Big Announcement Coming at 7am Friday

iContact has a very exciting announcement coming out at 7am Friday. I’m looking forward to sharing the news!

If you are in the media and would like an embargoed copy of the release, please email chuck[at]icontact.com.

Dinner in Boston With Don Dodge & Alex Vieux

I sat next to Don Dodge from the blog Don Dodge On The Next Big Thing and Red Herring publisher Alex Vieux tonight on the Boston Harbor Dinner Cruise that was part of the Red Herring East conference.

We had a good conversation with the table about a post he was working on that will list the top 10 successful internet or software acquisitions that were greater than $1 billion (to follow his worst internet/software acquisitions post that included Mapquest, AskJeeves, Overture, Altavista, Geocities, Netscape, Broadcast.com, Excite, Lycos, and AOL).

After much discussion and thought, the table came up with Navision (Acquired by Microsoft), Great Plains (Acquired by Microsoft), VM Ware (acquired by EMC), Peopesoft (acquired by Oracle), and Tivoli (acquired by IBM).

Don then proceeded to speak with my friend and fellow Durham entrepreneur Ben Weinberger, who announced raising $6 million of funding for his company DigitalSmiths yesterday.

It was also good to catch up with Dhruv Patel and Seth Harward from CED and Justyn Kasierski from Hutchison Law Group.

Mobile Broadband Cards Nearly As Cool as DVRs

Today was the first day I have used a Mobile Broadband Card (ours is from AT&T). They run about $200 with a $70/month subscription. iContact has purchased three of them for use as needed when our team members travel. I saved $9.95 in the Raleigh-Durham Airport, $6.95 in the Pittsburgh Airport, and $12.00 in the Boston Hyatt for a total of $28.90 saved in one day of traveling, not to mention whatever value was gained from additional productivity due to always-on access. I predict that Mobile Broadband Cards will come standard with all laptops, be integrated inside the case (just like the WiFi card is today) and included in a standard monthly broadband access fee within 24 months. This is as exciting as using WiFi for the first time in 2001.

Third Annual iContact Habitat for Humanity Build

The Third Annual iContact Habitat for Humanity Build was this past Saturday. Twenty-two iContact team members went to Dodson St. in Durham to help construct a new house with Habitat for Humanity of Durham County. Here are some photos:

28 Items Remaining

I didn’t quite get the inbox to 0 like last Monday morning due to a lot of planning for Q3/Q4 staffing, performance review preparations, working on the Red Herring Panel, and a blissfully intrusive 7pm Cafe Driade coffee with a good friend. I think I need a futon in my office again! Off to home.

O’Reilly: We’re Moving Into a New World

This is six months outdated but worth sharing regardless…

Here is a great interview with Tim O’Reilly from last December about his thoughts on the overuse of the the term Web 2.0, the wisdom of crowds, and what he’s working on next.

Thanks to our VP of Business Development David Roth for sharing the link.

Excerpt:
“Tim O’Reilly is considered the father of the term “Web 2.0.” In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE the Web guru and software pioneer reveals whether he would show YouTube to visitors from outer space, why it’s OK to make money out of other peoples’ work — and why he’s getting sick of “Web 2.0.”

Global Giving/KarmaTube Film Fest Needs Your Vote

From now until June 29th, GlobalGiving.org in conjuction with KarmaTube is hosting The Global Giving Film Festival.

They want you to cast your vote for videos that make you feel the most connected to a grassroots human or economic development project.

GlobalGiving gathered raw footage (photos and video) from more than twenty high-impact projects around the world. Film makers used this footage to create compelling and interesting videos that tell the stories of these projects and the people who are helped by the work they do. Each video tells the story of a project from www.globalgiving.com and will help to connect these projects with support and funds.

Voting will determine which videos do the best job of telling the project

Going to Red Herring East in Boston Wed/Thurs

I will be in Boston at the Red Herring East Conference on Wednesday and Thursday this week. If you are in the area and would like to meet up, email me at ryan[at]icontact.com.

Here are the details on the panel I will be on:

10:50AM Advertising and Marketing 3.0
Moderator: Joel Dreyfuss, Editor-in-Chief, Red Herring
Speaker:
Gurbaksh Chahal, Founder and CEO, BlueLithium
Ari Paparo, Vice President, DoubleClick
Ryan Allis, CEO and Co-Founder, iContact
Michael Kokernak, CEO, Backchannel Media

The trend of companies shifting more of their advertising dollars online continues to pick up steam. According to industry statistics, online advertising revenues in the U.S. alone are expected to double to $26 billion in 2011 from $13 billion in 2005. We

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