Jason Calacanis
Calacanis at Gnomedex 5.
Born	(1970-11-28) November 28, 1970 (age 41) Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York City
Occupation	Internet entrepreneur / Blogger

Jason McCabe Calacanis (born November 28, 1970^[1]) is an American Internet entrepreneur and blogger. His first company was part of the dot-com era in New York, and his second venture, Weblogs, Inc., capitalized on the growth of blogs before being sold to AOL.

Early life[link]

Calacanis was born in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from Xaverian High School in 1988. He then attended Fordham University, where he majored in psychology.^[2]

Career[link]

During the dot-com boom, Calacanis was active in New York's Silicon Alley community and in 1996 began producing a publication known as the Silicon Alley Reporter. Originally a 16-page photocopied newsletter, as its popularity grew it expanded into a 300-page magazine, with a sister publication called the Digital Coast Reporter for the West Coast. Calacanis's tireless socializing earned him a nickname as the "yearbook editor" of the Silicon Alley community.^[3] With the end of the Dot-com bubble, Silicon Alley Reporter failed.^[4]

Calacanis co-founded Weblogs, Inc. with Brian Alvey in 2003, supported by an angel investment from Mark Cuban. Time Warner's America Online agreed to buy Weblogs, Inc. in October 2005 for $25–30 million.^[5]

Netscape.com[link]

Six months into his tenure with AOL, Calacanis was offered a chance to be the General Manager of the new Netscape website. Calacanis used the model pioneered by Digg, Del.icio.us, and Furl and added an editorial layer to the system. The project has launched and occupied the front page of Netscape. Calacanis started by hiring a team of eight "anchors" to follow up users' top stories. He then hired some of the top users of social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit, Newsvine and Flickr to go to Netscape as Netscape Navigators,^[6] which prompted a public debate with Kevin Rose, founder of Digg.

On November 16, 2006, TechCrunch reported that Calacanis had resigned from his position as CEO of Weblogs, Inc. and General Manager of Netscape.^[7] Calacanis later confirmed this with a post at his blog.^[8]

Sequoia Capital[link]

On December 5, 2006, Techcrunch reported that Calacanis was going to announce his new position at Sequoia Capital as an EIA (entrepreneur in action).^[9] Calacanis later confirmed this on his blog.^[10]

Mahalo.com[link]

Calacanis founded Mahalo.com, a "human-powered search engine",^[11] which launched in alpha test in May 2007. During a speech about the site at the Gnomedex conference in August 2007, Calacanis got into a public confrontation with Dave Winer that led to Winer's resignation from the panel of experts for the TechCrunch20 conference organized by Calacanis. Winer interrupted Calacanis' speech during the event, calling it "conference spam" and igniting a war of words on their blogs. "I'm not interested in having someone berate me like this," Calacanis wrote on his blog.^[12]

As of April 21, 2010 Mahalo had 9.4 million global (5.7 million US) unique monthly visitors, down from a peak of 14.1 million global (7.4 million US) unique monthly visitors, according to Quantcast.^[13]

Angel Investing[link]

In 2009 Calacanis founded the Open Angel Forum, an event that connects early stage startups with angel investors. The forum was the culmination of a series of public comments by Calacanis questioning the ethics of pay-to-pitch angel forums.^[14] Calacanis believes startups shouldn't have to pay to pitch angel investors.^[15] Calacanis is also an Angel Investor in Gowalla.

ThisWeekIn.com[link]

Calacanis is a co-founder of ThisWeekIn.com and host of the live streamed "This Week In Startups" on the network. ^[16]

LAUNCH Conference[link]

Calacanis announced the creation of the LAUNCH Conference to spotlight unannounced start-ups. The first conference was held on February 23rd and 24th 2011 and featured 140 startups. A number of companies received funding at the event and the winners included Room 77 and GreenGoose.

Controversy[link]

Calacanis was involved in a 2010 Internet hoax involving his Twitter postings regarding the introduction of the Apple iPad. In his tweets, he claimed to have a "reviewer's copy" of an iPad device describing in great detail the features of such device. The device in question was not in his possession nor did it exist. It was explained to have been an attempt by Calacanis to expose the hysteria regarding Apple product launches. The hoax also called into question the fact checking and verification processes of the mainstream media who published the hoax story as true.^[17][18]

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Jason Calacanis

• The Jason Calacanis Weblog

Catherine Isabel Audrey Kidston MBE, born 6 November 1958^[1] and generally known as Cath Kidston, is a British fashion designer, businesswoman and author whose company, Cath Kidston Limited sells home furnishings and related goods through shops, online and by mail order.^[2] In February 2010, the company was valued at £75 million.^[3] She is particularly known for her nostalgic floral patterns^[2][3]and has also published a number of books.^[3]

Personal life[link]

Her grandfather Glen Kidston was a successful racing driver for Bentley in the 1920s.^[4]

Raised with three other siblings near Andover in Hampshire, she was educated at a number of UK boarding schools, before moving to London aged 18. She was employed by the socialite, Nicky Haslam,^[3] before setting up an interiors business with a friend,^[3] then opening her own shop.^[3]

Kidston's partner is record producer Hugh Padgham,^[3] whom she met as his decorator.^[3] They have homes beside the Thames in West London,^[3] and in Gloucestershire.^[3] She has a step-daughter Jessica and a Lakeland terrier Stanley who features in her designs.

Shops[link]

Kidston opened her first shop in London's Notting Hill in 1993,^[2] selling hand-embroidered tea-towels and brightly renovated furniture,^[3]. She later described it as just a "glorified junk shop".^[3] At present, Cath Kidston Ltd has stores throughout the UK and shops in Ireland, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Thailand. Appearing on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs programme, she described her shops as provoking a 'Marmite reaction' - "People either love it and want a little bit of it very much, or want to stab us."^[4]. She also spoke lovingly of her late parents, described her design influences and selected her partner Hugh Padgham's iconic hit "In the air tonight", which he produced for Phil Collins.

Business[link]

Cath Kidston Limited

Kidston shop window display, with company logo
Type	Limited company
Industry	Home furnishing
Founded	April 13, 1993 (1993-04-13)
Founder(s)	Cath Kidston
Headquarters	London, United Kingdom
Website	www.cathkidston.co.uk

Cath Kidston Limited was registered with Companies House, number 02808583, on 3 April 1993.^[5]

The company's profits jumped more than 60 per cent from £2.9million to £4.6million in the year to March 2009.^[3] Sales rose to £31.3m during the period, compared with £19.3m the year before,^[3] partly due to new store openings.^[3]

In 2010, she sold a majority stake of the company to private equity investors TA Associates,^[6], retaining a minority stake and remaining the company's Creative Director.^[6]

Collaborations[link]

Kidston has worked with Milletts to design tents (2005-6),^[2] Nokia/ Carphone Warehouse (mobile phones, 2006)^[2] and Roberts (radios, 2005 onwards).^[2] In 2008 she collaborated with Tesco to produce shopping bags made from plastic bottles,^[2] which were sold to raise almost £500,000 for Marie Curie Cancer Care^[2] and saved about six million plastic bottles from landfill.^[2]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Cath Kidston Limited
• Flickr group for Cath Kidston products