The Power of Technology and Connection
I’m a big fan of watching various weekly product review sessions, pitch episodes, and startup related broadcasts. There are 2 that I particularly enjoy, which are Sol Weinreich’s PitchCraft Episodes, and Weekly Product Roundup every Friday’s at 4:00 PM EST, via Matt Hartman. Sol does his live broadcasts via Blab.im (a platform that I highly enjoy) where as Matt does his via upclose.me (a different live broadcast platform). However, I wanted to write a post regarding Matt’s show, as I’ve been tuning into for awhile now. It’s a highly engaging show, where Matt goes over and discusses the latest new apps or tech news that he comes across over the course of each week.
VC @betaworks // ok coder // podcast @http://hrt.mn/podcast // Weekly product roundup live video Fridays 4:30 EST http://upclose.me/matt // [adjusts glasses] – Matt Hartman
Before I go over and summarize his show for this week, it’s probably best to give you a little background on Matt. Matt heads Seed Investments at BetaWorks, a startup studio building and seed investing in next generation internet companies. It’s CEO is John Borthwick, who’s well known in the tech industry. BetaWorks has backed and helped start some amazing companies that include GIPHY and Instapaper.
Now for the fun stuff, this week’s episode was a little different than his normal ones, as it was Matt’s first time using blab.im. Although he was doing a dual record, via Upclose and Blab, it was a really engaging show. The show was more fun today because he was able to get a really engaging blab session during the entire duration of his show. Now, prepare yourselves, as his guests who hopped in his blab are some pretty awesome people in the tech industry. His first guests to join were Sol himself and Ben Tossell (Community Manager at Product Hunt). However, Sol was having some technical difficulties (oops), so he had to hop out. However, as Matt’s show continued, he got some of his BetaWorks co-workers to join right in. Brian Donohue, who works on Instapaper joined the conversation and really kicked things off.
There were some great discussions regarding Product Hunt and some of its new features, such as Product Hunt Podcasts (linked for you to view), a curation of podcasts shared by the Product Hunt Community where they get upvoted. Oh, did I mention that you can play the podcasts right from Product Hunt ;). As the conversations continued, a new guest hopped on the blab session. Can you take a guess? I’ll give you a hint, who do you know at Product Hunt? YEP – If you guessed Ryan Hoover (btw, this dude is everywhere!), the man of Product Hunt himself joined the blab! It was awesome to see Ryan jump in on the fun and participate in Matt’s Weekly Product Roundup. Unfortunately, Ryan had to leave (he is a busy guy after all) and so his spot was left open. However, have no fear, another viewer jumped right in.
Next up, was Mike Baltus (warning, this man has a REALLY nice voice – he should do radio if he doesn’t already). Matt asked a few questions to Mike as to why he enjoys blab as a platform and the conversation continued on going back and forth. Shortly afterwards, Shaan Puri, the CEO of blab himself joined :). Shaan’s is very sharp, and discussed his platform, its capabilities, and what features he felt made blab stand out from the rest (NO IT WASN’T A PITCH TO MATT). The discussions continued and there was some really good questions asked by Shaan to Matt that were really good (skip to the bottom if you just want to watch the blab).
The reason why I enjoyed this week’s session by Matt was because of how amazing it was to see technology connect all of us, for discussions. BetaWorks is based in NYC, Product Hunt is based in San Francisco with Ben tuning in from the UK, and Shaan is also based in San Francisco. However, thanks in part to technology, specifically blab.im, there were people tuning into Matt’s live broadcast from all over. Hell I was watching from Philadelphia, participating as much as I could via the blab’s chat. Whether on desktop or mobile, people were instantaneously connected and viewing the show. The session was great because it connected so many great individuals in the tech industry. Through the power of technology, connections were made. It was great to see bright minds discussing technology and reviewing products.
Now, as a token of reward for your patience in reading up to this point, I present to you the replay of the session. Warning: It is pretty damn funny :).
https://blab.im/matt-hartman-weekly-product-roundup-w-matthartman
geeky_yang 