Several friends and colleagues have noticed the HelloBar on CN noting that I am looking to sell the site and they have asked me why. It’s simple…I am focused on my startup now and just don’t have the time to put a real effort into CN anymore. I’d like to sell the site either as a domain name sale or the full site including all of the content.

Here’s part of what is included in the sale:
– centernetworks.com domain (domain age 1999)
– over 5,600 posts (CN uses WordPress as the blogging platform)
– other domains not being used today: centernetworks.net, centernetworks.org, centrenetworks.co.uk, centernetworks.co.uk
– the new owner would take over the CN Twitter account (nearly 10,000 earned followers)
– the new owner would take over the CN Facebook page

If interested or if you would like more details, please contact me at general@centernetworks.com.

The New York Technology Council held an incubator showcase for several NYC-based incubators last summer. Joly MacFie from WWWhatsup NYC posted a video of the event – you can watch the 90 minute event below. Here’s the presenter list:

• Bruce Niswander, Director, Technology Innovation & Entrepreneurship, NYU-Poly
• Daria Siegel, Director of the Alliance for Downtown New York’s Hive at 55
• Natalia Arguello, Director, NYDesigns
• Matthew Shampine, Co-Founder, WeWork Labs
• Charles Kemper, Managing Director, ER Accelerator

From what I can tell, Hive and 55 and WeWork Labs are more coworking/shared office space than a traditional incubator where a group trades services for equity. Since the list does include coworking, I must include the first coworking space in NYC, New Work City.

Next Tuesday is the annual holiday known as Valentine’s Day. The day is named after St. Valentine and over 150 million cards are exchanged – here’s the full history of this very special day. This year the new deal sites are holding a cage match with each site offering a deal with a national floral delivery service. Most of these deals expire asap so you should be quick if you want to grab some flowers for your sweetie. Also note that the delivery fees are higher for a delivery on Valentine’s day. Lastly, I see some of the local cities within the deal sites are also offering flower deals so make sure to check your local city before purchasing a national deal.

If you want to pick up flowers yourself, I am hearing the best deal for super fresh roses is Whole Foods with 2 dozen for $19.99. Make sure to call your local store to get current pricing. If you don’t have a Whole Foods in your area, Walmart is offering 1 dozen roses for $15 beginning today.

LivingSocial – offers $25 for $50 credit at Teleflora. I used this deal yesterday for some flowers for my mom who is recovering after some surgery – note, there is a $15 or more service fee and Teleflora added me to their email marketing list even though I specifically unchecked the boxes to be added to their lists. Voucher may be applied towards service costs.

Groupon – offers $20 for $40 credit at FTD.com. Voucher may be applied towards service costs.

Google Offers – from what I can tell, this deal has now expired but they were offering 2 dozen roses, vase and shipping for $45.

Amazon Local – offers $15 for $30 credit at ProFlowers. Voucher may be applied towards service costs.

Eversave – offers $25 for 2 movie tickets and a $10 gift card good at 1-800-flowers.com.

It’s important to note that there are tons of discount codes available for most of the online florists so make sure to spend a few minutes to find the best deal for the floral arrangement you are interested in.

Yakov Sadchikov, President & CEO of visual search engine Quintura, has put together the following list of the top 10 Russian web startups for 2011.

In September 2011, Russia became the largest Internet market in Europe with 51 million online users. Who are the top emerging internet companies that disrupt the Russian market. Find out below a list of top 10 Russian web startups of 2011.

1. Oktogo.ru

Having raised $5 million in venture capital from European early-stage investors, Oktogo.ru is #1 in Russian online travel. Russia’s ‘Booking.com‘ Oktogo.ru has not only collected the largest online hotel database in Russia but also baked it with user reviews from TripAdvisor.

Oktogo.ru CEO Marina Kolesnik is one of the most visionary female internet entrepreneurs from Russia.

2. ZeptoLab (Cut the Rope)

Russia’s answer to Rovio‘s Angry Birds, ZeptoLab‘s Cut the Rope reached 60 million game downloads in the first year from initial release without venture money.

Managed by Voinov brothers, Misha Lyalin and, from recently, Diana Moldavsky, Moscow-based ZeptoLab strives to leverage its Om Nom game character by releasing Cut the Rope sequel and branching out into comic books and plush toys.

3. Biglion

Heavily-funded by Tiger Global and Ru-Net, coupon service Biglion beats Groupon and other upstarts in the space in Russia. Biglion delivers the highest revenue growth in Russia’s internet history: from zero to $15 million monthly revenues in one and a half years. Biglion could be the next largest internet IPO candidate from Russia after Yandex in 2011 and Mail.ru Group in 2010.

4. Metabar

Metabar is the perfect example of how to turn a simple idea into a hundred million business. Founded by Yandex grad Michael Ushakov, Metabar offers browser toolbar creation service, just like Conduit. To grow fast, Metabar has raised $1 million from Runa Capital.

Somehow I thought this year would be the end for the Blockbuster Express kiosk machines. Back in November they changed their pricing model and it seemed like it just became a lot more expensive to rent from Blockbuster Express versus rival RedBox. As an infrequent movie renter, I found the Redbox machines to have a better selection and a better price – and you can nearly always find a free movie rental code for RedBox.

Today RedBox has agreed to acquire the kiosks and “other assets” from Blockbuster Express.  RedBox notes in their release that the deal is worth up to $100 million. Interesting note, RedBox is actually owned by Coinstar, the company that makes the coin counting machines found in supermarkets. I use the Coinstar machines all the time because they charge no fee to convert the change into an Amazon gift certificate.

How long now before Netflix buys out Blockbuster mail service?

I also wonder what happens to all the codes for Blockbuster Express that I bought on Groupon/LivingSocial – better use those quick!

Here’s the email that I just received from their customer email list:

Dear Valued Customer,

NCR, which operates your Blockbuster Express kiosks, has entered into an agreement to sell its kiosks and other assets to Redbox. Until the transaction is completed (we anticipate in the third quarter of 2012), you will continue to enjoy the convenience, choice, and value you’re used to from BLOCKBUSTER Express. Until the sale is completed, we will continue to run the business as we have been, focused on bringing you the latest New Release movies with most titles only $2 for the first night. You’ll also notice that we’ve increased our In-Stock Guarantee value so you will now enjoy a movie night on us with a value of up to $3 if we don’t have the New Release movie you want in stock.

As a reminder, we still have 100s of great movies available at $1 and additional nights of all movies are still only $1, all part of preserving an exceptional value for an affordable night of entertainment.

We’ll continue to provide you with information on any changes that result from this recent announcement but for now we just wanted to say thanks for being our customer.

Sincerely,
Justin Hotard
General Manager

Below is a recap of the February 3, 2012 episode of the ABC show Shark Tank (episode 301). If you are unfamiliar with Shark Tank, the concept is simple – entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of investors and the investors have to provide at least the amount the entrepreneur is seeking for a deal to be completed.

Pitch #1 – Chord Buddy

Founder Travis Perry created a plastic gadget that you place onto an acoustic guitar to help you learn how to play the guitar. As you learn how to play, you remove pieces of the Chord Buddy until you have completed removed the gadget and are playing completely solo. Travis was seeking 125k for a 10% investment.  Travis selected the offer from Robert Herjavec for 125k for 20% of Chord Buddy and in addition Robert will put 50k into an escrow account for a potential infomercial at a later time.

Update – CBS Foods

Shrimp burger manufacturer CBS Foods didn’t sign a deal last season on Shark Tank. The update explained that while no deal with completed on the television show, the company received a number of offers and has moved from 30k in sales before the Shark Tank appearance to a projected $5 million in sales this year.

Pitch #2 – Liquid Money

Founder Pat McCarthy demo’d his fragrance named Liquid Money. Available in both men’s and women’s versions, Liquid Money is supposed to smell like fresh, crisp US currency. Pat was seeking 100k for 5% and rejected the only offer from Damon for 100k for 80% of Liquid Money.

Pitch #3 – Tail Lightz

Kyle Rainey was up next with his Tail Lightz jean patches. Remember those patches we all sewed onto our jeans in the ’80s? Kyle has updated them with lights. He was seeking $50k for 50% of Tail Lights – no offers were presented from the Sharks.

Pitch #4 – You Smell

Last up on this episode was Megan Cummins presenting soaps under the brand name You Smell. The most interesting product in Megan’s line is the soap that was as thin as a piece of paper in a small package like Orbit gum – seemed good for traveling when the public restroom is out of soap. Megan was seeking $55k for 20%. This was a fierce battle from the sharks for the investment. The final offers were: Mark Cuban at 55k/20%, Barbara Corcoran at 55k/30% + 10 cents per bar sold, Robert Herjavec at 55k/20% + 50k first-year salary for Megan. Ultimately Megan selected Robert’s offer.

Another year, another SXSW festival coming up in just a few weeks. What will this year’s event hold? Last year seemed like a big shift for both the event and for attendees. The event was split up into many locations (I think this was a huge mistake), more commercialization than ever and it seemed like lots of people came to Austin but didn’t buy a badge – they just surfed the hallways of the convention center and also attended lots of Sixth Street non-official events. Each year the event grows larger and hotel rooms display sold out signs earlier and earlier.

I wonder if this will be the year that the registration/check-in process will be updated similar to how Google handled the IO event registration.

The SXSW group has released demographics for all of the SXSW events: music, film and interactive. You can find all of the demographics data here (would have been great as an infographic). Remember that the numbers don’t include people who just came to town without an official badge.

Some of the interesting stats include:

• Total conference attendees across all three festivals – 50,000
• Interactive participants – 20,000
• Sessions – 935
• International attendees – 10%
• 75% of attendees have an income over $55k
• 30% of attendees are over 40

Drop me a line if you are coming to town for the annual gathering – I will be covering the event for CN.