The producers are looking for entrepreneurs who either have a fantastic idea, are a start up or already operating successfully and looking to expand.    Entrepreneurs will pitch their breakthrough business concepts, products, properties and services to moguls in hopes of landing investment funds. If selected, five self-made, brilliant but tough investors (the Sharks) could be willing to part with their own hard-earned cash to give you the funding you need to jumpstart your venture. But the Sharks aren't just out to invest; they too have a goal -- to own a piece.

Your business or product should be top-notch and something the Sharks will really want to sink their teeth into. It might even spark a bidding war between them. Who knows? You could be the fortunate entrepreneur who gets the Sharks to reveal their true level of interest and to bid up the price of your investment!

Is your idea is good enough for a Shark investment?   Run it by us and we'll help you with the pitch, free of charge.   

The Connecticut Technology Council (CTC) and Marcum LLP announced their list of the 40 fastest growing Connecticut high tech companies, with a few surpassing $1 billion in annual revenue. 

“Connecticut is still proud of its remarkable heritage of innovation and invention. The 2012 list of Tech Top 40 companies reinforces the vital role of the tech sector in enabling the state to find ways to grow and create jobs even in a changing and challenging economic environment These 40 firms are role models and worthy of the attention this event brings them,” said Matthew Nemerson, President and CEO of the Connecticut Technology Council said in a press release.

The winning companies were just about evenly distributed across the state, with 13 in Hartford County, 12 in Fairfield County, and 10 in New Haven County.

An awards dinner and mini-trade show will take place on September 27 from 5:00 - 9:00 p.m. at the Oakdale Theater in Wallingford. Winners will be chosen in each of the list’s categories, and an overall winner will also be announced. Tickets for the event can be purchased online and cost $95 for CTC member companies and their employees, or $110 for general registration.

Here are this year’s winners:

Advanced Manufacturing
APS Technology, Inc., Wallingford
Dymax Corporation, Torrington
EDAC Technologies Corp., Farmington
Foster Corporation, Putnam
Reflexite Corporation, Avon
RSL Fiber Systems, LLC, East Hartford

Energy/Environment/Green Technology
FuelCell Energy, Inc., Danbury
Precision Combustion Inc, North Haven
Proton OnSite, Wallingford
STR Holdings, Inc., Enfield

IT Services
Cervalis LLC, Shelton
Datto Inc., Norwalk
iSend, LLC, Middlebury
OpenSky Corporation, Tolland
PCNet, Inc., Trumbull
Systems Integration Inc., Wethersfield
VLink Inc, Hartford

Life Sciences
Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Cheshire
Bio-Med Devices, Inc., Guilford
Defibtech, LLC, Guilford
Metrum Research Group, LLC, Tariffville

New Media/Internet/Telecom
EasySeat, LLC, Plainville
HealthPlanOne LLC, Shelton
JobTarget, LLC, New London
M2 Media Group, Stamford
Priceline.com, Inc., Norwalk
TicketNetwork, South Windsor
WebMediaBrands, Inc., Norwalk

Software
Adeptra, Inc., Norwalk
Core Informatics, LLC, Branford
ePath Learning, Inc., New London
eVariant, Inc., Simsbury
Evolution1, Inc, Avon
FitLinxx, Inc., Shelton
Higher One, Inc., New Haven
PASSUR Aerospace, Inc., Stamford
Prometheus Research, LLC, New Haven
SS&C Technologies Holdings Inc, Windsor
Tangoe, Inc, Orange
Triple Point Technology, Westport

The NY Business Expo 2012, set for November 14 - 15, 2012 at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City, today announced that it’s exhibitor list is now available on their site and that several of its exhibitors will be launching new products and services at the show.  The NY Business Expo 2012, a premier event for the New York business and technology community, will provide attendees with direct access to resources offered by different components of the show, including the Show Floor, Small Business Classroom, Startup Central, StartEngine Demo Day and an After Hours Party.   

The Show Floor  at NY Business Expo 2012 will also feature a “Startup Central” area, where venture capitalists and mentors will provide one-on-one coaching sessions for attendees.  Separately, Small Business Classroom in breakout rooms will feature more than 30 expert speakers who will lecture on a wide variety of topics in seminar format to help small business owners succeed.  An After Hours Networking event will follow the expo on November 15.

"NY Business Expo provides attendees with a great opportunity to learn first-hand from industry experts in small business, venture capital financing and new and emerging technology,” said Andrew Wong, CEO of NY Entrepreneurs Business Network, the host of NY Business Expo.  “We’re very excited that our exhibitors are using NY Business Expo as a unique platform to launch their new products and services this Fall.”  

The following exhibitors will be launching new products and services at the NY Business Expo:

Startengine, the LA-based rapid startup accelerator, will use NY Business Expo 2012 as the stage to demo ten new startup companies, including:  HOONTO, ENPLUG, MOTIONDISPATCH, oSurv,  OUTLISTEN, OVERHEAD.FM, KOKOCHE, MYRIGHT.ME, WHEREMYDOGSAT, and WELINK

Tekserve -  Tekserve’s Business Solutions experts will be on site to discuss implementing the latest in Apple and A/V technologies into the enterprise.  Tekserve Business Solutions helps CIOs and technology decision-makers integrate Apple into the complex enterprise IT environment and includes Tekserve’s renowned Pro A/V rich media production, storage and advisory services.   Tekserve will be providing the iPads for attendees to use in the iLounge at the NY Business Expo.  

PlayFitness.com will showcase its global multi-lingual, virtual, centralized interactive global fitness marketplace. Playfitness.com offers meaningful and long-term engagement with social network integration, personal coaching, health tracking and rewards. The platform boasts a worldwide network of independent, certified personal trainers who ensure 24/7/365 availability - all within the convenience and privacy of the home or office.

VT Enterprise will be launching /db, a unique software product, which automatically creates RESTful API from relational databases. /db makes databases instantly available to authorized mobile, web and enterprise applications and search engines. /db has been the core of Assetcloud, company’s customizable solutions for financial industry. /db is available from slashdb.com.

bMobilized will demonstrate automatic website mobilization. The global company offers businesses the ability to instantly and inexpensively convert their desktop website into an HTML5-enabled mobile experience optimized for every device, OS or browser. And at bMobilized, simplicity doesn’t come at the expense of flexibility. Using the industry’s most advanced set of tools, businesses can engage their growing mobile customer base with a high-quality, fully-branded experience

Singlebrook will launch WhatCanI.Do at the NY Business Expo. WhatCanI.Do is a product of Singlebrook’s startup incubator program. The WhatCanI.Do platform lets non-profit organizations create event or campaign-focused custom-branded mobile donation sites with no upfront costs and low transaction fees.

About NY Business Expo

NY Business Expo 2012 is a disruptive and interactive B2B trade show that focuses on showcasing innovative products and services from startups and small businesses in the tri-state area.  The event will take place at the 69th Regiment Armory on November 14th and 15th.  The show includes five components: Show Floor, Startup Central, Small Business Classroom, After Party, and StartEngine Demo Day.  Sign up today to become part of the EXPO experience! To order a booth, click here.

Pinterest is now the third most popular social networking site in the US, behind Facebook and Twitter, according to a new report by Experian Hitwise. Web traffic to Pinterest traffic surged 50% from January to February of 2012, enabling the invitation-only site to overtake LinkedIn, Tagged, and Google+ in total monthly visits.

Below, the top 10 social sites in Experian Hitwise's Social Networking & Forums category, ranked by total visits* in March:

Facebook: 7.0 billion
Twitter: 182.2 million
Pinterest: 104.4 million
LinkedIn: 85.7 million
Tagged: 72.5 million
Google+: 61.0 million
MySpace: 43.3 million
MyYearbook: 38.1 million
MyLife: 29.7 million
Tumblr: 29.6 million

Read more...

It's helpful to refer to Gartner Research Director Lydia Leong's blog post detailing the process of creating a Magic Quadrant report. 

"We lay this process out formally in the initiation letters sent to vendors when we start MQ research, so I'm not giving away any secrets here, just exposing a process that's probably not well known to people outside of analyst relations roles," she wrote.

Here's Lydia's summary of the objective process that she and the other Gartner analysts follow, which generally takes about four months:

• Step 1: Define a market and inclusion criteria.
• Step 2: Get approval from chief analysts.
• Step 3: Decide evaluation criteria and weights.
• Step 4: Send the evaluation criteria and weights to vendors.
• Step 5: Do hour long briefings with vendors.
• Step 6: Contact three to five reference customers provided by the vendor (however, Gartner mostly relies on the experiences of its clients).
• Step 7: Enter the numeric scores into the tool that generates the Magic Quadrant graph.
• Step 8: Write-up all the text.
• Step 9: Peer review.
• Step 10: Alter text and numeric scores accordingly.
• Step 11: Send the vendors a copy of the graphic and text written about them for fact-checking.
• Step 12: Finally, it goes on to editing and review.

Lydia goes into more detail here.