Ramblings – 6-13-09 – 36 Hours from Vegas and #HPTF

Viva Las Vegas

In 36 hours I will be back in a city I said I would never go to. Las Vegas. Years ago, I was opposed to gambling. We had a local casino and every time I would step foot in, I would be barraged with “Ding Ding Ding” noises that would irritate me to no end.

That has changed.

Not that I am an excessive gambler, but I have realized that if you are going to start a new business, you are taking a gamble. You put down more money than you can afford and you let it ride. If you are a smart gambler, you know when to move your chips, but nonetheless, they will still be on the table.

I started pulling the slots on a business model about 10 years ago. Crazy ideas on the web. My first Website was “Toonzed” featuring “Cybeeks” – a daily online comic about 2 IT professionals that lived together. It ran for a year and a half.

I did a whole bunch of music stuff in between 2002-2009, including my other current website – WIBands – a place for musicians to talk shop. It was mostly a forum with aspiration for more, but still in the works.

The big jump was when I started doing Geekazine and the podcasts within. I was podcasting prior with “Independant Music Podcast”. That ran for a small while on a monthly basis. I thought with Geekazine, I could take a better gamble and get more out of it.

So far, it’s been a year and a half and I am happy with the results. I have aligned myself with some great people and we help each other out in many ways. With sites like Dorkazine and TVazine upon the portal, I have been able to really ramp up the viewership. Sportazine will be the next in the portal and will be coming up shortly.

So I have been gambling for a while. So why not go to Vegas?

Understand, the two times I went, it wasn’t to gamble in a literal fashion. It was to gamble in a business fashion. In January I went with Todd Cochrane and Andy McCaskey to cover CES with the Techpodcast network. This time it’s with Andy and Kara Karsten to cover the HP Buzzcorps Expo 2009 –  Soon to be called “Ivy world”. They ran contests like “31 Days of the Dragon”, where they gave away thousands in prizes.

We will be putting down video for the week, along with the infamous Backchannel action. I have the camera all ready to go and can’t wait to get going.

So that is my Gamble. I might just play the tables for a bit, too. You never know…

The New Diggs

As you may have remembered, I was totally under the gun when my last lease was up. I held out a few days and it payed off as I found a new place with some great additions. It has this room in the corner of the basement that will be perfect for the Video production. It’s a bit boomy – 4 walls of concrete do that. But it will also be great for when I set up a green screen and produce some higher quality video.

iPhone App?

I have been talking with a few people about an idea for an iPhone app. I feel it will have a good showing and with 2.1 million opportunities to download it, I think that this app may be on at least 3% of the expected 40 million iPhone sales. That would be a potential of 2 million.

I have a developer in toe, but need an investor to cover costs. It is a low overhead, but one I cannot scrape together. I will post more info on Vator when I get a chance.

Where did that come from?

I found out about some cash I had that I didn’t expect. Only problem is it’s in a 401K from a previous job. If I did move it, it would take 120 days to do. I’ll have to figure out what to do. It would be nice to borrow from it so I can get some new equipment, but I am not sure how to go about doing that.

Congrats Sunspot

Sunspot, the band I have hilighted in my latest videos, just put out a new album called “Singularity” I haven’t heard the whole album yet, but I have heard some songs in live shows. If you get a chance, download it.

Win the Epson Artisan 700

Monday is the Quickcast “Week in Tech History” where we will talk about the third step in the Summer of Geekazine contest #1. Don’t worry. It’s actually really simple. And you can get a great printer with WiFi capabilities.

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That’s all for now. Now it’s time to roll the dice and head out to Vegas. Keep an eye on TVazine for some quick videos next week!