learned: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from Niall Kennedy on Vimeo.

Paul Lindner of hi5 presents on the widget container and its worldwide audience.

Widgets Around the World: hi5 from Niall Kennedy on Vimeo.

Laurent Sanchez of ACCESS presents Japanese use of mobile widgets at Widget Summit 2008.

Widgets Around the World: ACCESS from Niall Kennedy on Vimeo.

Will Price from Widgetbox and Freddy Mini from Netvibes discuss widget discovery via galleries with moderator Niall Kennedy.

Meet the Galleries from Niall Kennedy on Vimeo.

iPhone developers share their mobile development experience on this new platform. Brian Fling of Fling Media, Tom Conrad of Pandora, Dom Sagolla of DollarApp, and Sunil Verma of Mobclix discuss the iPhone native application platform with moderator Raven Zachary.

iPhone Developer Panel from Niall Kennedy on Vimeo.

Andreas Weigend presents Widget Data Strategies at Widget Summit 2008.

Widget Data Strategies from Niall Kennedy on Vimeo.

Steve Souders of Google presents High Performance Widgets at Widget Summit 2008.

High Performance Widgets from Niall Kennedy on Vimeo.

Chris Schalk of Google and Paul Lindner of hi5 Networks present OpenSocial Basics at Widget Summit 2008.

OpenSocial Basics from Niall Kennedy on Vimeo.

Max Newbould of MySpace provides an introduction to creating OpenSocial applications on the MySpace platform.

MySpace Applications from Niall Kennedy on Vimeo.

Max Engel of MySpace presents MySpace Data Portability at Widget Summit 2008.

MySpace Data Portability from Niall Kennedy on Vimeo.

Ryan Sarver of Skyhook Wireless and Chris Butler share the current state-of-the-art for geolocation-aware widget implementations and the data targeting available within.

Geolocation-aware Widgets from Niall Kennedy on Vimeo.

An excellent ‘related’ read: Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data

Ted Shelton is currently CEO of The Conversation Group. Ted has spent the past 20 years working in the high tech industry, as a software developer and executive in both public and privately held companies. Prior roles include Chief Strategy Officer of Borland Software and Senior VP of Sales and Marketing for WhoWhere.

Nobody likes being interrupted by irrelevant marketing messages. In this 7-minute conversation after class at Haas, Ted Shelton and Andreas Weigend discuss how sharing data leads to higher expectations towards relevance and serendipity.

Video filmed and produced by Shaun Tai.

Need a relaxing CD? Listen to clips of Serendipity: Music from the Miramax Motion Picture