Showing posts with label dropio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dropio. Show all posts

Friday, April 30, 2010

Dropio's Indian Cofounder Darshan


Me: I just found out you cofounded Dropio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop.io Why did you leave?
Darshan: yup! helped build out the tech team there, and then hopped to a startup i began in high school - http://bit.ly/4DLylg

In case you did not realize, the Indians are statistically significant.

Darshan Somashekar - LinkedIn
Video Interview With The Founders of Drop.io
somashekar.com
Darshan Somashekar| Facebook
Darshan Somashekar| Guest of a Guest
Darshan Somashekar (darshan) on Twitter
Darshan Somashekar| CrunchBase Profile
Darshan Somashekar, Associate Consultant, Bain Company, Boston..
Darshan Somashekar's Profile - Indaba Music
drop.io pr
RRE Ventures – Drop.io Completes Second Round of Investment Led by...
LWALA artist auction event - Jacob Robbins, Darshan Somashekar...
ImagineEasy Solutions: A tiny company with big ideas.
EasyBib.com - American Libraries Buyers Guide
Credo Reference and EasyBib join forces to simplify student research
2009 Finalists: America's Best Young Entrepreneurs: Drop.io...
Drop.io File Sharing and Collaboration Portal Review from AppVita...
Easybib.com, Comprehensive Information About Easybib | Quarkbase


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Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Digital Dumbo: Here I Come


Dumbo. Directly under the Manhattan Brooklyn overpass. At first I did not know the full form name. But it was a great sound, like Yahoo, or Google, supposedly meaningless, but a great sounding name. I thought some of the techies in town came over to this semi vacated part of the city, drove away the rest of the inhabitants, mostly homeless people, and took over. That is what Dumbo feels like.

Dumbo is special in the NY tech ecosystem. I am not aware of another geographical locale quite like it. There are some very cool office spaces around town, some of which look like abandoned artist spaces. But Dumbo is the only place that is not one office, or even one street, but an entire neighborhood, although it is not that big of a neighborhood.

Ignite, Set It On Fire

Come to think of it I lived in Brooklyn for my first few years in the city. I lived south of Prospect Park. That is quite a distance from Dumbo. But a few times I walked from Times Square to where I lived. I'd start out around midnight, and be home by dawn. That is a great way to experience summer in town. It is much better than throwing up on a subway platform or inside the train: I have done both. And no, I was not drunk during those walks. The truth is I am not much of a drinker. One beer for one evening is as far as I prefer to go. Like last night, the MeetUp people had an entire refrigerator bulging with free beer - free for us, a bunch of money for them, but hey, they are a profit making dot com, who cares; yes they exist, profit making dot coms - but I took just one. (FourSquare Office, Dropio Technology)

A few days back I had an email from the First Round Capital guy Charlie; I am on his mailing list for cool tech events in town. Two events for the week looked at me. Sam Lessin was speaking at the MeetUp headquarters on Tuesday, and it was a MeetUp that sounded really, really cool, but I had never heard of. And there was this Digital Dumbo thing for Thursday that looked so great and fun, but there were no spots left. I shot a quick email to Sam. Can you get me in? Since it was taking place at the Dropio office.
Thursday, April 29th
7:30PM Digital DUMBO #15 Drop.io On In

While our application lives in the 'clouds', we set up people-world headquarters in DUMBO in ye-olden-days of 2008. Now in the spring of 2010 we are prepping to roll out the next generation of rich media file-sharing... Join us to celebrate

RSVP: http://digitaldumbo.eventbrite.com/

Drip.io HQ
68 Jay St #413
btw Water & Front
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Date: April 29th, 2010
Time: 7:30 - 10pm
When I brought that up with Jacob, the other Dropio speaker at the MeetUp, he taught me the secret way to get into the Dropio office. He casually mentioned it was like a cocktail for people who worked in Dumbo. I tried to unlearn the secret way and said, "In that case I will not come. I don't work in Dumbo." Hacking a site is one thing. But hacking a site's office, um, wait, I don't even hack sites. But thanks, Jake.

Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever

Charlie has blocked me from leaving comments at his blog. I retaliated by hyperlinking his name Charlie to the most famous Charlie video on YouTube: 2010: Location, Random Connections, The Inbox, Frictionless Payments. Charlie bit my finger, Charlie blocked me on his blog.

And today I have a Facebook email from none other than the guy who runs the show, the organizer of Digital Dumbo. How cool is that? And the guy read about my interest in Digital Dumbo at my blog. That is even cooler. People who read my blog are, by definition, cool. Andrew Zarick is now officially cool.

Not having read up on it, not having been to one event yet, this is what I have to say about Digital Dumbo. Everyone who works at any tech company in Dumbo should be able to attend. Heck, everyone who works for any tech company anywhere in the city should be able to attend. I guess what I am saying is turn Digital Dumbo into a block party in Dumbo. May would be a great month to start in that direction.

Digital Dumbo Block Party. Get the city involved. You want jobs? Buy me beer.

Digital DUMBO| Facebook
digitaldumbo on Twitter
Digital DUMBO #15 Drop.io On In - Marketing - Design- Eventbrite
Digital DUMBO
Digital Dumbo #12: One Year Anniversary Sponsored by Carrot...
Digital DUMBO Drinks
Dumbo NYC, Brooklyn » Archive » Digital Dumbo Drinks #2 (26Feb2009...
Dumbo NYC, Brooklyn » Archive » Event: Digital Dumbo #14 (DumboNYC..
Digital DUMBO Hosts Its First Event, Bringing Over 100 Digital...
» Twestival YVR to Digital DUMBO NYC – we've got you covered
Digital Dumbo - A Digitally-Anthropomorphic Social Elephant
Blood, Sweat and Fear: David Skokna at Digital DUMBO - HUGE
Digital Dumbo - Yöshi Sodeöka
Invoke: Twestival YVR to Digital DUMBO NYC – we've got you covered...
Twitter / @digitaldumbo/Digital Dumbo Agencies
MediaPost Publications Just An Online Minute...Digital DUMBO Gets...
Brooklyn Heights Blog » digital dumbo
HUSH | Backdoor » The After Party: Digital Dumbo, Lucky #13
Digital DUMBO #15 Drop.io On In Mixer
DUMBO Named New York's Digital District | NBC New York
Digital DUMBO| Andrew Zarick
Brooklyn Cupcakes at Digital DUMBO| Brooklyn Cake
Digital DUMBO Drop.io On In - NYC Calendar | Guest of a Guest< Digital DUMBO Drinks
Brooklyn's DUMBO Neighborhood Becoming The Home for New York's...
Anna Zach @Digital DUMBO on Vimeo
Digital Dumbo Stream Discussion
NYConvergence: Outside.In, Carrot Creative Host Digital DUMBO Drinks
Flickr: Digital DUMBO
Digital DUMBO #7 | The JAR Group
DUMBO Digital District of New York | AD60
Digital DUMBO #15 Drop.io On In: Thursday, 4/29 at 7:30pm at Drop...
space150 - space150 Sponsors Digital DUMBO #8
Why Digital DUMBO Matters? | Andrew Zarick
HUSH Studios vs. Digital Dumbo on Vimeo
Carrot Blog — Recap: Digital DUMBO Drinks #4
Digital Dumbo #15 - Drop.io On In | Small Business Complete
foursquare :: Digital Dumbo #14 #NYDD :: Brooklyn, NY
NYConvergence: Carrot's Germano: DUMBO is NYC's 'Digital District'
Digital DUMBO #14 « Christopher M Kennedy
Digital DUMBO #14 Sponsored by Invoke at The Dumbo Loft in...
HUSH | Backdoor » 365 Days of Digital Dumbo
Paint The Town Red - Hootsuite Creators Host Digital DUMBO #14
foursquare :: Digital Dumbo #14 #NYDD :: Brooklyn, NY
Digital Dumbo #11 Purple Sangria Digital Festivus - Society of...
Digital Dumbo #11 Purple Sangria Digital Festivus - Garysguide...
Cupcakes Take The Cake: Kumquat Cupcakery For Digital DUMBO
“How do you fit a mountain into a teacup?” -Digital Dumbo
Digital Dumbo | NBC New York


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FourSquare Office, Dropio Technology

FourSquare

So I checked into the FourSquare office near Cooper Union at precisely 4:16 PM. I walked in and there was no receptionist just three rows of people, mostly guys, staring at their screens. I caught a glimpse of Naveen (@naveen) from a distance. The guy I had met in the elevator walked over to me and said I needed to email Evan, and that he was out for a few days. He was the one who handled job applications.

4:16 PM @ FourSquare

I emailed Evan once I got back, but one very likely scenario: I never hear from FourSquare. They are hot, they must be getting a firehose of resumes daily. They might not even actively be looking. Oh, well. But I will give it a few days before I come to that conclusion.

I am suggesting thinking of the behavior of a large number of people approaches science and has to be given the same respect as coding. They might not bite. I carried on that same meme to my conversation with the MeetUp CTO Greg a few hours later. MeetUp has a great team of techies as it should, but it does not officially have a team of sociologists, and psychologists and group dynamics specialists in house. I have always wondered why. I have seen that as a gap to be filled.







Dropio

The NYC Tech Talks MeetUp was at the MeetUp headquarters. I showed up a little early. It was scheduled to start at 7 PM. Sam Lessin, the founder of Dropio, and his team member number two, Jacob, both took turns talking. (It is entirely possible Jacob is not on Twitter.)

That thing between Twitter and Blogger is Tumblr. Similarly the NYC Tech Talks MeetUp meets a need that the much larger, much more general NY Tech MeetUp does not. I really appreciated the lack of bar background noise after the talk was over. You could actually hold conversations, and talk to people in normal tones of voice. The MeetUp has been put together by the MeetUp CTO Greg. (@gwhalin)

Sam (@lessin) and Jacob did not have five minutes. They must have talked for over an hour. They used a whiteboard. That made it more intimate than a PowerPoint presentation. They answered a ton of questions. I asked Sam a question, "So you build the architecture, and scale it out, then what do you do next? What do your product teams spend most of their time on these days?" Analytics, he said.

Later one on one I asked Jacob about this Digital Dumbo event on Thursday at the Dropio headquarters. He said it was like a cocktail party for those who worked in Dumbo. Then, I said, I'd not be interested, I thought it was a more general tech event.

Monday, February 22, 2010

A MeetUp Has Me Excited: Y + 30

I am going to a MeetUp tomorrow evening - well, I am going to a Lunar Year celebration with John Liu for this evening, we are trying to get the guy to show up for a February 28 Holi celebration in Astoria, I be pulling strings - but tomorrow, Tuesday, I am going to this MeetUp that I am unusually excited about. I guess at some level I am bummed I had never heard of the MeetUp before this month. Makes me feel like I have been out of the loop. But I found out about it during Social Media Week, and I am glad. (Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever)

I don't know what to expect. That is another reason I am a little on the edge. Will it be pitch dark? Will they throw bright light in my face? Will they make funny noises? Will they make us wear costumes? Or at least goggles? Is the venue some kind of a basement? It is called a Brooklyn Future MeetUp, but it is in Tribeca, the Jay-Z Tribeca. I love Brooklyn, it is the most residential of all boroughs, but Y+30 is a much better name in the first place.


on Feb 23rd - we are talking the future of food, register for the event at http://meetup.com/BLKNY30 
From Michael Pollan to molecular gastronomy, food bloggers to food
porn, celebrity chefs to rock star butchers, the world of eating has
changed remarkably in recent years. There’s never been a more exciting
time to be a food-lover, and yet we’re also increasingly concerned
about issues like food safety, sustainability, and health.

What will the food world look like in 30 years? Will traditional
restaurants still be around or we will be eating in a world of pop ups
and food trucks? Will scientists rule the kitchen?

We’ll talk to experts across the industry, including chef Michael
Anthony of Gramercy Tavern, Glenn Roberts, founder of Anson Mills,
marketing whizzes from Rooster Design Group, and writer and Food52
co-founder Amanda Hesser. (@amandahesser)

After the panel stay for demos by cocktail experts and chefs, tastings
by local producers, and cameos by some of the city’s cult food
vendors.

Looks like they will be feeding us too. We get to sample some food stuff. I am all for that. And what is food porn? What could that be?

I left this comment at Sam Lessin's Tumblr blog a few days back. (@lessin)
I am so looking forward to this, you won't believe. I am so surprised I was not even aware of this MeetUp's existence until the first week of February this year. Finding about this MeetUp has been one of my rewards for having attended Social Media Week events with abandon. http://technbiz.blogspot.com/2010/02/social-media-week-best-ny-tech-meetup.html
Wow. I am like wow. What a theme for a MeetUp. I like vision people, I like vision talk, I like talk about the future. I am such a huge fan of Esther Dyson, and it is because she is such a visionary. She is a remarkable woman in many other ways, but that is my primary reason to like her so much.
Y+30 is stretching it, it is hard enough to figure out what the landscape will look like one year from now, or five, 30 is eternity, but the year will roll around for sure, and the reward is not in ending up being accurate - I fully expect most of our predictions to fall flat on the face - but in making the effort itself. Those who think hard about the future live the present more fully.
I am so excited about this event, I fear I might miss it. I am feeling superstitious.
I am so glad you have Disqus integrated to your blog. Disqus is my idea of a micro blogging platform.
Another reward to me from Social Media Week has been Tumblr. I use Twitter to broadcast, Facebook to connect, and Buzz/Tumblr to listen. Glad to be following you on Tumblr.

Excited about tomorrow.
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