a Dog Patch Lab-like incubator here in the Boston area. “It’s a possibility,” he says. “If there’s enough interest.” (Anyone want to answer that challenge?)
Sabet and Spark, meanwhile, have already taken several strides in this regard. Sabet is well known for pressing for the elimination of non-compete clauses in Massachusetts, which would make it much easier for entrepreneurs to do what Hirshland referred to—leave an established company to start their own. That effort has gained a lot of momentum and a bill to ban non-competes in Massachusetts is scheduled for a hearing this spring.
Spark (through Sabet) is one of several local groups that is helping bring a branch of the Boulder, CO-based TechStars startup program to Cambridge, MA. And in March, Spark announced the launch of Start@Spark, a program that will offer seed-stage investments of up to $250,000 to promising early-stage startups in the Boston and New York regions.
“There’s not like one silver bullet—it’s going to be a lot of stuff,” says Sabet, when referring to what might ignite social media and consumer Internet companies in the Boston Area.
Which to me means a concerted, collaborative effort. The last time I saw Hirshland and Sabet, they were at an OpenCoffee meeting (yes, Sabet helped this group get started here as well) at Andala Coffee House in Central Square. That’s where I snapped the picture of them together.
A Sampling of Social Media/Consumer Internet Investments From Spark and Polaris
Spark
5min — Internet-based “How-To” videos
8D World — virtual world focused on teaching English as a second language
Boxee — open-source software platform to enable home social media centers
Eqal — the Los Angeles studio behind the cult Web video series Lonelygirl15
KickApps — hosted application service enabling social networking capabilities for major web publishing and corporate websites
Next New Networks — micro TV meets community Web casting
OMGPOP (formerly i’minlikewithyou) — combines online gaming with social networking
OneRiot — social search engine
Tumblr — mixed media, short form blogging
Veoh — Internet TV
See my interview last year with Spark managing director Todd Dagres about the company’s media strategy.
Polaris
Automattic — the company behind WordPress, the leading blogging platform
BlackArrow — ad management for viewer-controlled video
Heavy — online entertainment network for men 18-34
JibJab Media — online comedy network
Quantcast — new media measurement company
Sprout — widget makes it easy to add interactive content to blogs and other websites.
