The Drive Vegas Interview : Christie Conti
Monday, April 10, 2006

“This has not been done before. This is the first time anyone in the United States has developed a project like this.”

Christie Conti, Regional Public Relations Supervisor for GM R*Works, in front of a HUMMER in the showroom, gives a brief but comprehensive overview of the distinguishing characteristics, features, advantages, and benefits, of GM’s new ‘autotainment’ attraction, “The Drive Vegas.” (TheDriveVegas.com).

The Drive is designed to enable auto enthusiasts to become intimately familiar with GM vehicles in a pressure-free performance environment.

With the addition of General Motors, the monorail expands its high-profile advertiser portfolio to six along with Sprint/Nextel, Hansen’s Beverage Company, Paramount Parks, BankWest of Nevada, and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

The Drive, encompassing 11 acres at the corner of Sahara Avenue and Paradise Road, will be open for a minimum six-month period.

“We’ll be here initially for six months, hopefully beyond,” says Conti.

The Drive hours of operation (once open) are preliminarily set to be 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. seven days a week, including holidays. The Drive is accessible from the GM Monorail station at the Sahara Hotel & Casino, and parking is available at the hotel’s self parking structure or valet.

Drivers must be age 18 or over, and present a valid driver’s license. Professional drivers (as passengers) will accompany each driver to help them get the most out of their driving experience. For the safety of all guests, on-site breathalyzer tests will be part of the mandatory registration process before guests can enjoy The Drive experience.

The Drive will be FREE to locals until the end of April. Regular cost for admission to the attraction is $10 per driver.

LISTEN TO PODCAST

© 2006 Vegas Buzz News Network

VEGAS BUZZ CEO INTERVIEW: Jonathan Remund, CEO Bizwala.com

Impeccable design and rock-solid hosting infrastructure support growth

Jonathan Remund, CEO Bizwala.com

In the aftermath of the infamous Dotcom bust, few hosting companies were left standing.

Indeed the biggest fell the hardest and included such well-known names as AT&T Hosting, Exodus, USA Hosting, and others that once had billion dollar price tags. Same went for web design companies, although many still managed to eke out a living due to the relative lack of good web design companies. In the web design sector, Bizwala has legions of satisfied customers for no small reason. Offering clean, uncompromised web design, impeccable customer service, and now, with its recent acquisition of ILON Hosting, full service web hosting, Bizwala is clearly poised for monumental growth.

In this audio interview slated for syndication, Mr. Remund outlined his company’s philosophies and secrets of success.

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(C) 2004 Business Buzz @ www.VegasBuzzz.com

Podcasting News: Interview II with Jonathan Cobb, CEO and founder, Kiptronic.com

In this second of a series, Jonathan Cobb discusses the implications of the recent strategic alliance between Kiptronic and Libsyn, on the podcasting industry.

A recent press release appears below.

Kiptronic and Liberated Syndication Announce Strategic Alliance

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

JUNE 24, 2005

Today Liberated Syndication and Kiptronic are proud to announce a
strategic alliance that will bring Kiptronic services to libsyn
podcasters. Starting this August, all libsyn podcasters will be able to
participate in the Kiptronic network. Representing roughly 10% of the
world’s podcasters, libsyn is the leading podcast hosting provider.
Kiptronic offers an innovative promo exchange service for podcasters,
allowing podcast cross-promotions with little effort. Libsyn and
Kiptronic have partnered to integrate Kiptronic’s promo exchange
directly into libsyn’s podcast hosting service. This will allow all
libsyn podcasters to participate in the Kiptronic network directly from
the libsyn site, with no configuration required.

Both libsyn and Kiptronic deliver online systems that are empowering
content producers and enabling the new micromedia economy.

About libsyn
Liberated Syndication is a media hosting and distribution service built
from the ground up with podcasters in mind. Libsyn is the first
full-featured provider tailored specifically for all-media
self-publishing and Podcasting with pricing models that make sense for
this new generation of content creators.
URL: http://libsyn.com/
Contact: Dave Mansueto
dave@libsyn.com
412–576-4177

About Kiptronic
Kiptronic is the world’s first distributed content-exchange network for
online multimedia. Kiptronic’s innovative podcast promo exchange allows
podcasters to cross-promote one another without manually modifying their
content and without requiring them to host their content with Kiptronic.
Any podcast can use Kiptronic’s promo exchange free of charge.
URL: http://kiptronic.com/
Contact: Jonathan Cobb
jonathan@kiptronic.com
650–814-1146

(Podcasting News @ Vegas Buzz)

Vegas Buzz CEO Interview: Jonathan Cobb, CEO and Founder Kiptronic.com

World’s first podcast promotion exchange emerges

Vegas Buzz discussed Kiptronic’s new service that allows podcasters to exchange promotional spots dynamically, without altering audio files. LISTEN

[JUNE 12, 2005 – VEGAS BUZZ NEWS] – Jonathan Cobb is founder and CEO, Kiptronic.com, a new podcast promotion exchange network designed to eliminate all the hassles normally involved in reciprocal podcast promotions: Mainly the need to manually modify and re-FTP files. Until now, that’s pretty much put the kibosh on such noble promotions. Worse yet, it’s cast a pall over the possible monetization of podcasts.

After all, unlike streaming radio, it’s difficult to dynamically insert content into a podcast that’s basically lying on a server somewhere waiting for the next download. That was the germ of the idea. Working with Apache server legend friend Ryan Bloom—Kiptronic founder, Jonathan Cobb – long a radio afficionado from his college radio days – founded what appears to be the next generation of ad insertion infrastructures, capable of dynamically inserting targeted commercials into podcast downloads.

This could be big, particularly given the fact that unlike ‘mass media’ where millions of people can be reached simultaneously with the same message, podcasting is what Alvin Toffler would have termed a ‘niche media,’ or even ‘micro media.’ That is, there are millions of handfuls, or ‘dozens’ of people listening to any of a number of podcasts. Targeting ads toward individual listeners to each podcast has been heretofore infeasible, albeit desirable.

Looks like this enabling technology may take podcasting to the next level – that is, the monetary rewards level through targeted, paid advertising.

Also discussed:

Podcasting vs. conventional mass media
Proliferation of Choice: Infinite choice media vs. limited choice media, and advertising management challenges.
Consumer-friendly delivery of large volume of choices, audio and video.

Related Article

[LAS VEGAS, NV – June 1, 2005 – Podcasting News @ Vegas Buzz News] – Kiptronic today announced the official launch of the Kiptronic podcast promotion exchange network. Podcasters participating in Kiptronic’s promo exchange can select and play each others promos without manually modifying their original mp3 files. Built on an open-source webserver plugin developed by Apache veteran Ryan Bloom, Kiptronic’s open architecture allows podcasters to keep total control over their podcast as they participate in the promo exchange.

Visit Kiptronic online at kiptronic.com

For more information, contact jonathan@kiptronic.com

(2005, Podcasting News @ Vegas Buzz)