If you had five minutes on stage what would you say?  What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds?  Around the world geeks have been putting together Ignite nights to show their answers.

Ignite was started in Seattle in 2006 by Brady Forrest and Bre Pettis.  Since then 100s of 5 minute talks have been given across the world.  There are thriving Ignite communities in Seattle, Portland, Paris, NYC…and now Ann Arbor.

Join Ignite Ann Arbor tonight, June 30, 2009, at 7:00 pm, at The Neutral Zone, to celebrate the best of Ann Arbor’s art/tech/design/geek community.

The line up:

• Eli Neiburger: Hack your Library
• Matt Oishi: Neutral Zone teen and electronic music whiz
• Dianne Marsh: Under-representation of Women in Computer Science: Why I care and why you should too
• Aydin Akcasue: Wii Will Wii Will Rock You! !! !!!
• James Deakins: Playing with balloons. How to make a near space balloon that collects data while it travels.
• Stefanie Murray: What’s up with news in this town? Evolution of The Ann Arbor News and what’s next
• Zach Steindler: Expensive Camping Gear? DIY!
• Brad Boegler: Real-time NOAA weather satellite imagery reception from home
• Laura Fisher: Keeping Things in Balance: Classic Visual Ratios
• Bob Stack: Technical co-working. Economy, synergy and friendship
• Kyle Mulka: The Many Uses of Twitter
• Eric Jankowski: Why every second you spend not playing Go is wasted
• Dave Askins: The Ann Arbor Chronicle – An Origin Story
• John Barrie: The Appropriate Technology Collaborative – How to end poverty using clean, green technology.

RSVP.  Space is limited.

–Matt

(HT: Dug Song)

From the front page of Crain’s Detroit Business:

The pool of investment money available to local startups and young high-tech companies is about to get larger.

Detroit-based Great Lakes Angels has joined forces with angel groups in Toronto and London, Ontario, and with the University of Windsor to form Nouveau Angel Capital Corp., which hopes to raise $20 million to invest in early-stage companies in Southeast Michigan and southwestern Ontario.

The company has started the process of being listed on the venture exchange of the Toronto Stock Exchange and hopes to be trading by the end of the year. It grew out of a meeting the Great Lakes Angels held last June at the Grosse Pointe home of Canadian Consul General Robert Noble, whose staff was instrumental in getting the parties together and helping them navigate the rules of the stock exchange.

Nouveau’s founders think it is the first public company in the U.S. or Canada to facilitate angel investing, and so does Jim Jaffe, president and CEO of the National Association of Seed and Venture Funds.

(The inserted links are mine.)

On the Detroit side, Nouveau will target companies affiliated with TechTown, and investments range from $250,000 to $750,000 per company.  The Great Lakes Angles are reconnecting with TechTown after a stint at OU Inc., the incubator at Oakland University.

I recommend reading the full article which can be found here.

–Matt

CBS Interactive Inc. v. National Football League Players Association is the most recent case permitting the commercial use of professional athlete’s names and statistics without permission.

CBS Interactive operates the website CBSSports.com.  The NFL Player’s Association acts as the exclusive collective bargaining representative for active players in the NFL.  Among other things, the NFLPA has the right to license the use of the individual players’ names, signatures, facsimile, voices, pictures, photographs, likenesses, and biographical information in connection with “group licensing programs” involving six or more players (e.g., fantasy sports, video games, etc.).  NFLPA assigned this right to Players, Inc. in exchange for royalties.  Players, Inc. in turn licenses this right to companies like CBS to use in programs such as fantasy sports.  In fact, for several years CBS did just that, running both free and “pay for play” versions of its fantasy league under a license agreement with Player, Inc.

However, in 2008, CBS refused to renew its license after the Eighth Circuit in C.B.C Distribution and Marketing Inc v. Major Leage Baseball Advanced Media determined that use of baseball players’ names and statistics did not violate any right of publicity, but that even if it did, persons enjoyed a First Amendment right to use the players’ names and statistics that prevailed over any right of publicity.  When Players, Inc. threatened to sue, CBS brought an action for declaratory judgment that its use of player information was permissible under the CBC case.  The Minnesota District Court in the CBS case agreed.

The NFLPA and Players, Inc. attempted to distinguish CBS’s use of player information from the use in CBC case by claiming that they were used in such a way that users of the CBS fantasy football site might believe that the players endorsed the CBS site.  The Court rejected that theory because “the manner in which the player information is presented is akin to newspapers and magazines, which routinely display pictures and information about celebrities, including professional athletes.”  The Court also rejected the idea that the CBC case result stemmed from the unique place baseball holds as a “national pastime” since football arguably has a larger audience than even baseball.  The Court, therefore, found the CBC case controlling and granted CBS summary judgment.

–Matt

A few of new business incubators have surfaced in the last few months — which is welcome and encouraging news.

The first is North Woodward Tech Incubator started by Troy-based patent law firm Young Basile Hanlon MacFarlane & Helmholdt P.C. They recently signed up their first tenant and there’s room for three or four more technology startups in dedicated, rent-free space at the firm.

Another is TechArb, a group of 30 student entrepreneurs, running 10 different startups, sharing a small-business incubator in the basement of a downtown Ann Arbor building.  The space came together with the help of Ann Arbor venture capital firm RPM Ventures, the University of Michigan College of Engineering’s Center for Entrepreneurship, and a new student-run entrepreneurial organization on campus, Maize Ventures.

Last but not least is Tech Brewery, which is itself still in the startup phase.  Described as a community of technologists, entrepreneurs, and startups, the Ann Arbor-based incubator has signed up about 12 companies who will share space in what used to be a brewery but is now converted office space.  Last I heard, the Chamber of Commerce was looking to secure funding for the space in what would become a Chamber-led project, potentially with federal stimulus money.  Other possibilities include a mix of public/private funding similar to the models used by North Woodward and TechArb.  So far, the project has not been formally publicized since funding for the space is still pending.

–Matt

A simple concept: startup culture in cities around the world gathers around a bar to have a pint and discuss what they are working on, what they need help with and what they can do for each other.

- startupdrinks.com

Ann Arbor started a chapter earlier this year.  Now it’s Detroit’s turn.

Tim Aten (Futuramic Media) and I are kicking off Detroit Startup Drinks.  Our inaugural event is June 24, 2009 from 6-8 p.m. at Cliff Bells (2030 Park Avenue, Detroit, MI 48226).  Cliff Bells was good enough to provide us with a 25% off drink special to get things started.

Come on down and meet like-minded individuals looking to start something up OR maybe you’re already in the building phases in need of some help OR maybe you just need to commiserate.  Whatever your reason, we’re all here to help each other out and share ideas…over a pint.

Join the Facebook Group and RSVP through Facebook Event.

–Matt