Another interesting feature of Producteev is the ability to collect responses to a question using any of the social services. You post your question or need on Producteev and then push it out to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and your followers/friends can click a link and leave a comment on your task or question. This feature is called “crowdsource your tasks”. The best part about this feature is that the responses are grouped together and removes the need to gather responses on each individual network.

The company is angel-funded, has 5 full-time employees and 1 intern and is based in the Chelsea area of Manhattan.

Found via Andrew Badera, below is an interview with Andrew Warner of Mixergy and Owen Byrne. Owen was the technical builder of the first version of Digg. In the interview, Owen speaks about what really took place as Digg was built. Andrew talks about the “celebrity” status that Kevin Rose has received for creating Digg. Some notes:

• Apparently Kevin was nervous that he might be losing his job and needed to find something else to move to
• The supposed $10/hr on Elance is not correct Owen says – it was more and he also received equity in the company
• Digg mainly came about because Kevin wanted to get to the frontpage of Slashdot and couldn’t
• Kevin had a lot of friends who blogged about Digg and the notes on the Screensavers show helped build massive inbound links
• Owen says luck and timing played a big part of the Digg success
• Interesting line from Owen regarding luck… “luck is just probability and the more times you try, the higher your probability”
• Apparently Paris Hilton losing her cell phone was a huge help with Digg growth in the early days
• Interesting discussion from Owen’s perspective about the human side of Digg’s growth

Check out the full video interview below and the associated notes on Mixergy. Andrew pushes Owen to give tips about entrepreneurship. You can just listen to this video while you are working – it’s a must listen/watch.

Matt noted that they have worked with companies including Playboy, GM, Intel and HP.

Check out our video interview below where we discuss a variety of items including:

• what is The FeedRoom
• comparisons to BrightCove
• and overview of their new 508-compliant video player which allows people with special needs to engage with online video
• how the acquisition of ClearStory Systems has helped The FeedRoom expand to provide a more rounded set of offerings in the enterprise video space

Lorien noted that they decided to start Pingg because the space was underserved and most of the services were "bad looking or cheesy". He says that they have a strong artist community using Pingg and creating invitations for site users to utilize for their events.

I asked about the difference between Pingg and the other 8,001,141 event planning services. Lorien believes the biggest difference is their print service. Basically with Pingg you can choose to send your invites electronically or by postal mail. The postal mail invites provide a revenue stream for Pingg. The print pricing starts at $1.25/piece plus postage. The other big differentiator is that they focus on more formal events including weddings. He sees a time when weddings are using Pingg to send invites electronically instead of traditional paper invites. Another interesting stat…over 15% of the invites sent on Pingg are for business events.

Pingg raised $2.8 million in a Series A round of funding from Martha Stewart in late 2008. The biggest player in the event market is eVite, which even though it isn’t as sexy or as strong in services as Pingg (and a few others), still does 16 million invitations each month. I asked Lorien about how he plans to grow the service and he said they are working some deals to get more distribution via Martha’s networks.

Check out our interview below where we discuss a variety of topics including: what is Ignighter, what type of people use the service, how does group dating work and any success stories. Apparently some people have reported "getting lucky" after going on a group date. Lastly we discuss what the Ignighter team learned by being part of the TechStars program.

The site also offers video hosting and chat/IM. In our discussion, we talk about what makes Girl Ambition different than Club Penguin, what about boys?, how the email service works and online safety. The site also offers information for parents. I wonder if they should explore creating a desktop/Adobe Air application that could make sure the child can’t get out to the full Internet and only live within the Girl Ambition service.

Hilary also noted that MySpace deletes 25,000 profiles a day due to underage use.

Girl Ambition is launching with a multi-faceted business model. Account access is $4.95/month and they also are partnering with a variety of companies on content and sponsorships. I think there’s also a great opportunity for brands to leverage the community for focus groups and product learnings. The company is looking to raise a round of funding currently.

We covered the launch of another niche community last summer named SavvyAuntie. Both SavvyAuntie and Girl Ambition have business models and communities that are supportive and encourage heavy usage. Perhaps Hilary and SavvyAuntie founder Melanie Notkin should partner as there could be some good crossover traffic.

apologies for the sound, the cafe was quiet before we started then the staff decided to prepare for lunch!

In the video interview below, we discuss a variety of topics including:

• What is TechStars?
• Can NYC companies apply?
• What’s the Boulder, Colorado tech scene like?
• Comparing TechStars to YCombinator
• Single person vs. team founders
• David’s views on business plans and revenue models
• and a variety of other topics…

The podcast starts out with a discussion of new news aggregator TechFuga. Kipp, Wayne and I discuss embargoes, my new startup, what makes CN different, overhyped technologies, tips on launching a new blog, what’s hot for 2009 and the Izea K-Mart campaign. We also discuss the importance of doing the right thing today to help the overall blogger movement for the coming years.

You can listen to the podcast online on the Talk Social News site or download the podcast. Thanks to Kipp and Wayne for including me on their show!

Tomorrow is also the monthly NY Tech Meetup. Just as we have for nearly two years, we will cover the event. It appears that even though most of us are Twittered-out, the entire evening’s batch of startups will be Twitter applications.

If you have questions for either David or Darren, please leave them in the comments and I will get answers for ya’all.

Below is my discussion with CEO Mike Lazerow. You will note that Mike apparently also plays the role of Captain America but he took off his super powers suit for the interview. Buddy Media creates social applications for their corporate clients to reach end consumers online differently than the traditional banner ad. We discuss social metrics and the education needed to get consumer brands to buy into "non-traditional" online spending. Mike also discusses the Buddy Media "brain". At the end of the interview Mike speaks briefly about the economy and the differences you will see with startups moving forward.

WellcomeMat is a video marketplace which allows you to hire help to create a video for you. Real estate is their most popular section. They also focus on local business videos.

There’s a production job board where you can post want ads for help with creating videos. Production help replies with quotes and you can view their ratings and rankings. WellcomeMat has a points system which helps to bubble the best quality talent to the top.

I asked about why a company would choose WellcomeMat over YouTube for video hosting. Phil explained that more of the consumer-focused video hosting sites are removing commercial content. He also explained that their video player has a variety of features that are not found with most consumer-focused video hosting services. They offer a chapter feature which allows you to jump to a specific portion of a video (e.g. Kitchen, Bath, etc.). I sure hope other video hosts add this feature.

WellcomeMat is bootstrapped and has offices in Brooklyn and Boulder, Colorado. There are 5 team members spread across both offices. They use Limelight for the video hosting. We spoke about their business plan which will be a subscription and freemium model. I stressed to Phil not to offer too much for free that users have no reason to upgrade to a paid subscription.

Then there’s MatMan which if you’ve been to any NYC tech events you have certainly interacted with him. He’s a space traveler that has a large video screen on his chest showing off the videos created using the WellcomeMat marketplace. While it’s partly a gimmick, it certainly gets your attention.

I tried to capture a video interview with Phil but the batteries died. Instead here’s Phil’s demo from the NextWeb meetup earlier this year:

Ben noted that they are planning to launch a brand-new Web site next week which will be powered by the Drupal CMS (same as CN). I will leave the details about the Web site for when they launch – let’s just say that it should help them bring in a whole new set of subscribers.

I met with Thrillist co-founder Ben Lerer and we discussed a variety of topics including: why did they select email, how do they find their stories, who is the target for the Thrillist newsletter, funding/revenue models and local staffing. Towards the end of the interview we discuss the potential advertising slowdown and what tips Ben has for new content publishers who are looking to secure advertising and sponsorships.

Thanks to Ben for spending some time with us today.

Cramer explained how the application works — basically you enter a search query on Google or Yahoo as you always do. You select a search result and go to that page. If that page isn’t what you were looking for, when you come back to the search result, Surf Canyon looks at results 11-1000 and then recommends other results similar to the one you clicked on. It ignores results you skipped over because it recognizes you weren’t interested in those results. Cramer noted that the idea is to make search results dynamic instead of the static results that Google and Yahoo provide by default.

Surf Canyon has raised $600k in angel funding, has 3 full time employees and several consultants.

The Surf Canyon application is installed via a Firefox/Internet Explorer addon. Cramer tells me that there’s been 250,000 downloads of the addon to-date. I asked Cramer about how he is marketing the search application because clearly mainstream Internet users just go to Google or Yahoo for search. He said that a large percentage of their marketing has come via word of mouth and that once users use the application they find it beneficial and share it with others. They have also been listed as a featured download in the Firefox addon catalog. The key to success for Surf Canyon is to continue to raise awareness of their application across the mainstream market.

Spark Networks has 30+ dating sites and most of them are targeted towards a group. Gregory notes that people who are looking for serious relationships are seeking targeted networks. The three largest dating sites in their network are Jdate, BlackSingles and ChristianMingle. They believe that they are different because of the targeting, most of their competition tries to be all things to all people.

Spark Networks runs over 800 singles events a year. Revenue comes from subscriptions and advertising. Jdate subscriptions begin at $39/month and for those browsing the site, advertising is displayed. Gregory noted that ads are displayed to subscribers as well but said "most" of these ads are house ads promoting events and other services. I wonder if any Web 2.0 startups could get away with charging a subscription fee and displaying any advertising at all.

Spark Networks is a public company and reported second quarter 2008 revenue of $15 million with a net income of $1.6 million.

As for success rates, 60 Jdate subscribers a day report back to Spark Networks that they found their soulmate on Jdate.

I asked about comparisons to PlentyOfFish and eHarmony. Gregory said that PlentyOfFish actually drives traffic to sites in his network because of the ad model they employ. As for eHarmony, Gregory believes not everyone wants to fill out a 350 question survey. Jdate allows members to search and utilizes a basic survey to help align members.

In terms of what’s new on their network of sites, Gregory shared two new premium features. The first is an option to highlight your profile in search results. This works similar to highlighting an auction on eBay or a job listing on Indeed. The other update is featured profile. This allows members to push their profile to people they want to meet on search results. Let’s assume you are looking for a 30 year old woman with 2 children but she is looking for a 20 year old man with no children. Using this new option, you could force your profile into her search results basically saying "hey look at me, I want you!". On Jdate, this feature is $10/month.

The online singles market continues to be a huge moneymaker for Spark Networks and the other sites in the market. As long as people want to find that special someone, there will always be someone willing to pay to find that person.

Check out other Sightix reviews on Alt Search Engines and Webware. Here’s Ari explaining how Sightix works when trying to find models like Bar Rafaeli: