Los Angeles? Los Angles founders are hustlers and deal makers. At parties in Los Angeles people talk about a media deal they’re “closing”, what TV star is at the party, and some “gray hat” spam-like technique that made them an extra 100K last month. Folks in Los Angeles are shrewder business people, have better interpersonal skills, but are more full of shit and two faced, and struggle to build products that get virally adopted. Is there a difference between tech startups in Silicon Valley vs. Most emphatically, Yes !

Great by Cliff Allen Business Networking Online who I had blogged about previously in Marketing, Startups and Networking in Los Angeles . I'm going to be working with people like Cliff and Steve Gilison (see Product Management for Startups in Los Angeles ) and Tom Humbarger (see Social Media to Build Reputation and Reach Prospects ) to create this online business networking group for Los Angeles. Cliff also sparked an idea that along with using in a separate conversations sparked the idea that we should be using Southern California Tech Central as a means of helping to

I'm happy to announce the launch of the Los Angeles Tech Content Community . The goal is to create a place where it's relatively easy to find current content and highly relevant content surrounding Los Angeles Technology. To be clear Los Angeles Tech is a jump off point. This is the beginning of a content community that collects and organizes the best content from blogs and web sites. The content comes from other places.

Los Angeles-based Image Metrics, which is developing facial animation products for the entertainment industry, announced Tuesday that it has raised $6.5M Image Metrics develops technology for facial animation, being applied to the film and video game industry. Image Metrics said the new funding will go towards developing new technology and to execute its plans. in a Series B funding round. The firm said the round came from Saffron Hill Ventures, its original investor.

Los Angeles-based Image Metrics said Monday that it has launched its facial animation technology product, FACEWARE. Image Metrics' FACEWARE works with existing 3D software packages. READ MORE>> ...Tags: Tags: image metrics facial animation halo bungie videogame content softwar The new software is based on existing services the firm offers to game developers. The company also said the new package is being used in-house by game developer Bungie, the developer of HALO.

Los Angeles-based Image Metrics , a developer of facial animation technology, disclosed this morning that it has created a new "rigging" service for the video game and film markets. Image Metrics develops software used for facial animation image capture; the firm's technology was used for the upcoming God of War III video game for the Sony PlayStation 3. Image Metrics According to the firm, the new service will allow video game makers to use its technology and team to create "highly emotive" facial animation. Pricing on the new service was not announced.

Los Angeles-based Image Metrics (www.image-metrics.com) recently landed a $6.5M, Series B funding round for the firm's facial animation products. was introduced to Image Metrics a year before I joined, and was helping them along. Editor's note: you can see Image Metrics "Emily" demo on their web site ). We spoke with CEO Mike Starkenburg -- a former venture capitalist at the Sprout Group and longtime reader of our newsletter -- about the firm and its technology and how it's revolutionizing facial animation in both computer games and the movies. Tell Tell

It will be an open and frank town-hall conversation revealing the metrics and measurements for Mergers and Acquisitions in the online space with one of the best experts in the field. We are joined this month by Shawn Colo , the Co-Founder and Head of M&A at Demand Media . The event, brought to you by DealMaker Media, contributes to the growing Los Angeles technology scene by bringing together various entrepreneurs, angel investors, venture capitalists, social media experts, and professionals in the tech field. This month’s “Startups Uncensored” will be on “Getting Your Internet Company Bought”.

It was a great conversation and I thought it would be a good idea to do some visible networking with Aaron to get to know him better. Tell me a bit about your background. I grew up in Los Angeles and went to undergrad at UC Santa Barbara, graduating in 2003 with Honors in Economics. Any thoughts on my recent post Startup Metrics ? I recently got together with Aaron Shechet and an early stage startup to discuss the direction the company might want to take. I

But you need to reduce it to two or three different things that are the key metrics." "When remember you at Mint before the company launched, you were here in Los Angeles, in Santa Monica, right by my house doing the unofficial launch before the TechCrunch 50, where you couldn't show it because you were part of TechCrunch50. And frank-, it’s like, I want to track, you know, their age, I want to know when they had sex, I want to know their birthdays and all these different If you like this interview, vote for it on my favorite news site . --Andrew Andrew