Hello Vine! Twitter meets Video

Twitter’s new iOS Vine app is the Instagram of video. Vine records six seconds of video that you can upload to Vine social network and in embedded tweets on Twitter.

For a while you could publish updates to Facebook. But no more, as Mike Isaac reports from All Things D. Looks like Facebook is a disturbed about the new app.

Monetization is changing the user experience on Twitter. With Vine, Twitter is extending what we share and consume. In some ways Twitter is becoming noisier, and some will like it and others won't. I think Twitter's Vine is awesome and opens up so many possibilities for both users and advertisers.

Vine is a beautiful app, great execution. Its so easy to use, its for the brain dead. To start shooting a video all you have to do is to press your thumb on the screen, and to stop you just lift it.

Here is my first Vine vine.co/v/bJaZHuppwa6 

I wish I had some Twitter stock, just a few shares :)

Holding hands at Tilden park vine.co/v/biTaEEwdq2n?1
— James Buckhouse (@buckhouse) January 24, 2013

Its all about execution, not ideas

We all bathe in the same mental fountains, but what differentiates us is how we do it. An excellent post by @joulee.

Ideas are cheap. You can buy thirty for a round of drinks at your neighborhood bar. Unless it is that rare, giant-squid-footage of an idea (which—again—yours probably isn't), don't drag it onto an altar and pray to it every morning.

Save that praise for the product at the end of the road—the thing you built and tweaked and fiddled with your hands. Save that for the story you crafted in its entirety, each word extracted from you like teeth because that's how personal it was. Save the glory—the pride—for the art that comes from the blood and sweat and time and tears. There is no clearer way to say it. 99 times out of 100, it's the execution that counts. It's the idea scrawled and captured and coded and edited and made frightfully real. 

It's your work, and hopefully it's your best work.

Facebook Graph Search: Overdue, Exciting & definitely a Big Deal

I'm really excited about the announcement for Facebook Graph Search.

Facebook Graph Search adds so many more dimensions to search. Just like the photo shows, you can search for restaurants in London your friends have been to, or for restaurants your friends that live in London liked, or for restaurants your friends with a lifestyle similar to yours frequent... endless possibilities. It adds a layer of personal proximity.

When Bing, Yahoo and other search engines (local, travel etc) start integrating it into their search results, things will get really interesting. The real threat for Google will begin, since its own social graph search from Google+ is much shallower.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the Yelp/Google deal happen now. Also Graph Search on mobile in combination with gifting, will be a killer app and a definite threat to Amazon. I would love to see a hybrid that combines Siri, Local &  Facebook Graph Search, all in one.

Facebook Graph Search is a big deal, and will be a game changer for search.
Its going to be very interesting to see how things play out.

"The native ad unit in these platforms has to be the atomic unit of content in these platforms"

A great video with @fredwilson and @davemorgannyc about advertising and monetization.
You've sparked so many ideas in my mind about local search and how to think about it.
Gentlemen ty!

Push yourself to your limits, and go beyond them

This photo from boston.com reminded me of an old plan that's been put off for a while.
The past year was full of changes. I hope in the future I'll able to do this race, but until then I will push myself in different ways.
 
A race that follows in the path of the famous explorer Roald Amundsen brings the contestants to the Hardangervidda Mountainplateu, Norway. 100km across the plateau, the exact same route Amundsen used to prepare for his South Pole expedition in 1911 is still used by explorers today. Amundsen did not manage to cross the plateau and had to turn back because of bad weather. He allegedly said that the attempt to cross Hardangervidda was just as dangerous and hard as the conquering of the South Pole.

Happy Holidays!

Every year I make a jibjab holiday video, I love 'em!

Χρόνια πολλά! Happy Holidays!
I wish everyone a very merry time with their family and loved ones!

2013 Tech Startup Events

A couple of days ago Techcrunch posted a comprehensive list of startup events around the world, so I decided to create a simple mashup using pipes from Yahoo!


Here is a listing of the events: 

All the content has been stored in a gmail calender. Here's the XML feed for it:
https://www.google.com/calendar/feeds/kves4qk1apq8v7umh5op4f8hfc%40group.calendar.google.com/public/basic

I've added the first 5 months, and soon I'll be adding the rest of the events.
If you know of an event that's not in the techcrunch post, just send me a message and I'll add it to the calendar.

Its wishful thinking, but wouldn't it be great to go to all these :)

Build your future! No more excuses!

I read the recent announcements about all the new VC funds in Greece. It must of been some OpenCoffee yesterday in Athens, with all these presentations. Maybe there's hope after all :)

OpenFund 2 [theopenfund.com]
http://www.slideshare.net/Openfund/introducing-openfund-ii

Odyssey Venture partners [odysseyvp.com]
http://www.slideshare.net/gtzi/odyssey-venture-partners

PJ Tech Catalyst [pjtechcatalyst.com]
http://www.slideshare.net/gtzi/pj-tech-catalyst

When I moved to the US. two months ago, I told myself: "Put your best ideas forward, and move minds. Its time create a movement and lead in ways you never dreamed possible. Its a brand new day in brave new economy. Build your future!".

This is exactly what I say to all the entrepreneurs back home!
Get your ideas moving, seek out the resources you need, work hard and make them a success. No more excuses!

The photo was taken early this morning, when I was walking Jack in the snow.

Digital gifting blog

Even thought the last month was very difficult on a personal level, lots of unexpected curve balls... I've been burning the midnight oil and put in a lot of time on a digital gifting app. Hopefully we'll get it launched soon!

If your interested in this space, I've created a blog with related news articles:
http://digital-gifting.blogspot.com/

You can also download presentation I put together a couple of months:
http://www.slideshare.net/louishatzis/social-gifting

Here is my two cents about digital gifting on MediaPost:
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/184428/this-holiday-will-giving-get-social.html#axzz2JZMFm397

Danger Will Robinson! Stay away from Venture debt!

Being in the US. is a continuous education, especially when it comes to venture capital and how it works.

Today I heard an interesting story from a friend, an entrepreneur that raised a lot of venture capital for one of his past startups. He told me a story about his experience with "VC suggestions" and "Venture debt".

His startup completed a Series B raising over $20m with some major backers. The VC investors suggested to move the company from Boston to NYC and the appointment an "experienced" CEO, sidelining the founder that was successfully running the company for about a year prior to the investment (the track record they decided to invested in).

At some point later in time, the investor appointed CEO decided to take venture debt.

For those that never heard of this term (I never heard of it before today), venture debt is financing vehicle for venture-backed companies, offered by specialized banks or lenders in order to fund working capital or capital expenses of a startup.

The venture debt banks are not loaning the startup based on its success or financial health, but against the credibility of the VC firms backing the startup. Basically these banks are betting the VCs will continue to fund the startup, past the term of the venture debt loan.

This sounds like a recipe for disaster, especially when the startup is in the red and still relies on its VC investors.

I'm learning, but I think the two takeaways from this story are:

• Run your company and don't let VCs suggest an "experienced" CEO, especially if you haven't screwed up.
• Stay away from venture debt, especially if you're still in the red.