One of our partners, LaunchBox Digital, is an early-stage Internet startup incubator fund. It’s similar in structure to TechStars in Boulder, Colorado. Startup companies - or founders with ideas that could become companies - apply to participate. The projects selected for the fund commit to spending the summer working with the fund’s founders and their network of advisors and experts. The fund makes a small investment in exchange for some equity in the company - typically in the $15,000 to $30,000 range for five percent of the company, depending on the number of founders.

The founders spend the summer working closely with the fund and its advisors. They work on building the products, the business plan - and then they pitch their working demos and plans to venture capital investors in hopes of securing larger investments.

It’s a fast and intense process. Success depends on the quality of the portfolio, the quality of the founding teams - and on the ability of the fund team and its advisors to help the startups build strong demos and strong presentations to investors.

LaunchBox co-founder John McKinley was one of our judges at last year’s We Media Pitch It competition - and we’re planning a major expansion of our social venture pitch competition at We Media Miami 2009.

LaunchBox narrowed a field of 250 applicants to nine companies. I attended the final demos yesterday, then the LaunchBox team and company founders headed west to repeat the presentations today in Palo Alto.

Here are seven lessons for any new business or product team: Read more »

Trying to close a huge gap in the blogosphere, john McCain’s campaign is offering reward points to webbies who place favorable comments on blogs and websites. The points can be traded for prizes such as books autographed by McCain, a preferred seat at campaign events or a ride on the campign bus. The comments are supplied by the campaign, and they must be placed on a site that has been vetted by McCain’s webmasters.

This from a candidate who admits to struggles with email. It was just a few weeks ago that McCain, reacting to Barack Obama’s aggressive Internet prescence, said the MySpace and Facebook crowd were not his kind of people.

My how things have changed. In addition to rewarding operatives for placing scripted talking points on blogs, a tactic considered dubious by many, McCain’s campaign has pumped up its prescence on the web. Taking a few pages from Obama’s sophisiticated Internet strategy, the McCain campaign has launched a “campagin action center” for supporters to get involved. As on Obama’s site, supports can participate in a variety of social networking and social action activities including recruiting friends, hosting and finding events, campaigning, sharing videos, and registering to vote.

Obama maintains a large lead in the spocial networks. His Facebook pages list 1.3 million supporters. And then there’s Obama Girl …

Two related announcements today from a U.S. journalism institute reflect the changing nature of how journalism is produced, distributed and experienced globally - and also the expanding role for non-profits and philanthropy in paying for U.S. journalism. Read more »

Just when you vowed never to set foot in a commercial airplane again, the carriers go ahead and do something like this.

First, fifteen bucks for a checked bag. Then, $7 for a pillow or blankie. Now $9.95 for Wi-Fi on flights of three hours or shorter, $12.95 for longer flights, sometime in the foreseeable future.

Delta announced an agreement with Aircell to provide “Gogo” Wi-Fi for laptops, smartphones, PDAs and other devices on 60% of its aircraft by the end of NEXT summer. That’s about the time it takes a Delta flight to reach JFK from Hartsfield. Delta: an acronym for Doesn’t Ever Leave The Airport.

“The advent of Air-To-Ground technology has made broadband connectivity in the cabin economically viable for the first time for commercial airlines,”  Jack Blumenstein, president and CEO of Aircell, said in a prepared statement.

Right. The technology has been around for about a decade. Now the airlines see Internet access as a revenue opportunity instead of a service for their connected customers. And why is that man on the Aircell website helping a leggy blonde try on shoes in a spacious airplane cabin as she works a little too comfortably on her laptop? Go, go, I guess. See the site.

American Airlines and Virgin America have also signed contracts with Aircell and are testing the service on their flights. A spokesperson for American Airlines said that the carrier will offer Gogo’s Wi-Fi service on a trial basis on cross-country flights starting this year. Virgin America will offer the Gogo service starting this fall and plans to install Wi-Fi on its entire fleet by the end of April 2009.

Southwest Airlines plans to install an airborne broadband service through its provider, Row 44, on four aircraft on a trial basis beginning this fall.

Continental said on Jan. 29 that it will be introducing onboard Wi-Fi services including e-mail and instant messaging connectivity on flights operating within the continental U.S. at the beginning of next year. Continental said the service, provided in partnership with LiveTV, will be installed on two-thirds of its mainline fleet by the end of this year.

No word from United yet. Delayed as usual in Chicago and Washington.  I wouldn’t count on an email alert.

AP and CNN have the gist of it here. New heights for business travelers.

To: ESPN broadcasters and producers:

So I’m watching bonus coverage of the Yankees-Rangers game. There’s all this annoying stuff on the screen as Michael Young comes to the plate with two men on and Rangers trailing by two runs. In an instant, Young crushes a Joba Chamberlain fastball for a three-run homer. The Rangers take the lead and win. I miss the full thrill of it in because the moment is lost in the junk that precedes and follows it. Instant replay provides an artificial moment lacking authenticity and the immediacy of human drama. Despite more information on my screen, I feel cheated.

You know what I’m talking about: those cheesy, annoying graphics that continually fly into the screen, scroll across the bottom, obscure the image, and intrude on unfolding strategy and drama.

Sports Center is great, as always. Baseball Tonight is good, too, even with its insufferable over-analysis. But is anyone in Bristol actually thinking about the experience of baseball on the games that ESPN broadcasts?

Though I yearn for Ernie Harwell or Vin Scully, I’m learning to deal with the noise from jock announcers who detract from the flow of the game with incessant nonsense that fills the space between action on the field. Baseball is played as much between the ears as it is between the lines. There’s poetry in the leisurely pace, the mano-a-mano confrontations, and the bursts of sustained drama. There is magic in its silences and signs. I wish announcers would take a breath, sit on their microphones and trust the emotional connection that an informed audience has with the game. But I’ll settle for taking out the visual trash.

The proliferation of mindless graphics, animated commercials, and garish decorations masquerading as useful information have ruined the experience of watching baseball on television. Large screens and HDTV make the problem bigger than the game. Such is the scale of the litter.

Broadcasters should understand that everything on the screen is content: the background, the noise, the movement, the plays, the environment, the ballpark advertisements, the strategy, and the thinking. Why ruin it by pasting layers of data over it? It’s like putting sticky notes on a Picasso.

Higher resolution and larger screens enable a more robust display of the quantitative data that surrounds the game. That’s a good thing. The problem is design: the data ought to be displayed on the margins without decoration, outside the viewing perimeter of the action on the field. And the data ought be optional, liked closed captioning, for those who prefer to enhance their experience with fewer or more statistics and scores, even advertisements.

With a nod to better design, here’s a quick and easy alternative that celebrates the game instead of stepping on it:

(Here’s the update sent to our friends today via email. If you aren’t on the list you can use the form on the right rail of our web site to sign up.)

We’ve been on the move in Europe and the U.S. in recent weeks - and also hunkered down at We Media HQ working on a group of new projects. Now we want to share with you what we’ve been up to. The big news we hope you’ll share and act on: We’re announcing and seeking nominations now for the new We Media Game Changers Awards. We also want to give you a preview of plans taking shape for We Media Miami 09. We’d like to see you there and urge you to register now to confirm your seat. There’s more, so read on. Read more »

Last night’s Teen Choice Awards on Fox — okay, you caught me doing research– provided a glimpse into an activist generation that just may be remarkable. The Do Something Awards (formerly the BRICK Awards) recognized ten teens— or, like, seriously amazing young people, you know —  who identified and tackled big problems in their small place in the world. Nine teens received $10,000 for their cause. The winner, an anti-smoking activist named Chad, received $100,000 and a surf board from like Scarlett Johansson. Big scream.

The Do Something Awards is a program of DoSomething.org and is open to all US and Canadian citizens under age 25. The mission aims to “inspire, support and celebrate a generation of do-ers: people who see the need to do something, believe in their ability to get it done, and then take action.” The website is a community where young people learn, listen, speak, vote, volunteer, ask, and take action. There’s even a page for cool, old people — preseumeably over the age of 25 — to help young people do good. Young celebs and rock stars like Johansson and the Jonas Brothers have signed on, using their celebrity status and serving as “Celebs Gone Good” examples.

Teach your parents well.

Sometimes Internet startups have a business model. Sometimes they don’t - and the story typically boils down to “we’ll figure it out” or “we’ll sell.” For consumer media and information services, more often than not “figure it out” means build a large enough audience to sell advertising around it. For platforms and tools, founders aspire to build a service so valuable people will pay for it, like SixApart’s Typepad blog hosting service, or the group collaboration service Basecamp from 37Signals. Skype, the Internet telephone service, is the most dramatic example of the “sell it” exit strategy - Ebay paid $2.6 billion for Skype in 2005.

The advertising business model for service built around content sounds simple enough, and charts showing continued growth of online advertising may help with whoever needs convincing. But don’t count on it. The charts won’t justify or save a business when there isn’t a business to begin with. Witness: Thoof. It was a social news service - another Digg wannabe aimed at building personalized news experiences based on user preferences or, in the case of Thoof, user clickstreams. While the technical case for the superiority of the Thoof experience may have been compelling, the business fell flat. TechCrunch reported that Thoof shut down this past weekend, and as of this writing Thoof points to another social news service, Reddit, that managed to be sold to Conde Nast in late 2006. Good for Reddit; not so good for Thoof.

• Lesson: Great ideas do not automatically lead to great businesses.
• Question: Is there a sustainable market for a funding model that enables great ideas to survive, even if they don’t become smash hits that produce huge windfalls for the investors or founders? Or do we already have that model in the venture market?

For a dose or reality, visit the TechCrunch deadpool. It chronicles failure. Or, if you want to go back further, here’s a quick recap from CNET of the biggest failures of the 1999-2000 Internet bubble.

See:

TechCrunch: Another Personalized News Site Bites The Dust

Gigaom: Thoof Goes Poof!

Social networking is the fastest-growing activity on the user-centric Internet. The idea is that most anyone can join a large, loosely connected network of “friends” to share personal or professional information, establish contacts, communicate, align social activities, establish a personality or brand, and vicariously act-out life online. You pass your profile to your friends, who pass it on to their friends, who … you get the idea. Soon the numbers multiply through the magic of network science. You become a member of a huge “community” without borders, with few rules of citizenship, with expansive, largely uncharted norms of behavior.

Growth is astonishing so far. Sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Ning, Linked In, Plaxo, Orkrut and Pownce boast tens of millions of visitors a month; in the cases of MySpace and Facebook, much more. But the money has yet to scale into profits. Hardly a fad, the phenomena has roots in passing around your high school yearbook for signatures, memories, and future aspirations. The 2008 online version has swept the Internet, spreading virally through sites of all sizes and capabilities, some intertwined as platforms. Fast companies like News Corp., Google and AOL have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to buy a piece of the action.

But is there a business in it? The prevailing wisdom is that the money will come from advertising after large communities are built around social networks – the old build-it-and-the-money-will-follow-the-audience model that supplied the air for the first Internet bubble. Advertisers say there’s currently not enough advertising to go around. And the advertising that’s up now is largely ignored. Bigger issue: why market to a mostly young audience that thinks you’re stepping on their personal conversations?

This month’s MIT’s Technology Review asks if the next bubble is about to burst. One answer: Social networks don’t make money. Another: But they could. Then there’s the question of who owns your friends.

Money follows behaviors: Look for the emergence of viable business models as social networks target smaller affinity groups with high value information, premium services and applications, and members-only privileges and benefits.

Advertising in these networks will morph into transactions for services, products, intelligence and data that provide an advantage to members. Successful sites will emphasize long-term benefits for advertisers to establish a measurable relationship with high-worth users.

Additionally, sites will offer broader insights into consumers’ offline behavior beyond the basic targeting. Players will have to commit for the long run, however. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission, Congress, state lawmakers and digital rights advocates are already raising privacy concerns. We expect those concerns to be resolved, even at the continued loss of privacy, in an emerging landscape of permission-based marketing. Meantime, some advertisers won’t risk their marketing efforts on either uncertain public policy or on personal, perhaps unreliable, information that consumers supply to their networks or that they display on their personal pages within the community.

A long time ago we helped give We Media its name, so a lot of people ask why it’s taken so long to launch a blog about it. Others ask a more relevant question: Ah, why?

I was thinking about those questions and the arrogance of blogging when the old joke, told by Woody Allen in Annie Hall, came to me: “You know, the, this, this guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, ‘Doc, uh, my brother’s crazy, he thinks he’s a chicken,’ and uh, the doctor says, ‘well why don’t you turn him in?’ And the guy says, ‘I would, but I need the eggs.’ ”

Well, I guess that’s pretty much now how I feel about blogging. It’s irrational, crazy and absurd. Most of us do it because we need the eggs.

We Media comes out of the shell at a time when the world seems to be scrambled and fried. Andrew and I will tap a global community of friends and leaders to help us make an omelette. We’ll beat the eggs till frothy, chop and add other ingredients, then cook until the mixture sets. We’ll keep cooking until the good gets better and the bad gets gone.

Meantime, we’ll continue to follow the trends, deliver insights, and create shared experiences of learning and discovery as we report on the big ideas shaping media and the connected society. We need the eggs.

WeMedia.com is the new home for the We Media conference, awards and community - and for news, analysis and community-organizing around the global We Media movement. We’re seeking to build a corps of correspondents and editors to provide reports, links and analysis on innovations and current events in media and communications around the world. Correspondents contribute as often as possible to the WeMedia blog. Editors help recruit and organize teams of correspondents. We’re especially eager to add correspondents in Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa. Correspondents may specialize on reporting on regional news and developments, or on subjects (such as censorship, technology or social entrepreneurship) that ignore geography. More about WeMedia.com here. If you’re interested in contributing as a correspondent or editor, please send an email with biographical and professional background and sample links to your writing to: info at wemedia dot com. Subject: Correspondents.

Bring your game-changing message to the celebrated conference that’s changing the world. Collaborate with the leaders and ideas shaping media, business, communication, technology, education and particiaption in the connected society.

Registration is OPEN for We Media Miami 09. It’s February 24-26, 2009, once again hosted by the University of Miami School of Communication. Read more »

You’re invited to join and support the We Media movement through membership.

Members of the We Media Community inform, influence and inspire business and social innovation in the connected society - and engage with each other to turn ideas into actions.

As a member you’ll connect with a diverse network of leaders from the intersecting fields of media, technology, telecommunications, investment, policy and social activism. You’ll have access to a private online members network through which members collaborate, share ideas, schedule meetings - or simply find each other to pursue new ventures.

Membership fees support research, regional meetings, publications, collaboration tools, the We Media Game Changers Awards and the annual We Media Miami conference.

We encourage and seek a diverse network of individuals, companies, startups, nonprofits, NGOs, policymakers, educators and educational institutions.

Review the membership benefits and tiers for individuals and companies here, or …

Join Now | Renew Membership | Update Profile | Enter Members Area

Register now for the We Media Buenos Aires Regional Summit October 14-15, 2008, at the MALBA contemporary art museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The summit will be conducted in English and Spanish.

• More Details: English | Espanol | Online Registration and Self-Serve Sponsor Signup