SOPA is not an Italian soap, as joked about on the Gang podcast. But we discuss the protests that caused the Stop Online Privacy Act (and its Senate sister act called PIPA or Protect IP Act) to be, as the Mafia always stated about someone who was killed and dumped in the river, “sleeping with the fishes” and we talk about what happened.

Besides all of the catching up we did our guest, Patrick E. Donohue from DealPen, is on to talk about their initiatives to work with startups on funding, knowledge and a host of other value propositions.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson
Music: Clear Blue 22 & the song “Through With You” from the podsafe Music Alley.

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 59:32 — 34.7MB)

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Discussed during the show:

• Minneapolis software firm gets $52.5M in venture capital
• Apple announces free iBooks Author OS X app for publishing books to the App Store
• Too Many Don’t “Get” iBooks Author
• Apple’s New Math. Or: Why a $15 E-Book Equals a $75 Paper Book
• Not a Kodak Moment: Legendary Camera Maker Files for Bankruptcy Protection and How Kodak Failed
• DreamHost Hacked, Password Changes Made Mandatory
• DealPen’s INVESTyR
• The Ihnatko Almanac #16: Some Assembly Required 
• Best Buy Announces Leadership Changes
• CarrierIQ Lawsuit by Twin Cities Man
• Successful ebook author Amanda Hocking 

Upcoming Events:

• Thursday, January 26th: WordPressMSP, at The Nerdery in Bloomington.
• Thursday, January 26th: MnSearch Presents: Tools of the Trade for SEO with Raven Tools
• Thursday, January 26th/February 23rd: How to Leverage Digital Media to Raise Capital (a DealPen event at CoCo. Promo code for free ticket: dealpenfriend)
• Friday, January 27th: Social Media Breakfast, Mpls/St. Paul (SMBMSP)–Public Media
• Friday/Saturday, March 16th & 17th: Mobile March TC. Call for speakers.

2012 started off with a bang with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and the start of a new year also affords the Gang a chance to see just how far and fast a local emerging firm has come in the last year.

Joining the Gang on this podcast are two guests: First up is Justin Kaufenberg, CEO & Cofounder of TSTMedia, who provides us with a solid overview of his company and all of their properties (SportNGIN; EventNGIN; USPondHockey; and NGIN itself). Then we get a CES report from Mitchell Hislop (Site; LinkedIn; Twitter) who was on-the-ground for several days looking at CES developments from a hard core geek’s perspective.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson
Music: Ron Arnold & the song “Kiss Me” from the podsafe Music Alley.

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:12:18 — 42.3MB)

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Discussed during the show:

• Truffles: The Most Expensive Food in the World
• MakerBot
• From CES: A Few Hints About the Future of TV; ‘Smart’ TVs and other products proliferate at CES; Roku Streaming Stick hands-on: a set-top box without the box; Simple.tv DVR; The best of CES 2012; Polaroid plans Spectrum 7-, 8- and 9-inch ICS tablets for 2012 launch; Ainovo $79 Ice Cream Sandwich tablet; PhoneGap; Lumina 900;  Ultrabooks at CES; 4K TV
• Ford Fusion

Upcoming Events:

• Friday, January 13th: Club Entrepreneur, 11:30am-1:00pm, Minneapolis Club. (Speaker: Mary Meehan, Cofounder, Panoramix Global)
• Wednesday, January 18th: MinneDemo at 6:00 pm, Schulze Hall, University of St. Thomas (registration…but it’s sold out).
• Wednesday, January 18th: MIMA Event: “Secrets Revealed: Social Media Grows Up” (sold out, waiting list)
• Saturday, January 21st: Thomson Reuters Tech Event
• Thursday, January 26th: WordPressMSP, at The Nerdery in Bloomington.
• Thursday, January 26th: MnSearch Presents: Tools of the Trade for SEO with Raven Tools
• Friday, January 27th: Social Media Breakfast, Mpls/St. Paul (SMBMSP)–Public Media
• Friday/Saturday, March 16th & 17th: Mobile March TC. Call for speakers.

It’s our annual predictions show where the Gang goes over our prediction hits-and-misses from last year’s show…and then we try again to predict what will happen in technology in 2012. Listen to discover how we did and what we think will happen in 2012.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:00:12 — 35.4MB)

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Discussed during the show:

• Inveni (semantic technology startup based in MN)
• Apple iTV: It’s about the experience, not content
• Healthcare and devices: Big Healthcare Data; HealthPartners Launches Virtuwell; Zipnosis
• Brad Feld’s sci-fi talk at Defrag 2011, “Resistance is Futile:  The Rise of the Machines” (unfortunately, no link to a video because none was shot! … but here are some photos and tweets from Graeme’s live-blog at the time that will give you the flavor)
• And here’s a related-to-3D-printing Brad Feld link: “Foundry Group Invests In MakerBot”
• 3D printing (Wikipedia); Eden Prairie-based Stratasys
• More 3D printing in MN: Custom parts maker Proto Labs plans to raise $100 million in IPO (in Maple Plain, MN)

Upcoming Events:

• Friday, January 13th: Club Entrepreneur, 11:30am-1:00pm, Minneapolis Club. (Speaker: Mary Meehan, Cofounder, Panoramix Global – “Global Trends Shifting Your Business”)
• Thursday, January 16th: MinneDemo at 6:00 pm, location TBD.
• Thursday, January 26th: WordPressMSP, at The Nerdery in Bloomington.

From all of us at Minnov8, we would like to wish you a safe, joyous and delightful holiday! We our grateful for our families, friends, you and, of course, for those who both invent and leverage great technology for incredible outcomes, profit and fun.

We will be back next week with another Minnov8 Gang podcast with our end of year recap and 2012 predictions.

A smaller Gang discusses the past week’s news including the W3i Tech Holiday Party, Google Zeitgeist, Facebook Timeline and more.

Hosts: Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins and Phil Wilson (Steve Borsch is on holiday)
Music: Uncle Seth sing “Little Pieces” from the podsafe Music Alley.

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 33:26 — 19.4MB)

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Discussed during the show:

• Amazon Paid You $5 to Leave a Store; Now eBay is Giving You $10 to Return
• Best Buy Sinks Most Since 2002 After Discounts Hurt Profit
• Best Buy’s Dunn Should Be Next CEO Fired
• Google Zeitgeist 2011 – Rebecca Black’s Year
• Facebook Timeline finally rolls out
• Stop Online Piracy Act
• An Open Letter From Internet Engineers to the U.S. Congress
• Infographic: What Is SOPA And Why Is It A Huge Attack Against America?
• Louis C.K. Says Internet Experiment Yielded $200,000

Upcoming Events:

• December 21st: How to Leverage Digital Media to Build your Business and Raise Capital

Note: We will be off next week but return the following week to discuss our 2011 predictions and gaze into the crystal ball again for 2012.

The Gang has on our frequent guest host, Julio Ojeda-Zapata, to talk holiday gadgets and those for geeks.

Hosts: Steve Borsch, Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins, Phil Wilson and Julio Ojeda-Zapata.
Music: The Dead Rocks & their song “Boogie Splash Crash” from the podsafe Music Alley.

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:00:44 — 35.8MB)

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Discussed during the show:

• SAP Target SuccessFactors To Buy Jobs2web For $110M
• Amazon Will Pay Shoppers $5 to Walk Out of Stores Empty-Handed and Rumor: Amazon Retail Stores Coming & Predatory Pricing Channel Destruction
• New version of Twitter launched; does anyone care? answer is Yes, 7 billion people; Twitter relaunches with Facebook-style makeover; Twitter Joins Facebook, Google, Launches ‘Brand Pages’ for Marketers
• Google Currents is hot off the press
• Julio’s top gadgets for this holiday: Macbook Air 13”; iHome iW1; Logitech mini boom box; Apparel like Scottevest Puffer; Dell 14Z; Julio’s post Slick Dell XPS 14z and 15z laptops worth a look for holidays
• Jawbone suspends production of Up wristband, offers refund even if you keep it
• 8th Bridge 
• Graeme returns his Kindle Fire 
• Shoppers say Target hits the mark with its social marketing
• Graphene at Wikipedia and Is graphene a miracle material?
• The Onion: Interim Apple Chief Under Fire After Unveiling Grotesque New MacBook
• Graeme’s surfing’ buddy: January Surfing on Lake Superior with the new GoPro video cam

Gang Geek Gadgets: Graeme: “Not a Kindle Fire”; Steve: Gulfstream 650 jet but really the Blue Yeti microphone; Phil: Independent Wealth…or a MacBook Air; Tim: an iPad

Upcoming Events:

• Gadgets and Gifts for Geeks & Grandmas – today at CoCo Minneapolis 11:30 to 1pm
• December 10-13: TIES 2011 EduTech Conference
• December 21st: How to Leverage Digital Media to Build your Business and Raise Capital

The Gang is off this week for obvious holiday reasons, hanging with family and relaxing. We’ll be back next week with another edition of the Minnov8 Gang Podcast. Seeya then!