You could say that Thorsten Claus, Director of Playout Intelligence at Detecon, Inc., acts as one of the more innovative spearheads of Deutsche Telekom. Focusing on content capitalization Thorsten uses his San Francisco base to know the Bay Area’s start-up scene, meet the founders of the hottest start-ups in Silicon Valley and thus staying up-to-date with all developments in the digital entertainment industry. Being an angel investor himself, he not only knows the distant corporate approach to shirtsleeved founders but he’s fully equipped with what it needs to start, run and grow a company. Thorsten is a very open and helpful guy – so if you are in need for some valuable advice – don’t hesitate to contact him.
When Italy-born Carolina Milanesi publishes some figures on the Mobile Industry the crowd is listening: The London-based VP of Research at Gartner’s Mobile Devices team is the the second-most quoted mobile analyst. Responsible for the forecasting and market share efforts of the mobile players she also is Apple’s vendor lead. The launch of the iPhone 4.0 “will keep Apple ahead of the game, although Android has made huge process” – is Carolina’s statement on the latest smartphone from Cupertino. We met her at WWDC10 where we had the opportunity to chat about the App Economy – and to ask her about her usage of apps!
Berlin born Marcus Greinke, who has been living between Palo Alto and San Francisco for the last 20 years, started in the advertising industry. In 2005 he founded charlesandmarie.com, together with his business partner Claus Krogmann, who’s overseeing the European operations. Sourcing and producing the latest design products – mostly in Asia – is the business model of this ecommerce platform.
The latest project of Marcus and Claus is XXL Commerce, Inc – a Flash Shopping App which still is in Closed Beta. Marcus, who is an iPhone addict, sorts his apps by colours – a unique approach for appinion participants so far!
New Delhi born Atul Arora is one of the hidden stars of Online Media. His network score on Google Buzz lets him pass media heavyweights like Bradley Horowitz or Jason Calacanis in the list of 20 Most Connected People. A father of two, the 42-year-old engineer at online health insurance agent Vimo is a regular tipper at Techmeme and helps to find the most relevant content in the tech industry. Atul shares his insights in tech while having some very delicious Indian food.
We met Andrew when waiting in line at the Apple Store in Stockton St, San Francisco. He is an app developer from Vancouver and on a business trip with his colleagues. They took the chance to stock up on iPads while in SF.
Loic Le Meur certainly is one of the few prominent entrepreneurs who are well known in both worlds, Europe and the United States.
Together with his wife Geraldine he organizes European’s biggest web conference, Le Web. Two years ago the Le Meur family moved to San Francisco. The reason: Loic wants to be in the center of the web, the Bay Area, where hundreds of internet entrepreneurs and CEOs work, live and meet regularly. Team Seesmic itself works from different parts of the world: web developers of the twitter client are located in Romania and Singapore and are led by Marco Kaiser, who himself works from Hamburg, Germany. Marketing and Business Development Team works from Seesmic Headquarters in Bryant Street, San Francisco.
From April, 30th until May, 6th, the appstory.tv team will visit San Francisco and the Silicon Valley. Attending the web2.0 Expo, we’ll meet, interview and film the game changers of the app economy.
We’ll feed our blog daily and will publish videos for our US and our German audience here on appstory.tv and on the upcoming appstar.tv, respectively.
If your new app is a really great one, you are the founder of an app-focused start-up or your business is just changing the app economy, drop in and meet us at the Moscone West!
appinion - Stefan Weitz, Director of Bing
Low Cost Broadcasting – Leo Laporte leads a new breed of broadcasters
appinion – A Social Disruptor – Craig Newmark, craigslist.org
appinion – Gabe Rivera, Techmeme and Mediagazer
appinion - Atul Arora, Product Management Director @ Vimo
