Recently, there is growing cacophony (here, here and here) about how L.A. is turning into the next San Francisco or New York. VCs are "moving in" and renting apartments in "Silicon Beach," the small strip of land between Venice and Santa Monica. One senior...

Social media has forever changed the way politicians and constituents interact and communicate. Now that social media is here to stay, everyone is looking for the "next big thing" in politics and technology. Here are five startups hoping to impact the political process.

POPVOX
Politicians and their...

There is something about Sunday brunch in New York City. The food, the people, waiting (always) 45 minutes outside before being seated, or just that it seems that your whole day stops to have breakfast and lunch in one sitting (typical that New Yorkers would kill two birds with one...

Last week I grabbed my Flip cam and went onto the set of TLC's "What Not to Wear" to hang out with hosts Stacy London and Clinton Kelly. This season marks the shows seven year anniversary and over 250 people whose (fashion) lives have been changed by the dynamic...

Over 1,000 people earlier this week descended upon the Lincoln Center's Rose Hall in the Time Warner building in Midtown Manhattan for the annual Personal Democracy Forum. A who's who in the fields of government, technology, and media, the conference focused on how technology and the Internet can create...

"Change is only going to come about when people have the power to act upon the knowledge that they will acquire through the new technology," says former Alaska Democratic Senator Mike Gravel. During the 2008 presidential campaign he became a YouTube "rock" star and now spends most of...

Paul Rieckhoff is the Founder and Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), the nation's first and largest non-partisan, nonprofit organization representing veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I spoke with Rieckhoff yesterday at the Personal Democracy Forum in New York where he...

When the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) needs to generate attention for environmental issues - ranging from bees to global warming - one of the people they turn to is Apollo Gonzales, the Netroots campaign manager. While he still believes traditional media (newspaper and television) is "king" in...

Bob Hutchins and Greg Stielstra have a combined 30 plus years of experience in the faith based marketing arena. Currently, Hutchins runs BuzzPlant and Greg owns PyroMarketing, both firms that assist companies in new media marketing. Together, they just released Faith-Based Marketing: The Guide to Reaching 140...

"It's an exciting time for everyone who loves great entertainment," reads the last line on the "about" section on EQAL'S web site. Certainly it is. EQAL's Co-Founder and CEO Miles Beckett and Co-Founder, President and COO Greg Goodfried have positioned themselves as leaders (if not the leader) as a...

Last Friday I went to CNN in New York to talk with CNN's Chief Business Correspondent Ali Velshi. Wanting to follow up on our interview we did after Velshi published his book Getting Your Money Back, I grabbed my camera and went behind the scenes to discuss...

Dan Schawbel is the leading personal branding expert for Gen-Y. He is the author of the new book Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, as well as the publisher of the award winning Personal Branding Blog. Me 2.0 came out today and already jumped...

Networking used to be simple. You would meet someone and take his or her card. The rules were simple. You could write a "nice meeting you" note and then call or e-mail to arrange a following meeting. And the etiquette was simple. You would keep in touch every now and...

Last week I met with former New York City Mayor Ed Koch to discuss corruption and oversight for a thesis I am writing. The topic moved towards why people commit such crimes and the name Bernie Maddoff came up. Koch, always outspoken and opinionated, certainly had a few things to...

With the economy acting all crazy (for lack of a better word), books are now hitting the shelves (or your Kindle) at record speeds, contemplating what went wrong, how to fix the situation, ways to keep your job and anything else you can think of that has to do...

Online moneymaking strategist Joel Comm is the author of Twitter Power, the first guide exclusively about how to use Twitter to gain a competitive advantage in business. I spoke with him on my radio show about the advantages of Twitter for a company and how individuals can best...

I took a tour around the Google offices in Washington, D.C. to find out how green their offices were. Check out the video (sorry about poor audio and visual quality) and join Google's Dorothy Chou and I as we journey around their office, seeing colorful light bulbs, going into the...

The walls at Google's Washington, D.C. inaugural ball displayed letters that students and teachers wrote to the incoming president. It was called the "Letters to the Next President" project, sponsored by Google and the National Writing Project. A special website was set up to use "Google Docs," allowing students...

Ali Velshi is CNN's chief business correspondent and host of Your $$$$$, CNN's weekend business roundtable program. During the recent financial crisis he emerged as a leading voice in journalism, being heard regularly on CNN, CNN Headline News, CNN Radio, CNN.com Live, and on his own

Oy, was the year 2008 a disaster,
For most of us it couldn't end any faster.
While companies dramatically cut their staff,
Tina Fey found new ways to make us laugh.

T'was not the year for Lehman, AIG or Bear,
...