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Vator Box

Vator innovation series

Vator Box by Bambi Francisco Roizen

Vator's version of Siskel & Ebert meets American Idol. Each week, host Bambi Francisco, VB regular, Ezra Roizen, and a guest host, rate entrepreneur pitches.

All episodes

Eco-shopping and ad management services

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, August 25, 2008 | Comments

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Lise Buyer helps us review CarbonCart and Clickable

Lise Buyer, known for being a top-notch Internet analyst during the boom years and someone Google hired to take them public, was our guest host for Vator Box again this week. She joined me and Vator Box regular Ezra Roizen to discuss Carbon Cart, the winner of this year's KPMG/AlwaysOn Clean tech competition and Clickable, which recently received $14.5 million ...

Entrepreneur matchmaking sites

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, August 11, 2008 | Comments (7)

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Is there a market for services that bring ideas and money together?

In this episode, we look at RaiseCapital and FundFindr, two companies seeking to match entrepreneurs with investors. This is a fun topic for me, as Vator is definitely a venue for both those seeking funds and those dispensing them. Keep in mind, however, that as much as people say Vator is a matchmaker between entrepreneurs and investors, we're not. We're ...

On file sharing and socializing the inbox

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, July 27, 2008 | Comments

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Would The Founders Fund invest in Xoopit or Drop.io?

In this week's episode, Brian Singerman, a venture capitalist at The Founders Fund, shares his opinions on two emerging companies that enable people to share rich-media content in a much easier way. We look at Drop.io and Xoopit. We start with Drop.io, which raised $5-plus million from RRE Ventures and Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Drop.io is an easy-to-use platform that enables ...

Next-gen Web analytics, beyond pageviews

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, July 22, 2008 | Comments (3)

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The Founders Fund's Singerman helps us dissect analysis companies

The Founders Fund venture capitalist Brian Singerman joins me and Ezra Roizen as this week's guest host to look at the quickly-evolving Web analytics landscape. As many observers know, pageviews fail to provide a holistic picture of engagement and contribution on a Web site. At The Founders Fund, which has invested in analystics company Quantcast, Singerman is looking at a ...

Is there money in mid-tail content?

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, July 14, 2008 | Comments (1)

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A look at what 'live' and niche programming grow up to be

In this week’s episode, we look at Ustream, which provides a live, interactive broadcast platform to anyone who wants their 15 minutes of fame, and Le Gourmet Tv, a niche channel for food lovers. While they're both different businesses, they're both betting on the mid-tail of content. So, we wanted to look at new entertainment models disrupting the traditional news ...

Special: The new news model (black &white)

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, June 30, 2008 | Comments (8)

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Topix CEO Chris Tolles is our guest host; Intense Debate, NowPublic

The news business has changed dramatically in the last 50 years, since the days of pioneer TV news broadcaster Edward Murrow, who delivered his segments with cigarette in hand and opened and closed his newscasts with his signature phrases: "This is CBS" and "Goodnight and good luck." In this smoking, black and white episode of Vator Box, we bring you ...

Vator Box on Hollywood startups, mobile ad networks

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, June 22, 2008 | Comments

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Can startups with Hollywood celebrities draw in venture investors as easily as they can draw an audience? Not exactly. The celebrity can get a company so far. It's the site's raison d'etre that determines whether it's one that can generate venture returns. And, if people are already accessing full Web pages on mobile phones, is it too risky for companies to build "bridging" technologies to get videos on mobile gadgets today? Those are questions we explore in this week's Vator ...

Celebrities and their startups

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, June 15, 2008 | Comments

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Norwest's Tim Chang is our guest host; iBeatYou, Yardbarker

Is Baron Davis the new media mogul? In this week's Vator Box, we look at two companies he's affiliated with - IBeatYou, which he co-founded and Yardbarker, which he blogs on. Tim Chang, VC partner at Norwest Venture Partners and our guest host, offers critique and advice for both startups, and chooses one he'd bet on. Tim likes Yardbarker as ...

Vator Box on mobile marketing and optimizing ad spend (Rubicon Project, Mozes)

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, June 8, 2008 | Comments (2)

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"I like the pitch, Frank's a good pitch man," said Mike Marquez, head of M&A/investments for CBS Interactive. Mike joined us again as our guest host. This week, we look at Frank Addante's ad network optimization company called, Rubicon Project, which you can see on its Vator company profile that it's raised $21 million dollars in financing. We also take a look at Mozes, a mobile marketing platform. As Frank says in his pitch, Rubicon helps publishers make "mad ...

A look at aggregated perspectives

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, June 1, 2008 | Comments (8)

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CBS Interactive Mike Marquez is our guest host; Disqus, Trusted Opinion

There's no question about it. Comments do more to enhance than take away from an article. “Comments are rapidly part of the content… The more people contribute through a comment, the more valuable the entire piece,” according to Vator regular Ezra Roizen. “Comments in and of themselves are valuable… I like anything that helps enhance community and engagement,” said ...

Vator Box: Dads and virtual worlds (Dadlabs, Weblo)

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, May 26, 2008 | Comments (2)

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How does a niche production company make money if it can’t get the massive eyeballs to be advertising supported? It may have to turn to, dare I say, advertorials, to make some interesting money. What about Weblo, a site where a metaphysical economy is emerging? Will it end up being like Wallop, a company that enabled commerce from the onset, but eventually redirected itself by building a social network? In this Vator Box, we – yours truly, Ezra Roizen, and ...

Vator Box on video game exchanges, UGC video (Goozex, Magnify)

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, May 19, 2008 | Comments (1)

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Scott Banister, known for selling his startup IronPort to Cisco Systems for $830 million last year, and being an early investor in some hot companies - PayPal, Facebook, Powerset, just to name a few - was our guest host this week. He joined me and Vator regular Ezra Roizen to discuss Goozex, a video game trading community with a clever video pitch, as well as Magnify, a company that powers user-generated-video for 30,000-plus sites. Bottom line, Scott, Ezra and I ...

Vator Box on P2P renting and Wiki-sheets

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, May 11, 2008 | Comments

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This week on Vator Box, we look at Zilok, a recently-launched online rental marketplace where anyone can rent anything, like a Porsche 911 GT3 for $900 a day, or an inflatable castle for $200. Zilok is one of the companies emerging to enable online peer-to-peer rentals. Others include U.K.-based Rentmineonline and Los Angeles-based iRent2u. We also discuss SmartSheet, a software as a service (SaaS) company that enables teams to coordinate projects. Deva Hazarika, founder of enterprise software company ClearContext, and ...

Vator Box opens the kimono (Zivity, 23andMe)

by Bambi Francisco Roizen, April 27, 2008 | Comments

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This week, the theme on Vator Box is transparency. We look at two women-started social networking sites that reveal who we are at some core level. The first one is Zivity, a $7-million-funded company that founder Cyan Banister describes in her video pitch as a beauty site that "sits at the intersection of MySpace, Playboy and American Idol and Playboy." This is not your mother's iVillage. We also looked at 23andMe, a personal genomics company with $10 million in funding ...

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