I’ve had a lot of amazing opportunities in my life so far, and I thank many people for where I’ve come today — my family, my friends, and especially Robert Scoble — but there are some opportunities too good to say no to.
Starting Monday (tomorrow), I’ll be joining TechCrunch working on events, conferences and business development with Asad Akbar (Events Director) and Heather Harde (CEO). Read the rest of this entry »
I recently attended the Google I/O developer conference where Vic Gundotra, VP of Engineering at Google, had his own “Oprah moment.” Google gave every attendee (estimated around 4,000) a G2 phone with the latest version of Google’s Android mobile operating system.
I went down after school to Moscone West in San Francisco, where Google I/O was held, to attend some sessions and pick up my G2 phone. After picking up my phone and activating it, etc, I spent the rest of the day playing with the phone. Here are my initial comments/feedback for Google if they care to listen. All of this is subject to change, since I’ve spent less then 48 hours with the G2 and my opinion will change in the future. Read the rest of this entry »
With my junior year in high school coming to a close in 10 days, it’s time to (somewhat unofficially) announce some of my summer plans. First off, one of my main focuses this summer is Teens in Tech, for which we are working on version 2.0 of the site. We’re on schedule for testing in early July, and are really working hard on delivering new features and revising the site, so expect a lot of changes. I can tell you now that Teens in Tech will not be the same at 2.0.
My other focus this summer will most likely be Qik. I’ve been with Qik since February 2008, and I have a great position (Product Marketing Manager/Evangelist) and work with a great team. I get to travel to conferences across the Silicon Valley and spread the joy that is Qik. If you don’t have an account, go sign up now.
Speaking of conferences, I’ll be taking many more speaking engagements this summer, starting with Ypulse Mashup in the first week after school ends, and in the end of June, the Social Networking Conference in Beverly Hills, Calif. I’m willing to take up all sorts of speaking engagements, so if you want me to speak at your event, please get in touch.
I will continue to blog here, and produce podcasts on my show, Apple Universe Podcast (I know things have been slow there, but lots of great shows coming soon!).
I’m also continuing to consult though my firm T-Cast Media. We are still working on a site, and we are almost done. I’ll also be working with my business partner, Sam Levin (@samlevin) on projects like Western Digital, and others.
In the end, summer is time for me to relax from school, and not stress about essays, and homework and all that stuff, time for me to enjoy my time as a teenager, and that’s my biggest priority. I’ll be spending more time with my friends, and just enjoying my childhood, which I haven’t done too much in the recent times. Lots of people tell me that I should be a kid first, and entrepreneur second, and hopefully I’ll fulfill that goal this summer.
With WWDC, Apple’s developer conference less then one month away, it’s time to get prepared. You’re probably wondering: admission costs more than $1,000, and you have to sign an NDA just to attend the conference sessions. Most developers who go say it’s worthwhile, but all the Apple fanboys/girls look forward to one key event during the whole show: the keynote.
Sam Levin (@samlevin), and I will be reporting live from the first couple of rows at the WWDC keynote this year. Apple said, and I quote “if you have a camera, we’d need you to be in the pit with the rest of b-cast (so I suggest leaving the camera in your bag and just blogging). Speaking of, live blogging is fine but we ask that there is no live video or audio of the keynote.” So that ruins my plans of Qikking the entire keynote, but we’ll still be live blogging and live tweeting the entire event.
What I’ll probably do is just run a blog post and send updates and add pictures as we go. Engadget’s got the live blogging down, as well as TechCrunch, so we’ll give it a go here!
More updates to come…
(Editors note: The following post is a guest post written by Joseph McLaughlin, a junior attending Brigham Young University – Idaho. Joseph is a 17 year old (turning 18 next month), code monkey and geek. Subscribe to his blog and follow him on Twitter.)
Have you ever wished that you could write new blog posts for your WordPress blog without having to log in and mess with the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor? Well, you can, using MacroMate’s popular text editor TextMate. The purpose of this post is to get you up and running, so you can write your articles from TextMate, and publish them to your blog with a couple clicks. Read the rest of this entry »
With Startup Weekend San Francisco now over, I wanted to talk about what I did this weekend, and where I’m going from now on with my latest project. Initially, I came into Startup Weekend thinking I was just going to help oversee the event along with the lead organizer, Tyler Willis. On Friday night I was helping take pictures, and doing other small things.
After the pitches were done, which most were amazing, I went off and hung out with my friend Dylan Field. We were talking about technology, the web, and social networks, when Naveen Koorakula came up to us, and asked what we were (developers, designers, etc). I quickly explained that I was an organizer, and probably wouldn’t partake in the event. Dylan, also an organizer, told Naveen he was a developer with strong PHP experience (I agree – he’s an excellent developer). Once Naveen started talking, I tried to remember what his pitch was. His pitch actually turned out to be on the top 10 pitches according to angel investor Dave McClure.
Naveen’s pitch was a ponzi scheme website, which we named BigPonzi.com. Not an actual ponzi scheme, but a tutorial of sorts with training on how not to get into a ponzi scheme. I think every single person in the room at Microsoft (who we thank very much for hosting the event) started laughing. It was a brilliant idea. Once we started talking more about Naveen’s idea, we started thinking on how to develop, etc. From there on, we decided that Naveen, Dylan and I were a team and we started brainstorming. Later on, Naveen’s wife, Sakina (who’s also awesome), joined our team. Sakina is Head of International at YouTube. She basically runs anything outside of the US having to do with YouTube. Sakina had a background in PR, marketing, business development, online, and more. This was all Friday. Read the rest of this entry »
After speaking at eComm 2009 in early March, I’m very happy to announce that I’ll be speaking at the Ypulse Mashup this June in San Francisco. I’ll be speaking on a panel called ‘Totally Wired Youth Entrepreneurs’ moderated by technology pioneer, Guy Kawasaki. I look up to Guy a lot, and it will be honor being on a panel with him.
On my panel are Jun Loayza, Co-Founder, Future Delivery, Carly Wertheim, Co-President, Teens Turning Green and my good friend and Teens in Tech Conference keynoter, Jessica Mah of internshipIN. My panel is at 4:45 PM on Tuesday June 2, 2009 at Hotel Nikko San Francisco (map).
I highly recommend that any teenage focused startup or company attend the Ypulse Mashup. If you want to buy tickets, use the code ‘SPKR09‘ and you’ll get a 10% on your ticket! I’ll try to attend both days of the conference, so come and say hi!
On March 24, the MacHeist 3 bundle was revealed in a geek-star studded live show featuring Chris Pirillo, Veronica Belmont, and Lisa Bettany. Read the rest of this entry »
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working with an extremely smart group of individuals on organizing an event called Startup Weekend. Many of you know of Startup Weekend because of fellow entrepreneur Paul Stamatiou’s startup, Skribit, which launched at Startup Weekend Atlanta.
I’m happy to announce that Startup Weekend is coming to the San Francisco Bay Area on April 3-5 at Microsoft’s lovely office on Market Street in San Francisco. Basically at Startup Weekend, you come up with an idea, build it, and launch in one weekend. Most of the team members don’t get any sleep while working to achieve their goal of launching a startup. This is the second Startup Weekend that will be hosted in San Francisco. The first Startup Weekend launched ‘Help Hookup,’ which isn’t in service any longer.
If your interested in attending, go ahead and register online using Eventbrite and get ready to launch a startup in a weekend! Also, using the code ‘danielbru‘ will give you 20% off your order! Got some startup ideas? Leave a comment below and let us know!
I’m really happy to announce that I’ll be going to Seattle April 8-9 for spring break. I’ll be flying in to Seattle on Wednesday morning, and will be flying out Thursday at night. I’ll be visiting my friends over at Tatango.com in Bellingham (about 80 miles away from Seattle). My goal of this trip is to profile startups outside the Valley that are making differences in technology. It will be my first time in Seattle or in Washington. I’m trying to decide if I will spend any time in Seattle, so if you would like to meet with me, feel free to get in touch, and we’ll try to work something out!
UPDATE: I’ve decided that I’ll spend the first day in Seattle, and drive to Bellingham at night, and stay overnight in Bellingham, spend the day with Tatango, and then drive back to Seattle to head home! I’m booking meetings now, so email me if you want to meet!
UPDATE 2: I’ll be flying Virgin America with in flight WiFi, so I’m pretty sure I’ll try out that service and see how good it is! Maybe I’ll video chat with the rest of my family back home! We’ll see… 