Valencio Cardoso

Behind each product, there is usually someone thinking about the...

Tue, 01 May 2012 19:53:00 +0400

Behind each product, there is usually someone thinking about the way we experience it.

In this short, PBS chats with Dr. Harvey Moscot (owner of the vintage eyewear brand: Moscot), Yves Behar (creator FuseProject: Socially responsible product design) and Peter Schmitt (MIT researcher: Personal Robotics Group) to explore three aspects: build quality and engineering fundamentals, humanism and sustainability, and speculation on the future of the product experience in an attempt to capture a sense of the values and challenges in the world of product design.

Joshua Davis (@JoshuaDavis) “Design is elegant movement in...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 20:01:10 +0400

Joshua Davis (@JoshuaDavis)

“Design is elegant movement in a space that’s foreign…navigating the unknowns of technology and computing in search of that beautiful line.”

Multimedia icon Joshua Davis, obsessed with this finding of perfection and beauty, talks to Hillman Curtis about his experimental design project for Nokia - using one’s voice to generate something unique.

Worth watching just to see Josh interact with his work.

Milton Glaser Life of a designer is one between two...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 19:02:15 +0400

Milton Glaser

Life of a designer is one between two sensibilities: a businessman and an artist.

In his artist series, Hillman Curtis talks to Milton Glaser - one of the most celebrated icons in graphic design (creator of the I ♥ NY logo). Milton gives us a reflective insight into his career and thoughts on life.

Hillman Curtis Yesterday I found out that one of the multimedia...

Sat, 21 Apr 2012 09:39:00 +0400

Hillman Curtis

Yesterday I found out that one of the multimedia icons who inspired me to do what I do, passed away from cancer.

Continuously re-inventing himself, Hillman evolved from a rock musician, to a graphic designer, to a web designer, and in his last phase - a film-maker.

True to the way he lived, his parting advice to young designers…

“Be prepared to re-invent yourself, be prepared to go out on a limb occasionally, and be prepared to do the things that you feel strongly about, that maybe other people don’t.”

Hillman’s impact on me…

In school, dreaming of what I could do with interactive design, there were two people who’s work I constantly followed - Joshua Davis and Hillman Curtis. They were always exploring the edge of what was possible. Leading the way. Pushing the boundaries of multimedia - letting me know it was ok to move forward.

RIP Hillman Curtis

Design Icon: Michael Graves for Dwell by Gary Nadeau The...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:04:00 +0400

Design Icon: Michael Graves for Dwell by Gary Nadeau

The Warehouse is the story of architect & design icon Michael Graves (Princeton, NJ) who took a ruined, disused warehouse and turned it into a wonderful accessible sanctuary inspired by Roman architecture.

His paralysis changed his view of design, and is an important lesson for why we (especially on the web) should design for accessibility.

Beautiful video, and a great story.

Tap is the New Click A presentation at Stanford University by...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 18:13:57 +0400

Tap is the New Click

A presentation at Stanford University by Dan Saffer (Director, Interaction Design at Smart Design), in which he covers the basics of touchscreen and gestural technology including: ergonomics, a brief history, prototyping and documenting, and how to communicate the presence of a gestural interface to users.

Although it’s from 2009, the principles Dan covers are either mainstream now or still very much relevant. A great lecture to watch if you’re just stepping in to the mindset of designing for touch and gesture based devices/interactions.

via Stanford’s University Channel on YouTube: youtube.com/stanford

TYPE: A pleasant intro into the different aspects of...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 21:54:07 +0400

TYPE: A pleasant intro into the different aspects of Typography

Found in print publications, websites, movies, advertisements, public messages – type is basically everywhere.

In this short, PBS touches on the importance of selecting fonts to convey feelings, building identity in messaging, using textures to create reactions and mapping complicated data sets into digestible info-graphs.

Ps – There’s a nice educative bit on typography at the end of the video.

Featured designers:

Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones, Typography.com
Paula Scher, Pentagram
Eddie Opara, Pentagram
Deroy Peraza and Julia Vakser, Hyperakt

Design: How Apple made the computer personal We tend to be...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 20:58:00 +0400

Design: How Apple made the computer personal

We tend to be intimidated by things that we don’t understand. If the purpose of an object is clear and simple, we actually enjoy using it.

Apple wasn’t the first company to pioneer the use of personal computers. 20 yrs before them, a research team staged a “Demo that changed the world” – which talked about the concept of interacting with computers for your daily activities.

What Apple did was push this idea a step further, and use design to take complex interactions, and simplify it to the point that aims to make design all but invisible.

Essentially, making design user-friendly.

Features:

Doug Engelbart: Creator of the mouse
Tim Mott: Pioneered the user-centered design process
Larry Tesler: Creator of notepad editor
Bill Atkinson: Principal designer of the Macintosh desktop UI
Jonathan Ive: Designer of Apple’s iMac, MacBook, iPod, iPhone, iPad

Meet Mork …a fun little animation by Phil Borst Music...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:29:02 +0400

Meet Mork …a fun little animation by Phil Borst

Music by: dustinohalloran.com
Software: After Effects
Download: rapidshare.com/files/281844588/MORK_Anim_PhilBorst_folder.zip

Tattoos: Pop Portraits, Japanese Traditional, American Eclectic...

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:35:00 +0400

Tattoos: Pop Portraits, Japanese Traditional, American Eclectic (by PBSoffbook)

Featuring:
Vinny Romanelli, Red Rocket Tattoos
Kiku, Invisible NYC
Stephanie Tamez, Saved Tattoo

Seeing this has given me the itch to get another tattoo.

Amongst the multitude of bike shops across Manhattan and...

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 22:27:00 +0400

Amongst the multitude of bike shops across Manhattan and Brooklyn, 718 Cyclery (718c.com) stands out for their unique approach to the business. Joe pours his love for bike’s into each one that he builds.

If you’re ever in N.Y.C. and need a cycle made “just for you”, this is the place – this is the “inverted bike shop”.

Designed to inspire: “Keep Calm and Carry On” A short film...

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 17:15:44 +0400

Designed to inspire: “Keep Calm and Carry On”

A short film telling the story behind England’s legendary WWII poster - ’Keep Calm and Carry On’… from its origins of inspiring English citizens during the war, to its rediscovery in a bookshop in England, becoming one of the iconic images of the 21st century.

How They Did It: PressPass.me

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:40:00 +0400

Cross-post of a interview about our start-up PressPass.me on Journalists.org

Canadian-born entrepreneurs who packed up and headed to Dubai, David Haddad and Valencio Cardoso dreamed of a way to connect journalists and the public at large. Their end result, PressPass.me, leverages Twitter to connect journalists with tipsters and other members of their community. Currently in the initial phases of launch, Press Pass is already planning its first pivot — to focus less on aggregating journalist tweets and instead have an open directory of journalists across the globe, including media stars like Anderson Cooper, Rachel Maddow and David Pogue, segmented by media outlet, beat and region. ONA caught up with co-founder Valencio Cardoso to discuss how the platform improves upon Twitter, the benefit to targeting the U.S. market, and “pleasant discoverability experiences.”

Who do you think is the ideal user for this service?

I see people who need help in getting their message to the public through press coverage and the news utilizing the directory –- startups, small businesses, Kickstarter projects, artists, non-profits, etc.

That being said, once we start adding journalists from different countries, I can also see it being used by journalists themselves to find and reach out to other reporters in regions they’re interested in covering.

Why did you place a strict definition around journalist? In this day and age, a lot of key influencers are outside of traditional media and broadcast outlets.

We wanted to focus on journalists because they follow a certain code of ethics, and are a trusted source of vetting the information they put out to the public.

Moving forward, we do have plans to broaden our directory to include credible bloggers and digital influencers internationally, in addition to creating easier ways for members of the public to formulate coverage requests and discover relevant journalists to reach out to through Twitter.

How do you curate what each journalist “shares” on your site?

At the moment, we follow the tweets of the journalists in our directory and analyze them. Each of the journalist’s profiles on Press Pass is created based on what articles they are sharing on Twitter, the topics they care about and who they’re talking to, with the idea being that people would get a better understanding of the type of information each particular journalist is interested in.

However since we launched (a month ago), most of the positive response we’ve received from journalists and the community was that they really liked the idea of an international open and organized directory of journalists from different regions and media outlets. Improving based on user feedback, we’re in the midst of launching a redesign (see images below) that will shift us away from tracking journalist’s tweets to focusing on building a global directory of journalists.

The site is very user friendly and heavily visual — how did you come up with the design elements? Did you use a service, or did you employ an in-house designer? What do you want the user to experience?

I’m glad you like the look and feel of it! The entire platform was designed and built by both David and me. We come from tech backgrounds -– David’s a software engineer and I’m an interactive designer so we were able to create Press Pass together.

The design elements were based on our personal preferences of style, textures, fonts and icons. But in terms of user experience, we thought about how people would want to browse the website and what information they would find important in order to move to the next step. We intended to keep things very simple, whilst making the process of finding relevant journalists a pleasant discoverability experience.

Where did the ranking feature come from? Why do you believe that is useful to your users?

The main reason we decided to rank journalists was to give users some context into how active each journalist is on Twitter, along with their follower count. We wanted people to use that information to gauge whether the journalist would be more or less likely to follow up on their story.

Why would a user go through PressPass.me instead of just contacting a journalist via Twitter on their own? Have they agreed to respond to users directly?

Currently PressPass.me is designed to discover relevant journalists. In order to reach out to journalists, the process is still happening through Twitter. A lot of journalists are already using Twitter to follow up with leads, do their research and even find their next story, so we felt it was best to stay close to the platform.

We’re planning to evolve PressPass into an end-to-end Twitter-based system that lets people get the word out by filling out a form, choosing relevant outlets, whilst allowing journalists to rate incoming requests for coverage through a system of follow up / pass / flag this.

Ultimately, our goal is to make the interaction between journalists and their communities more pleasant and efficient for everyone involved and our open directory of journalists is our first step in simplifying the process of getting the word out.

How did you fund this project?

At the moment we’re a self-funded startup; however in the next few months we will be looking to raise a seed round of investment.

Your expansion plans include the Middle East, and you and your cofounder are based in Dubai. Why did you choose to target the U.S. market first?

The main reason was because, when it comes to tech and media, the U.S. audience is generally an early adopter of new platforms. Secondly, it was easier for us to find journalists from North America. There are well-curated Twitter lists that contain most of the journalists from the U.S., so that became a clear way to test our concept before scaling it to other regions.

The most pleasant surprise for us post-launch came when we were being reached out to by journalism organizations from different countries (Italy, Spain, Brazil, etc.) to help us with including reporters from their countries into the directory.

Talking Startups: I sit down with Peter H. (COO & CFO) &...

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:36:00 +0400

Talking Startups: I sit down with Peter H. (COO & CFO) & Yuriy B. (Developer & Partner Relations) of Kik Messenger

Kik Messenger is the fastest smartphone messenger around. Currently with a user-base of over 5 million users, Kik Messenger is available on iPhone, Android and WP7.

Website: Kik

Ps - Check out their latest app, Click - a Smart TV platform that lets you turn any screen with a browser into your screen by simply scanning it with your smartphone.

Looking for coverage? Press Pass, a Twitter-powered journalist directory may be the answer

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:30:00 +0400

Cross-post of an article written on the launch of our startup PressPass.me

by NANCY MESSIEH

Press Pass, a ’live directory’ of journalists from major publications, is a brand new Dubai-based site that comes to us courtesy of co-founders David Haddad, a product manager and software engineer, and Valencio Cardoso, an interactive designer.

The site lists journalists by region, beat or by publication, making it incredibly easy to find the journalist who can cover your story. Not only can you find out which journalists work at major publications and sites, you can connect with them through Twitter. You can also find out what they’re personally interested in, as Press Pass highlights the stories that they’re sharing through their Twitter feed.

The site analyzes each journalist’s tweets, creating a profile based on that content – including what they’re reading, topics they’re interested in and who they’re talking to. Each journalist is ranked based on the number of followers they have and their number of tweets.

Press Pass essentially does three things – it gives users a way to find out which journalists work for which publications, while also giving them a better idea of what those journalists are interested in, and provides a possible mode of communication – through Twitter.

An Interview with the co-founder

The Next Web caught up with co-founder, Valencio to find out more about the site and its plans for the future, as well as his thoughts on connecting with journalists through Twitter.

The first thing we were curious about, when it came to Press Pass, was the inspiration behind launching the site. Valencio explained:

Regardless of social media, we feel that journalists are still behind large amounts of information the public is exposed to every day. A big part of their job is to filter and package information sourced from the community around them.

At the same time, there is a large subset of people who are looking to get their message out to the public. Non-profits, small businesses, citizen reporters, startups, etc. We feel that the process for them to do so isn’t very straightforward and can be quite cumbersome.

David and I wanted to make that interaction between journalists and their community more pleasant and efficient for everyone involved and the Press Pass directory is our first step in that direction – a single platform for both sides to connect.

It’s hard to avoid the comparison to the New York-based startup, MuckRack, which we have covered in the past here, but Valencio points out that there are significant differences in the way the two sites operate:

At the moment, like MuckRack, Press Pass is an aggregated directory, where we’re adding journalists strategically and vetting them based on a certain criteria – they must be a professional journalist, who is employed by a recognized news, media or broadcasting organization, etc.

We feel that a lot of the things that MuckRack is charging for at the moment should be more advanced and unique. For example, to access journalists by beat, you have to pay. Our goal with Press Pass is for people to find the right journalists who are relevant to their stories, and closing access to important information goes against that idea.

Ultimately David and I want to align Press Pass’ success, with the success of the people using the site. We’re looking to create a system that provides real value to journalists by getting them relevant and unique stories. At the same time, we want to provide ways for regular people to get featured in the news. Once we start getting closer to that goal, then we will think of ways to generate revenue because at that point we’ll be providing something that’s not only tangible, but valuable to everyone involved.

More to come from Press Pass

There are still many more features that can be expected from Press Pass. The very next step will be to add journalists from other regions around the world, and with the founders based in the Middle East, that’s where they’re looking next. They will also be creating a “PressPass 100″ section, a constantly updated list of the top journalists, categorized by both beat and region.

But that is not all Press Pass has planned. Valencio explains:

We will also be creating affinity hub pages geared towards specific groups of people, like artists, Kickstarter projects, small businesses, citizen reporters, nonprofits, etc., with specific tips and best practices on the right ways to approach journalists.

Also, as we continue adding new journalists from all across the world, we’re open to the idea of releasing an API that lets others build interesting products targeted at helping the journalists in our directory.

Press Pass is trying to change the way that journalists interact with businesses and startups looking to get coverage. The Next Web, an example, has taken a very open approach, with each writer placing their email address in their online bios on the site, but as Valencio points out, that isn’t always the case. He says,

It’s great that TNW is putting their info online, because many publications aren’t open to that yet, but I’m seeing more and more news organizations pushing their journalist’s Twitter handles.

Right now Press Pass is just an aggregated directory, however as we start seeing more engagement, we’re going to allow journalists to sign up, edit their profile info, tell people which is the best channel to reach out to them, and also what kind of stories they’re interested in covering.

For startups, knowing how to contact a journalist is just the first step in getting your story published. Regardless of the method you choose, be sure to check out ourstartup guide to getting coverage.

Should you contact journalists via Twitter?

While Press Pass is encouraging users to get in touch with journalists through Twitter, the practice might not necessarily be welcomed by all. In a recent article on Forbes, several journalists explicitly said that they don’t want to be contacted via Facebook, Twitter or other forms of social media, whereas others were open to the idea.

In the Forbes article, Andreas Kluth of The Economist brings up an interesting analogy:

“If they see me picnicking on a Sunday in the park with my family, would they come over, sit down on our blanket and pitch me a press release? Online, it is the same thing.”

Matt Krantz of USA Today has found a middle ground when it comes to being contacted via social media:

“It’s OK to contact a journalist via social media sites, as long as the online persona is one tied to work.”

So where should the line be drawn? With an ever increasing number of online profiles and social networks to publicly interact on, it becomes very easy for that line to be blurred. And regardless of whether or not journalists are open to the idea, contacting anyone through a tweet, you do run the risk of having your message lost in the midst of all the Twitter noise.

Asking Valencio for his take on the matter, he said:

Twitter is a medium that a lot of journalist and people in the media are really excited about. It’s been the source for a lot of breaking news stories, and people find it to be a great way of keep a pulse of what’s happening around them. A lot of journalists are also using it to follow up with leads, do their research, and even find their next story.

Another positive with using Twitter for people to pitch their stories is that they’re doing it publicly, so journalists are less likely to get spammed. It also forces the person to be concise with their message, and the fact that it’s short means that it’ll take less time for the journalist to evaluate whether they should follow up.

Having said that, we do realize that there is a subset of stories that need to be handled privately by journalists for whatever reason, so as more people use Press Pass we’re open to creating different channels of communication.

Is Press Pass ahead of its time?

Press Pass may simple be ahead of the curve, offering users a service that will one day be standard in the world of media and journalism. After all, when Twitter was first unveiled, it was no doubt hard to imagine that the social network would become a serious journalistic tool or the home of breaking news, as was the case with the killing of Osama Bin Laden or the death of Whitney Houston.

While the lines are still being forged of how Twitter should or should not be used in journalism, sites like Press Pass place a new question on the table – is it acceptable to contact a journalist for a story via social media?

There are certain guidelines that are worth bearing in mind. If you’ve already contacted a journalist via email, following up on Twitter to see if they’ve received it can often send the wrong message. It’s also advisable to take a look at their Twitter feed and see how closely tied it is to their work as a journalist.

Twitter gives its users direct access to celebrities, journalists, and other professions, which in the past have been something of a walled garden. Press Pass has introduced an interesting question of just how ‘open’ should that garden be?

Little tips and inquiries via Twitter might certainly be acceptable, but 140 characters doesn’t leave much room to tell your whole story. If you choose not to contact a journalist via Twitter, Press Pass certainly makes it easier to get on the trail of finding out which journalist is best suited to cover your story, after which you can figure out how they prefer to be contacted.

Do you think it’s acceptable for journalists to be contacted via Twitter? Let us know what you think in the comments.

➤ Press Pass

Building a bridge for journalists

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:39:05 +0400

Cross-post of an article about our start-up PressPass.me in the Gulf News

Entrepreneurs create website to connect reporters with audiences they serve

The relationship of readers to their newspapers is nothing short of symbiotic. Both need the other in full measure.

With that in mind, tech-oriented entrepreneurs David Haddad and Valencio Cardoso have set up Press Pass, an online journalist directory aimed at connecting people in the media with their audiences. The site aims to enable businesses, non-profit organisations and citizen reporters to find the right reporters for their stories.

“The whole idea was to create an entire eco-system where people could send any newsworthy information to journalists,” said Cardoso. “Journalists receive a lot of pitches, requests and information that is not relevant to them; by showing people the right journalist for the right beat we can reduce this.

“Also, if I’m a citizen reporter and take a picture of something we created this directory so people could find the journalist and submit the information very quickly.”

The site loads journalists’ details onto the directory through Twitter and filters journalists based on their beats and designations.

People who want to pitch can do so on the social media site. It allows them to make their pitch public and forces the person to be concise with his messages to fit them within the 140 character limit.

Global platform

Haddad, a product manager and software engineer, and Cardoso, an interactive designer, have long been enthusiasts of participatory communication via technology. Their first foray into entrepreneurship was with a tool they developed which allowed a newspaper to put a widget on their site and receive content such as press releases and news articles. The two then started bouncing around a few tech start-up ideas based around journalism.

“We were testing all the ideas out and Press Pass came up pretty strong. Because of our experience we were able to build it up pretty quickly,” said Cardoso.

The platform currently has over 7,600 journalists from 240 media organisations and tracks an average of 75,000 tweets a day, with each tweet continuing to build and refresh each journalist’s profiles. While so far the majority of journalists featured on the site come from North America, they are planning on adding more journalists from the Middle East. Eventually, their goal is to have a global platform which lists every single journalist from every region in their database.

“The whole goal is to test out the idea and see how people are engaged with their platform,” said Cardoso. “We’ve created a platform which allows us to add journalists from any organisation. Journalists can also request to be added to our site.”

The site also tracks what each journalist is sharing online, what they are reading, the topics they’re tweeting and who’s getting their attention. “This way we get to understand what type of information journalists are sharing, so when the public decides to send something it’s more relevant,” said Cardoso.

Perfect ingredients

They’ve been getting a lot of positive feedback from the journalists listed on the site. “We found a few journalists from across the world tweeting about the directory — one was from Kathmandu,” said Cardoso. “Right now we’re getting traction from the journalists themselves.”

The main challenge Cardoso finds is a limit on time and resources. “You have to be very good at prioritising what you do and build. Part of the reason we chose the idea is that both David and I have experience in building these types of apps.

“Another issue is money; we’ve only got a certain amount of time to get traction and get a round of funding before we run out of money. It’s one thing that kills a lot of start-ups.” he said.

As the site gathers momentum, it has shown that a combination of passion and expertise provides the perfect ingredients for a start-up.

Start-up firm Presspass.me aims to give the 'little guy' a global voice

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:32:11 +0400

Cross-post of an article about our start-up PressPass.me in the Middle East business intelligence publication zawya.com

There is citizen journalism. And there is user-generated content. And between the two lies the hurdle of access.

Large media organizations have institutionalized systems through which they solicit, accept and process leads, news and content from their subscribers. At the other end of the spectrum, of course, are the blogs and social media, through which the people make their voices heard.

Now, for what is probably an unique initiative, a pair of Dubai-based entrepreneurs have created a platform on which a community can interact with individual media professionals.

“We wanted to make that process easier for that ‘little guy’ and so the first step was to provide them with an open directory where a person can browse through our database and find the relevant media professional who can help him get the word out,” David Haddad, one of the founders of Presspass.me, told Zawya.

After having funded the launch phase of Presspass.me for over a year now, Haddad and his partner Valencio Cardoso are looking at external capital for the next phase of growth.

“The start-up was raised from our personal savings. We do bankroll as per our need, as keeping a site online costs money. And so now we are planning to raise funds. We are going for a round of seed capital,” Haddad said.

“We have approached some people… We are talking to them… But there is nothing to declare yet.”

Since Presspass.me was launched just over a month ago, Haddad and Cardoso have burnt the candle at both ends to put together a database of more than 5,000 journalists from 250 media organizations, mostly from the US, the UK and Canada. The database covers media professionals from the global print and online media outlets, as well as TV and radio stations and bloggers.

They say they are now willing to look at adding the Middle Eastern media fraternity to the collection.

“We have received requests from Middle East journalists who want to be part of our directory. Both organizations and journalists have been approaching us,” said Haddad.

The two partners split the massive volume of work involved in this enterprise right down the middle. Haddad looks after product and business development, while Cardoso manages the website and interacts with the customers: the journalists and the community.

The start-up operates from The Shelter, a free community workspace based in Dubai’s Al Qouz area, thus keeping costs to the minimum.

The endeavor behind the start-up is to allow small and medium-sized businesses, artists and the common man, who has a story to tell, to get in direct contact with the journalists, bloggers or others who have an audience. In this way, every person’s story gets a voice and be heard across the world.

In most cases, people who believe they have a story to tell appoint public relations firms to get their voice out into the media. “That’s because people are a little intimidated by, or don’t know how to reach out to a journalist,” said Haddad.

Does the website result in journalists receiving a lot of spam? The founders of Presspass.me say they are totally against that. “So, when journalists receive the message, they can do one of three things through our system: they can say ‘I want to follow up’; or ‘I want to pass’; or ‘this is spam’,” Said Haddad.

Refraining from giving any revenue target for the next three years, Haddad admits the company will adopt an approach similar to the one used by public relations firms - the advertising value equivalency tool, which is a marketing metric for PR measurement.

Unlike other internet companies, Presspass.me’s founders are open to experimenting “early and often” with their business model, until they find the “sweet spot”.

Talent acquisition is among of the challenges they face. “We are looking to grow our team but we have seen there is little internet start-up related talent in the UAE. But the positive thing is that many Arabs are doing a great job outside the UAE, and this could be an opportunity for us to bring them back as co-founders,” said Haddad.

And consumer adoption is the greatest risk. “Any product idea can be built. But is that product idea solving real customer problems? So, as part of our approach, we try to stay as close as possible to the customer,” said Haddad.

“In building a start-up, there are ups and downs; and what better to withstand those moments than a community that is supportive,” he added. “In Silicon Valley, you don’t feel lonely; there is a huge community that supports start-ups. Here, people are supportive, but there are less of them.”

Haddad and Cardoso are attempting to generate that community feeling by organizing events where start-up founders meet at least once every three weeks.

Knight News Challenge: Press Pass - Helping journalists & bloggers get relevant story leads via Twitter

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 11:30:31 +0400

Knight News Challenge: Press Pass - Helping journalists & bloggers get relevant story leads via Twitter:

Our Knight Foundation NewsChallenge proposal:

1. What do you propose to do? [20 words]

PressPass (twitter, facebook) sends journalists relevant story leads and helps the public get coverage.

2. Is anyone doing something like this now and how is your project different? [30 words]

Most tools that connect journalists with…

Valencio Cardoso from Socially Conscious Arabia sits down with...

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 15:35:29 +0400

Valencio Cardoso from Socially Conscious Arabia sits down with Tatiana Antonelli Abella (Co-founder of Goumbook: The first Green Website dedicated to the Middle East)

Check out the full article at http://sociallyconsciousarabia.com/goumbook

Valencio Cardoso from Socially Conscious Arabia sits down with...

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 15:35:20 +0400

Valencio Cardoso from Socially Conscious Arabia sits down with Susan Macaulay (Founder of Amazing Women Rock: a site that celebrates, motivates & inspires. Loves amazing women & those who appreciate them)

Check out the full article at http://sociallyconsciousarabia.com/amazingsusan