Monday, June 6, 2011 at 01:51PM News Roundtable with Cyan Banister and Vivek Wadhwa #147
There’s never a dull news week on TWiST! This week, guests Cyan Banister and Vivek Wadhwa join Jason to discuss Groupon’s IPO, Twitter’s latest improvements, the crowded field of group buying, Google’s evilness and much more.
To follow along with the discussion, go to http://bit.ly/Twist147News to see the full list of news stories.
0:00-2:00 Introduction and welcome.
2:00-5:30 Ad for Trada.
5:30-6:00 Welcome of guests: angel investor and founder of Zivity.com, Cyan Banister and entrepreneur, writer and scholarVivek Wadhwa.
6:00-9:45 Microsoft unveils preview of Windows 8. How competitive do you think this new offering sounds?
9:45-11:45 Insight from Tyler: “It’s like a piano store in a shopping mall.”
11:45-13:15 From Vivek’s Washington Post piece: Secondary markets are a potential Enron-like fraud. Vivek, what are your thoughts?
13:15-14:30 Cyan, do you participate in secondary markets? Do you agree that it’s potentially damaging?
14:30-15:30 Isn’t the idea that these buyers should be sophisticated, qualified buyers? (Watch the clip.)
15:30-16:00 Do people understand when they buy these shares that it’s more like an angel investment?
16:00-17:00 Vivek, explain the origins of the SEC qualified investor rule.
17:00-18:00 Cyan, do you think the investors need protection or do they understand the risks?
18:00-20:30 If you’re free to go to Vegas and gamble, why shouldn’t you be free to put money into the secondary markets?
20:30-22:45 Google launches Offers, a Groupon and LivingSocial competitor. How can Groupon stay competitive in the long run?
22:45-23:30 What if you got to the Google homepage and it had the top 5 deals within 25 miles of you? Would it be compelling then?
23:30-25:15 Tyler, as Skweal CEO, you’re a big fan of the local space. What are your thoughts?
25:15-28:00 Cyan, Vivek, if you don’t sell your company to Google does that mean they’ll crush it within the next six months?
28:00-30:00 Ad for Squarespace.
30:00-31:30 Discussion of products that Lon and Tyler love.
31:30-33:15 Airbnb admits to creating automated spam accounts to target people advertising rentals on Craigslist and attempt to convert them to listing on Airbnb. How many other companies do this?
33:15-34:00 Cyan, what do you think about this, fake-it-til-you-make-it technique?
34:00-36:30 Tyler: I kind of like it.
36:30-37:00 The real question is, did they know this was going on or not?
37:00-38:15 Apple to introduce it’s iCloud music service next week. Who is going to win the battle of the cloud?
38:15-39:00 Jason says that he heard that Apple allegedly froze music competitors. (Watch the clip.)
39:00-40:00 Tyler, you’re an Apple fanboy, what do you think?
40:00-41:30 Google reveals that hackers from China attempted to crack Gmail accounts of US government officials. Do you feel like your Gmail account is secure?
41:30-43:45 Vivek, as we saw last week, the government has said they’re willing to retaliate against cyber attacks with physical attacks. Do you think we’re sending a message to China that, if they don’t cut it out, we’ll start dropping bombs?
43:45-44:00 Tyler, have you turned on two factor identification in Gmail?
44:00-45:00 Some Tricaster fun. (Watch the clip.)
45:00-46:45 Back to the two factor ID discussion. Why don’t they force people to do that?
46:45-48:00 Is this a trend, Cyan? Will people start saying that the cloud’s not worth the risk?
48:00-49:00 Groupon filed an IPO to raise $750M on Tuesday. What are the long-term prospects of Groupon stock? (Watch the clip.)
49:00-51:00 Tyler: What’s it going to price out at?
51:00-52:30 Pandora updated their stock filing to indicate an IPO at $7-9 per share. They’re looking for a $141.6M raise at a $1B valuation. Thoughts? Will Netflix buy this company?
52:30-55:00 Flip creator gets into the grilled cheese business. What’s the most important thing here: the technology or the incredibly delicious grilled cheese sandwiches?
55:00-56:30 Google is scraping Yelp’s content in its ‘Places’ iPhone app. Why aren’t they giving credit where credit is due?
56:30-57:30 Cyan: This is just another example of Google being evil and it really pisses me off.
57:30-58:00 Insight from Tyler: Google is like an obese vegan.
58:00-60:00 Twitter has updated its search to include photos and has partnered with Photobucket for hosting. If you’reTwitpic, what would you do next?
60:00-1:02:00 Thank you to the guests, we can’t wait to have you back again. And thank you to sponsors Trada andSquarespace.
1:02:00-1:03:00 Reminder to the TWiST List producers about the team meeting this afternoon. If you’d like to join, visitTwistList.co.
Support This Week in Startups and independent media by joining our Producer Program at twistlist.co!
Multilingual? Translate this episode of TWiST into another language and email the transcript to translate@thisweekin.com
FOLLOW ON TWITTER
Jason: @jason
Cyan: @cyantist
Vivek: @wadhwa
Tyler: @steepdecline
Lon: @lons
Special Thanks to the members of the TWiST List Producer Program!
Executive Producers
- Louis-Eric Simard
- Benjamin Gifford
- Jacek Artymiak
- Octavian Mihai
- Will Paoletto
- Geoffrey Clapp
- Eien Hyett
- Jeff Hoffer
- Kyle Lonzo
- Austin Miller
- Rashaun Sourles
- Robb Kunz
- Greg Berry
- Sean Lynch
- Mary Ann Halford
- Jim Joyce
- Morgan Howard
- Margaret Johns
- Kyle M. Brown
- Paul Cole
- Nick Duncan
- Eli Coler
- Ted Inoue
- Radek Rybicki
- Hunter Owens
- Christian Owens
- Ben Altieri
- Casey Wach
- Cam Collins
- Ildar Khakimov
- Matti Hallanoro
- Rodrigo Dauster
- Rodrigo Fuentes
- Anthony Ortenzi
- Daniel de la Cruz