Girls In Tech

Bizzy recently launched a mobile app for local business/restaurant ratings and mini-reviews (on iPhone and Android) and instead of sitting in their air-conditioned office in the Silicon Valley, the team is in the middle of their 5000 mile “Check Out Across America” road trip to host MeetUps, get feedback and interact with the people they work for.

Bizzy lets people easily share their dining experiences with their friends in just a few seconds, by snapping a photo of a food dish and writing a Twitter-length restaurant review. Then, Bizzy uses the mini-reviews you publish to provide you with awesome restaurant and business recommendations.

The next stops on the list:

Portland
Monday, September 12. 8-11PM (8-9PM draft beer open bar)
Bailey’s Tap Room | 213 SW Broadway
RSVP via Facebook or MeetUp

and

Seattle
Tuesday, September 13. 8-11PM (8-9PM draft beer open bar)
Barca | 1510 11th Avenue
RSVP via Facebook or MeetUp

Check out the app, come have a drink and let’s chat!

Tags: bizzy, event, meetup, Portland, restaurants, review, Seattle
Posted in Events, Portland, Seattle | No Comments »

Next weekend, the tech community in Santa Cruz will be hosting TechRaising, a first-of-it’s-kind event, where entrepreneurs (big thinkers, developers, designers, business men and women, marketers, etc.) can get together to actually build and execute on the very ideas they have been stewing on for months, years or even just weeks.

This event is about collaboration, execution, accomplishment and showing what you’ve done.

Participants will gather on the evening of May 20 at Cruzio (downtown Santa Cruz) and have 90 seconds to pitch their idea for a product, service, or company to the group.  After pitches have been completed, everyone will have a chance to dialog with each other and form teams to build the the idea over the course of the weekend.

Scott McNealy, an industry icon and co-founder of Sun Microsystems, will be keynoting the event on Saturday morning.

Early bird tickets are $29.00 (if purchased by May 13th) and $49.00 after that and can be purchased at http://techraising.eventbrite.com. For more information please visit TechRaising.com.

So let’s get together and build something. How awesome would it be if this is where your startup was born?

Tags: designers, Developers, entrepreneurs, event, girls in tech, marketers, marketing, santa cruz, Silicon Valley, techraising, women in tech
Posted in San Francisco, santa cruz, Silicon Valley | No Comments »

It’s that time of year where we either 1) hold our sweethearts a little closer or 2) grab our best buddies for an anti-love fest. From “Rock Ballads” to “Broken Heart” radio – either way, Slacker‘s got you covered.

Slacker Personal Radio (available for free on the web, all the leading smartphones and home entertainment devices) lets you create your own Personal Radio stations based on any artist or mix of artists, or listen to and personalize over 130 expert-programmed genre stations ranging from Alternative Rock to Comedy, custom stations programmed and hosted by chart topping artists and everything in between. You can even read artist bios and album reviews, while viewing artist images and album art.

And they’ve just released their Valentine’s Day stations:
Rock Ballads Radio
Country Love Radio
Metropolitan Mood Radio
Broken Heart Radio
Slow Jamz Radio
Love Songs Radio

Tags: Digital Music, digital radio, love, music, slacker, tech, valentine, valentine's day
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In less then three months, Mountain View based start up, Bizzy, has registered almost 120,000 local business favorites in the hopes of providing YOU with business recommendations for everything from a lunch spot to a mechanic.

We can all go to Google or Yelp and type in “lunch in San Francisco” or “sushi in Soho” but the thing is, we are all going to get the same results. Even if you like upscale fusion sushi and I like the all you can eat buffet. Bizzy, Bizzy.com, is changing that with their personalized local business recommendation engine powered by people with similar tastes to you.

The favorites that have been shared on Bizzy thus far have been used to make over 650,000 local business recommendations and with every new shared favorite, the recommendations Bizzy makes are getting that much better. So sign up and share Bizzy with your friends and family to get the scoop on where to eat, shop and play.

Bizzy has released lists of the most favorited local restaurants in the top 10 cities gettin’ Bizzy including San Francisco, New York, Dallas, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, DC, Seattle, Shreveport, La., Boston and Austin, Texas. Visit http://blog.bizzy.com/the-bizziest-cities-in-america to see the lists.

Top 10 Restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area
1. Absinthe Brasserie & Bar
2. Pizzeria Delfina
3. Little Star Pizza
4. Yoshi’s San Francisco
5. Nopa
6. Cafe Borrone
7. DishDash
8. Coupa Cafe
9. La Fondue
10. Tied House Brewery & Cafe

Are some of your favorites in that list? Head to http://www.Bizzy.com and enter your favorites to start getting personalized local business recommendations. If you end up trying Bizzy and their recommendations, let them know how it goes! You could win $500 with their “Rec Check Challenge! Oh, and yes, there is an app for that: Bizzy.com/iPhone.

Tags: Boston, Chicago, Dallas, DC, dinner, eat, Google, Los Angeles, lunch, New York, play, recommendations, restaurants, San Francisco, shop, Washington D.C., win, Yelp
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Today, Care2 and blissmo launched Care2 Daily Deals (http://www.care2.com/daily-deals), creating a “green” deal website for shoppers seeking to discover and save money on people-and-planet-friendly products and services. Care2 is the largest online community for causes and blissmo is a leading provider of organic and eco-friendly deals. Care2 Daily Deals offers health, wellness, and environmentally minded consumers the benefits of group-buying in line with their values.

“Our community saw Groupon and Living Social, and asked for an alternative where their purchases can make a positive impact. Consumer spending is one of the most powerful forces shaping our world, and Care2 Daily Deals makes it easy to discover great deals on amazing brands that are moving society in the right direction,” said Randy Paynter, Founder and CEO of Care2.

Care2 Daily Deals will provide shoppers an opportunity to discover exceptional organic and eco-friendly brands from around the United States and Canada — with discounts up to 70% to try them out.

For more information click here or visit http://www.blissmo.com.

Tags: blissmo, care2, consumers, coupon, daily deals, environment, green, green technology, Groupon, livingsocial, save, shop, shopping, spending
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Mountain View based start-up, Bizzy, is a new way for local businesses to share deals, events, tips and news with their customers.

Today they announced “What’s Happening” in San Francisco which provides us (consumers) with a listing of great offers, events and promotions from businesses in their city at any given time – all in one place.

On Bizzy, you create a customized list of your favorite local businesses and once you’re connected, your Bizzy homepage acts as a feed of updates, highlighting special deals and events from the businesses you’ve selected. All of the feed items are shareable on Facebook, Twitter and via e-mail providing an easy way for new customers to discover local businesses by learning from their friends’ experiences or from people with similar taste.

What I love about it is the fact that my inbox isn’t being bombarded with 20% off deals and the like. When I am ready to make plans for the weekend, want to shop, or whatever – I can go to Bizzy to see whats going on in San Francisco.

Wondering what to do this weekend? Take a look at “What’s Happening” in San Francisco: http://bizzy.com/happening/sf

Bizzy is also available in NYC and Dallas and I can’t wait for it to launch in Santa Cruz

Tags: bizzy, coupons, crm, deals, Events, San Francisco, start-up
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Defining and engaging in social media can be tricky, everyone will tell you that, but I bet you already are on your way. As an uber-popular topic (and one frequently requested for our Girls in Tech events) we thought it might be time to have a conversation around it.

• What is ‘social media’?
• What does it mean to you?
• How do you use it?
• Are you marketing yourself? Your business? Is it working for you?

This month’s event will be a round table where we can all discuss the topic, the tools, how we use them, what we find works, what doesn’t, etc.

So please, come join us at Little Tampico’s in Soquel for a margarita, some tacos and an educational conversation about how people are communicating today.

Please RSVP here: http://socialmediasc.eventbrite.com/
There will be a limit of 25 guests to this event. Plan on bringing cash for your beverages and snacks.

If you have any questions don’t hesitate to email seana at girlsintech dot net.

Posted in Events, santa cruz | 1 Comment »

The 9-5 grind is gone. How we work, who we work for, and when we do it are more flexible, but also more complicated. That’s why two freelancers from Santa Cruz, Shane Pearlman and Margaret Rosas put together the first Freelance Camp back in 2008.

Their mission: help independent consulting professionals be in business for themselves, not by themselves.

Freelance Camp’s one-day un-conferences, organized independently and run from the barcamp.org playbook have taken place on three continents for three years and now San Francisco’s own Freelance Camp will take place on June 5th at the NextSpace Coworking San Francisco, 28 2nd Street, 3rd Floor.

Tickets are available on Eventbrite http://freelancecamppro2010sf.eventbrite.com/.

Run by a local team of volunteers, and always organized for the benefit of the local freelancing community and not for profit, all proceeds (net of expenses) are donated to the organizer’s nonprofit of choice. So far, all the events have included breakfast, a working lunch and an after party.

Freelance Camp takes a wide view on who exactly a freelancer is: if you’re a developer, designer, blogger or bookkeeper, great.  Same story if you work as a Realtor, lawyer, carpenter, engineer, or inventor.

Due to popular demand, the organizers of Freelance Camp San Francisco 2010 have created a new sub-brand, Freelance Camp PRO. This “unconference” will target attendees who have been running a freelance business full time for a year or more. The event will be smaller (+/- 100), topics more advanced, and participation is expected to be at a higher level than the past camps.

The morning will kick off with coffee and pastries (yum), and a brainstorm of desired topics. Participants with something to contribute or a specific topic idea generate the breakout sessions which are then scheduled throughout the rest of the day. Freelance Camp PRO will culminate with an after party to further the networking and knowledge exchange in a casual, social setting.

Throughout the event, Freelance Camp PRO will share live tweets (@freelancecampsf and #freelancecamp) and updates to the Wiki page, so the fun and learning can be followed outside of the space.

Tags: community, coworking, freelance, NextSpace, San Francisco, unconference
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Attensity360’s IdolStats.com monitored millions of conversations to choose Casey James as this week’s American Idol cast off and if the current social media buzz is correct, we may have a winner in the underdog this season as Lee currently has a HUGE percentage of the American Idol conversation happening now.

Idolstats uses the Attensity360 social media monitoring and analytics product to track the power of social media conversations to predict which contestant will be voted off each week. Millions of tweets, comments and social media conversations about American Idol are analyzed in order to gauge American sentiment toward contestants.

In addition to predicting a cast off each week, the team at IdolStats has also been reading the tea leaves on how heart-throb status , fan-dialing and the judges opinions contribute to who will actually come out on top.

Fans can view the real-time data at IdolStats.com throughout the week to find out America’s uncensored opinion and tweet their own predictions based on updates and new data. Fans can visit the Idol Stats blog, http://blog.idolstats.com and follow the Twitter hashtag #IdolStats to keep updated on IdolStats.com and the community.

Success in selecting the American Idol cast off comes on the heels of Attensity Group’s acquisition of Biz360 enabling them to now offer the industry’s most powerful and easy-to-use analysis, delivery and response capabilities, enabling businesses to effectively listen, analyze, relate, and act on information, both inside and outside of the firewall.

Tags: american idol, attensity, attensity group, biz360, casey james, idol, lee dewyze, social media, social web, twitter
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Girls in Tech Santa Cruz is proud to present:

Leveraging Today’s Technologies to Publish Your Book

Last year 764,448 titles were produced by self-publishers and so-called microniche publishers – up an astonishing 181 percent from the previous year – and just 288,355 titles were published through traditional publishers (down from 289,729 the year before). Book publishing is simply becoming self-publishing.

FastPencil Co-Founder and CTO, Michael Ashley will lead the conversation on how you can leverage today’s various technologies to get your book published.

Attendees will learn:

• How to publish your book including tips on getting started and uploading or importing existing content.
• How to share work with reviewers and editors through social media platform.
• How to utilize the social web to promote your book project while you are writing it.
• How to distribute your book.
• How to use free online tools to promote your book.

Attendees must RSVP here: http://publishingtech.eventbrite.com

Girls in Tech is grateful to have NextSpace as the event’s gracious host.

FastPencil is leveraging the disruptive trends of self-publishing, social media, print-on-demand and eBook distribution to deliver a new unified online service that streamlines the book publishing process offering more control and higher margins for authors. The FastPencil writing and publishing service enables authors to create books online, collaborate, publish and distribute from one engaging, simple, cost-effective solution. For more information please visit FastPencil.com.

Tags: Author, book, event, fastpencil, girls in tech, NextSpace, publish, Publishing, write, write a book, writer
Posted in Events, San Francisco, santa cruz, Silicon Valley | No Comments »