Event Recap: Larry Page talks Wireless at “Google Unwired”

The power of Twitter (when it is up) is amazing.  The other day I saw an update from my friend Chris Parandian of MobileDiner about a new America Foundation event with Larry Page of Google, who was coming to town to talk wireless spectrum stuff.

I decided to go and sit in, it is not every day you can hear one of the Google founders talk.  It was a really interesting talk as Larry delved into a lot of issues to include:  internet openess, the amount of open wireless spectrum not being utilized, Google’s recent bid on a block of spectrum which Verizon ended up winning, and even touched on the Microsoft/Yahoo dealings.  He talked for about an hour and then took audience questions.

Some of the topics that he spoke on that interested me were their recent bid on that highly sought after 700Mhz block of spectrum.  More and more it seemed that it was simply a way for Google to force the closed carriers to open up and in the end they got their way.  While Verizon won the bid, the Google bid had many stipulations put onto the winner, to include openness.  Larry kept reiterating, “We would have found something to do with all that spectrum.”  Leading me to believe that they never truly wanted it in the first place.  But good for them for forcing the issue.  It is a bit daunting when someone says that the $4.6 billion bid they had to put up was not that big of a deal …..

Something else that I thought was conceptually a pretty revolutionary idea by Larry, was a suggestion to totally revamp the spectrum bidding process.  As it is right now, companies that get these spectrums, do so for a very very lenghty amount of time.  Larry stated that spectrum should be auctioned off, almost down to the minute, as carriers had the need.  Almost a stock exchange for spectrum.  It was fascinating.  Below is a full video of his talk, it is almost an hour long so sit back and enjoy.

A Great Idea From NY Video 2.0 We Can Use for DC

Many of us here in the area have been kicking around the idea of a “Meet the VC” event. One where local peeps can throw their idea out to a VC and get feedback on it. Is it a good idea ? Is it a bad idea ? Nothing pressure packed, rather a friendly exchange to kick your ideas and get valuable feedback from a good source.
We have not gotten around to holding the event yet, but I came across a post by Allen Stern of CenterNetworks about an event very similar to this they help in NYC recently. It was the NY Video 2.0 meetup. he had a great video up of the event where 5 companies gave a short talk and demo of their product and at the end, 3 VC’s gave their opinions. It was perhaps a little more formal than I had in mind, but nonetheless a great example for us to follow. I got his permission to post the video here, so please watch and let us know what you think.

Local News: Clearspring Raises $18 million

This was really exciting news here today in the DC area. Clearspring, everyone’s favorite widget network got a Seires C funding round of $18 million.  This is a nice infusion of cash and will allow them to

The new round will fund expansion of Clearspring’s viral marketing network, which currently serves and tracks almost four billion widgets monthly. It will also be used to extend Clearspring’s reach into international markets and further develop its rapidly growing advertising network and vast data infrastructure and optimization services.

Of course we are all happy to see a local company secure such a nice round of funding.  At the recent SocialDevCamp in Baltimore a ccouple of weeks ago, one of the final sessions of the day was about the local area and issues like funding.  Some of the good insight came from Clarence Wooten, of CollectiveX, who had previously cashed out of a company that was bought by Network Solutions.  He said that until the local area gets some major funding under its belt, the area would have a hard time standing out in the crowd.

Maybe a funding infusion to such a great company will help to continue to put DC on the technology company map.  Congrats to the team at Clearspring and good luck.  Use it wisely