MySpace Archives - Serious Startups

Florida Startup: WUBB Wants To Be The One Social Network For Business

A Cooper City Florida company has launched a new social network called WUBB. Their mission seems to be targeted at business and very multi-faceted. If WUBB takes off it’s going to be spectacular for them however if it doesn’t it’s going to be one crazy hodge podge of social mess.

This morning WUBB described itself as “a platform for social entrepreneurs across the world that inspires, connects, communicates and manages your business and professional network by joining Entrepreneurs, Cofounders, Freelancers, Investors, Employees, Family and Friends. It is a multi-user, community-based, business networking hub where people join only to be benefited.”

The home page and dashboard look like a hybrid between Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. Speaking of which you can login with your Facebook or LinkedIn account or create your own account.

In addition to the usual dashboard links like dashboard,profile, people and even companies, you’ll also find tabs for contests, services, projects, ideas and even domains and websites. WUBB gives you a portal to buy domain names and buy and sell websites. A little odd for a social network but most likely a revenue stream for the new company.

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LA Startup: EventUp Really Let’s You Party Like A Rockstar

You can rent this home once owned by Joe DiMaggio for your party with Eventup (photo: eventup.com)

Former Myspacer Tony Adam has put a new spin on the event app. If you’ve ever wanted to party like a rockstar than Eventup may be exactly what you’re looking for.

Adam has procured celebrity homes in major cities like New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Through partnerships with the home owner, his company Eventup rents the houses out for parties and events. You could have a pool party at the Entourage mansion or propose like the bachelor. You could hold your first CD listening party at the home of Bob Dylan and countless others.

The prices are set by the home owner and range from $1,000 (a non celebrity castle with a moat) to $5,000 (Eric Clapton’s pad) to even more pricey like the East Village walkup Lady GaGa lived in before becoming a star ($12,000) and up. The possibilities are endless and more and more celebrity homes are coming available.

Imagine throwing your son’s Bar Mitzvah reception at the home of Joe Dimaggio or your daughter’s Bat Mitzvah reception at the home of Marilyn Monroe (same venue) well Eventup has that venue starting at just $1000.

As with the castle with the moat though, if you’re not looking for a celebrity pad but somewhere ultra cool for a theme party Eventup has those kinds of venues for you as well.

The renters are responsible for the rental fee, cleanup fees and insurance but other than that the place is yours for your event.

“On most real estate or house sites you can only look,” Adam told the New York Daily News, who launched eventup.com in February. “This goes beyond real estate voyeurism. For not much money in some cases, you can grab some friends and throw an event at these spaces.”

source: NY Daily News

In The Courts: Federal Courts Rule That Social Networking Can Contain Trade Secrets

In a move, that is interesting to say the least, a Colorado Federal Court and a California Federal Court have ruled that social networking accounts, and lists can contain trade secrets.

In the Colorado case an employee of a nightclub was responsible for maintaining the nightclub’s MySpace page. The nightclub had several thousand friends on MySpace and was often used to promote specials, and performances at the club. That was all well and good until the employee left that club to work for a competing night club in the same town.

Once the employee started working for the competitor he started to use the same MySpace friends list to market the new club to the old club’s patrons. In that case Christou v Beatport the judge in Colorado ordered that the MySpace list of friends was protected by the Colorado Uniform Trade Secrets Act.

JDspura.com reported:
The court held that, using the same logic for protection of customer lists, a friends list could be entitled to protection if it meets the traditional tests under which customer lists can constitute trade secrets. The court noted that the list could not readily be compiled from public sources, and that the plaintiff had limited access to the employer’s login and password information.

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Celebrities In Start Ups A New Trend

Nibletz.com, ashton kutcher, techcrunch, ignition, betabeat, venturebeat, pandodaily

Ashton Kutcher On Stage At TechCrunch Disrupt NY (photo: Nibletz.com)

The LA Times published a huge piece this week on celebrities lending themselves to new start ups. There are a couple ways that celebrities are doing this. Some celebrities of course, can be bought to lend their name, likeness and endorsement to a start up. Then there’s the path that singer and actor Justin Timberlake and Lady GaGa have gotten involved.

Timberlake invested in and led a consortium of investors who successfully bid for MySpace from Fox Media last year. The price $53 million dollars. While some thought that the investors were going to rip the data out of the social network and sell it, they actually pumped new life into it and for the first time in years MySpace has graced the top 50 ComScore list two months in a row.

Timberlake went as far as to be the MySpace pitch man at the International Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas in January. Pitching everyone that would listen to him both big time investors, and well just everyone. Teen pop superstar Justin Bieber was also at the Consumer Electronics show however in his case it was a paid endorsement of Tosy, a robot company banking on his star power attracting potential buyers to their booth.

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