Mark Suster, prolific blogger, partner at GRP and a valued GumGum advisor, spoke at last night’sVenture Shift in New York, and suffice to say, he’s not a demure fella’. You won’t want to miss this interview.

“It Is The Best Time Over The Past Decade To Be An Entrepreneur”

TechCrunch sat down with Jim Breyer at Techonomy to talk about disruptions occurring in the venture capital industry itself with the abundance of angel money and the impact that is having on traditional VC firms.

Sean Parker Thinks Silicon Valley is in Trouble

CNET sat down with Sean Parker at Techonomy. His beef: Too many angel investors are throwing way too much money–albeit in little drips–at aspiring entrepreneurs who aren’t up to the task of building a company.

The World According to Hadoop

If you missed the recent Hadoop conference, check out the SiliconAngle video coverage. Some really great interviews and insights.

Start Your Startup Engine

Two new startup incubators launched this past week. Former MySpace CEO Mike Jones (and one of GumGum’s trusted advisors) launched Science, a new startup incubator, accelerator and studio that focuses on three key areas: developing and incubating new business ideas, advising early stage startups and helping “Web 1.0″ companies reinvent themselves for the present.

Esteemed Harvard University launched the Harvard Innovation Lab is an incubator designed for startup-hungry students on campus. The i-lab, as it is known by abbreviation, began as a response to Boston Mayor Thomas Menino’s desire to introduce more innovation spaces Boston and Harvard’s promise to raise the next generation of startup CEOs right.

Prior, Brennan pioneered some of the first-ever social media campaigns on Facebook with SocialMedia.com.  He was also a pioneer in search advertising, building the largest B2B search engine and directory with Business.com where he grew an inside sales team of over 25 and a strategic, agency team of 15.  In between, Brennan led a team at Advertising.com as the SW Sales Director.  Early in his career, Brennan worked four years in print advertising with Petersen Publishing, home of Motor Trend and Teen magazines.

Away from the office, Brennan spends time with his wife, six year-old son and three year-old daughter. He’s an avid cyclist, struggling golfer and tortured ILLINI fan.

Mike Jones discusses the “It” startup factor when extraordinary people meet amazing ideas.

Even Mike Jones began somewhere. Hear about his early startup days.

When should startups bootstrap? Mike Jones discusses if and when.

Mike Jones discusses the pitfalls and possibilities for LA entrepreneurs and his love for the LA tech scene.

Everyone was excited to hear about Myspace. Mike Jones talks about being the CEO of Myspace and lessons he learned.

Lastly, Mike Jone’s reflects on his time at AOL.

Filler & Fluff: These images could be vector art, stock photography or real photography that are inserted to the page just to have an image, adding no value to the user’s experience. If an image is being inserted for the sake of having an image, rethink your strategy. Swap it out for a photo that’s as interesting and useful as the text on the page.

Real People: We all have seen and/or used the stock photos of “generic people”. They have people laughing at the beach, serious in the office and on and on. These images don’t resonate with users as the example above shows. A better solution? Use a photo of a real person. Whether it’s a company staff page or a pop culture hot topic, look for images that show the people involved. Users will engage more time with images of real people.

Product Details: This is a tip for e-commerce sites with photo galleries. 18% of the viewing time on e-commerce sites is spent on the photos, while 82% is spent on the text. What does this mean? People are using the text to make decisions, so the images need to be as engaging as possible. Show the product details or it being used in real-life application. Don’t just show an image of a flat screen TV on a wall with no points of reference for the user to compare sizing, etc. to.

Information-Carrying: The bottom-line is that users pay attention to images that portray useful information. If you’re showing how to install a 1966 Chevy Impala carburetor, give the user step-by-step photos of what they need to do.

GumGum came up last on the presentation roster, before one of our trusted advisors Mike Jones gave the SuperDemo. Ophir Tanz, CEO and founder, gave a compelling presentation about the in-image advertising space using in-image ad demos from our work on Bruno, Axe Bodyspray, Chevrolet Buick and Ford Mustang.

The audience had some great questions. Here’s Ophir Tanz on GumGum’s pricing model.

Ophir was then asked how GumGum understands images and how the solution differs from others.

Lastly, the audience wanted to know Ophir’s opinion on LA’s Tech scene.

Digiday’s Digital Publishing Summit is an invite-only networking event that functions as a sort of “state of the industry” event for online publishers and the vendors that serve them. The most recent Summit, held from October 23-26 in Bonita Springs, Florida, was “Restoring Power To The Publisher”. Our Director of Network Development, Greg Pritchard was onsite for the conference.

Since many publishers have in recent years felt technologically “outgunned” by the rapid advance of data-driven real-time bidding for online advertising, the Summit highlighted innovative ways that publishers can leverage data to build their audience and drive revenue. On Day 1, Alvin Fong of Internet Brands, a GumGum partner, explained how IB has leveraged data provider eXelate‘s solution to improve the targeting of online ad units across their network of hundreds of automotive enthusiast sites.

On day 2, we had the opportunity to present to the summit, providing attendees with an introduction to how publishers are using GumGum and in-image advertising to monetize their photos. The presentation was delivered in a fast-paced format known as “Pecha Kucha“, where the presentation must be exactly 20 slides in length and each slide appears for exactly 20 seconds. OnSwipe, a tablet website platform and Outbrain, a content promotion platform also delivered Pecha Kucha presentations during the segment, which was dubbed “Cool Tools For Publishers”. Definitely a fitting description of GumGum! The demonstration of our in-image ad unit and targeting capabilities garnered a lot of interest from the attendees, prompting thought-provoking questions from publishers as diverse as Hearst Newspapers, Federated Media, IDG Enterprise, and Gossip Center.

Coinciding with the announcement about GumGum’s Series B funding announcement, the Summit felt like a real “coming of age” moment for in-image advertising. The space has reached a major inflection point and is thoroughly socialized among major advertisers, publishers, and users. It’s clear that in-image advertising will continue to play a major role in the online advertising ecosystem in the years to come, and DPS was the perfect venue to spread the word on how publishers can drive meaningful revenue with this “cool” new ad unit.

See you in March DPS!

Congrats to the team on all the hard work!

Yesterday’s top image comes to us from BuddyTV’s 100 Sexiest Men of 2010 – #100 Andrew Lincoln, from The Walking Dead. This show has received tons of attention since it’s recent premiere of the new season. It’s no wonder this image is pulling in the most impressions and clicks.

Yesterday’s top keyword was film. Entertainment is always a huge attention grabber for users online.

We’re excited to announce this morning on TechCrunch that we’ve raised $7M in series B funding from NEA, with participation from GRP and First Round Capital. This new capital will enable us to hire amazing talent, fuel the continued growth of the ad sales infrastructure, further develop of our proprietary image recognition ad serving/matching technology and expansion into additional territories.

“GumGum is proud to join NEA’s portfolio of visionary entrepreneurs and business leaders building transformational companies around the world,” said Ophir Tanz, CEO and founder of GumGum. “Our goal has always been to bring images to life and this new round will enable GumGum to continue to drive tremendous value for its publishing partners and advertisers. The new funding will primarily be used for hiring, regional expansion and continued development of our proprietary image recognition and ad matching technology.”

Read TechCrunch’s coverage on the announcement here.

The moment has finally arrived!  After sending our submission for TechZulu Spotlight: LA Tech, the spotlight shines down on GumGum. We’re happy to be one of the chosen few that will be presenting at October’s event at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.

For those who still might be wondering what Spotlight: LA Tech is all about, it’s a quarterly demo series highlighting the finest technology entrepreneurship in Southern California. Spotlight toasts to those who build and innovate right here in our backyard.

This Fall’s judges will include Mike Jones, LA based investor & advisor and Myspace CEO; Alex Maleki, member of New Venture Group at Idealab; Dinesh Ravishanker, CEO & co-founder of CallFire; Scott Sangster, President of Tech Coast Angels & CEO of OrganicStartup; and Avesta Rasouli, founder of CoLoft.

Most recent Spotlight startup alum include Mobile Roadie, Graphight, Smartvark, QLess, You Rock Digital, and daqri.