#VegasTech is on a hot streak, sporting over 200 local tech startups, multiple incubators in the works, angels who are downright jittery about defending their turf from outsiders and big data guys who are setting up the most incredible infrastructure on the planet. Oh, and the #VegasTech horde is double rainbows and unicorns amazing. The scene is infectious. Vegas has struck gold right in the heart of downtown.

One of those nuggets is local Las Vegas super-crew www.rumgr.com. The team @dylanbathurst, @raycmorgan and @alexcoleman have made it stupid-easy to sell stuff locally. Simply download the Rumgr app, take a picture of whatever it is you want terminated from your residence and wait for rummagers to take it off your hands. No complex listing requirements, no shipping and handling, no approvals/denials, you don’t even need to list a price for the item (although we are a little worried about seeing some of JJ’s junk on Rumgr).

Sounds harmless enough, but what makes it a game changer? Can Rumgr really put Vegas on the tech startup map? The new chapter of Mobile Monday Las Vegas which launches on December 5^th thinks so.

The event is going to be at UNLV and is expected to be sold out. The speaker roster and product demo line-up is fan-boy worthy. Rumgr will be showcasing their product via a live auction to help raise money for MOMOLV.  To kick off the night, Rumgr is setting up a dual projector screen presentation to educate the audience:  how to download and use the app on one screen while displaying the items that have been donated for the live auction on the other. This is a real-time, real-community event where passionate #VegasTech supporters come out not just to listen to another presentation, but to actively support their homegrown startup and get involved.

Numbers matter in the startup world and sadly, Vegas does not have a large early adopter community like Silicon Valley. Getting to 10,000 users in this town is like trying to get a psycho-hoarder to purge. So Rumgr is taking full advantage of every opportunity to not only support a worthy cause but innovate and draw users in by the droves. Local wine snobs have donated a number of frou-frou bottles of Bordeaux and the crowd expects to get a deal (Ha! Throw in a buffet and maybe). Match the frenzy of an “I wanna be popular too” auction (bidders get to see their profile pics on the big screen, winners will be heroes), with the loyalty of the locals that attend every #VegasTech event thrown at them and the Rumgr app will be taken to a whole new level.

It is entirely expected that everyone in attendance will participate. That kind of magic goes viral. Think of the application on a global perspective. Events happen each and every day all around the globe. They all need something to spice them up and they all desperately need more money and more audience participation. Oh yeah, the “new” term for that is social media – a big thing with the search engines nowadays. Getting an audience or a community to love you and tweet, fan and plus your way to stardom is not easy (#SEO). For most actions, there are very few social reactions. But Rumgr has found a way to get total audience participation at each event they attend and that translates to Google ranking gold.

I’ve seen it all too often. Huge money is spent putting on events, trying to be innovative and elevate the audience to some new state of consciousness only to receive nothing in the way of social mentions. And that’s what everyone wants right?  Attendees have already become too lazy to even tweet or it’s no longer cool to simply announce to the world that I’m at this “super awesome – conference” that is just like every other conference happening at this exact moment. It’s all just noise.

But bring the whole room into a collaborative social action, a competitive show-boating bid-fest and the social fun is written on the wall.

Rumgr is getting its early adopters in a very smart way. A true win-win-win in a town where #winning is a pipe dream the locals are all too well schooled in. Now, some savvy Las Vegans are investing in tech, which could well be the other game in town. Like Rumgr, comprised of some smart ex-Zappos c0drs who get simple-stupid and are the life of the party. It’s a winning combination.

Vegas tech is a whole new kind of wonderful, people. Check-change, we’re cashing in!

I believe that we will look back at this decade as the beginning of an economic revolution as important as the scientific revolution in the 16th century and the industrial revolution in the 18th century. We’re standing at the beginning of the entrepreneurial revolution.

You see, it’s only in the last few years that we’ve come to appreciate that past start-ups were constrained by:

• long technology development cycles
• closed clubs of venture capital
• geographical constraints (success clustered in regions such as Silicon Valley, New York and Boston)
• high advertising costs
• excessive failure rates (less expertise on how to build start-ups)
• slow adoption of new technology by large companies

But search and social have changed all that…

When in the U.S.’s history has the President actually addressed America saying that we are a “nation of Facebook and Google?”

Google just announced that it will be hiring over 6000 new positions this year. Apple is now the second largest market cap company in the U.S. after Exxon/Mobile with a valuation over $300 billion. LinkedIn just filed for its upcoming IPO and the Global IPO market is on track for its biggest January in years, if not ever! By the end of January 88 companies are expected to go public worldwide.

When I last wrote about Facebook, its valuation had just hit $40 billion. In a few short weeks they have announced successfully securing another $1.5 billion in funding (a record breaker for pre-IPO) putting their valuation north of $50 billion and subsequently, Facebook now plans to file its IPO paperwork by April 2012. And by the way, $1 billion of the funds raised comes from Goldman Sachs’ wealthy individual clients – an insider’s only deal (as an angel investor, you can eventually work your way into those types of circles or at least set your sights there…). Facebook also surpassed Google as the most visited site in 2010 and should be able to hold that position from here on out.

But in even bigger news: “Pardon me, but you wouldn’t happen to have any Group-pon?” Groupon recently raised $950 million in a series E round, giving it a valuation of $15 billion. Its founders seem to be living by the creed of striking while the iron is hot – off the heels of the $6 billion Google offer. This is incredible for such a young company. Groupon’s sprint to the public markets matches the speed of its own evolution. In less than three years, the daily discount site has gone from a start-up to one of the Web’s fastest-growing companies, with more than 50 million users worldwide and annual revenue of more than $1 billion. Its staff, now 3,100, has expanded so quickly that the company, which is based in Chicago, had to relocate its meetings to a nearby church.

More than $573 million of Groupon’s take was used for liquidity, which means that only $377 million was new equity. I bet you all wished you were angels in that deal! Many of the Groupon shareholders were upset that Google’s $6 billion buyout was turned down, but this $573 million that got paid out to existing shareholders softened the blow. The new $15 billion valuation helped too…

Living Social, a Groupon competitor, received $175 million investment from Amazon and two weeks ago launched a one day deal for Amazon gift certificates. For 24 hours, it sold $20 Amazon gift cards for half that price, and customers eagerly chomped at the deal. In the end, 1,378,938 million cards — the equivalent of 7,600 an hour or 80 per second — were sold in the U.S., and the resulting frenzy made headlines as the biggest Living Social sale to date and what the company argues was possibly the biggest flash sale ever.

All this frenzy points to the new golden era that is now upon us: crowd-leveraged-networks, a.k.a. social media. When you can organize millions of users under one connected umbrella you have the power to instantly drive revenue based on what the crowd dictates, validates and demands. In essence, the Living Social deal turned crowd-leveraged-buying away from just local restaurants and business coupons to any type of deal that has mass appeal. Books, electronics, media like movies and music, household items and even automotives could all start to make their way into this social buying space. The crowd doesn’t even need to commit until enough participants have agreed to the deal. If enough commit, then the sellers can find a way to make the margins work for them – the social Wal-Mart.

There is a new social media phenomenon emerging called “crowd wisdom.” I think that it could be collectively tracked and connected to form an alert system or call-to-action system that calls attention to when consumers are getting ripped off. Think of the concept of “most popular tweets” or Tweetmeme’s filters but as a vertical application aggregated together into a true social awareness system instead of just a popular news source.

I would love a system that is better than just reviews or a simple product warning, but would rather cause manufacturers to think twice before releasing a product that suits their criteria. A crowd wisdom system would motivate them to instead release it the way the crowd wants the product to function. I think Apple tested the waters on the price point for their new iPad by leaking pricing info ahead of the launch, but even that doesn’t go as far as I would like.

TED speaker and The New Yorker contributor James Surowiecki writes in his book “The Wisdom Of Crowds” about the aggregation of information in groups, resulting in decisions that, he argues, are often better than could have been made by any single member of the group.

I like where that thinking is going, but instead of just making decisions, why not use the crowd to rebel against commerce, when the machine tries to rip off consumers? I kind of like the sound of that.

The Lord Of The Rings trilogy is soon to be released on Blu-ray. This is long overdue. When originally release to DVD, the studio first released the theatrical version, then finally the director’s extended version. Fans were upset with the need to purchase two versions because the studio did not release the “best” version first. We all know this is a ploy to make more money. iPad is being released without many features that could have been included in the first version, but that wouldn’t make Apple the same amount of revenue that a multi-stage roll out could.

Fans of the Lord Of The Rings took matters into their own hands and collaborated to drag down the product review for the upcoming Blu-ray release over at Amazon. If you read the first few posts: “We won’t get fooled again…”, “Why do you want to rip us off?” and “You will be disappointed with this theatrical version!!” you will see the power of crowd wisdom in action.

Once again Amazon, in an indirect way, is pioneering a crowd wisdom system that gives power to the consumer. It communicates directly to the manufacturer and tells them to change their tactics or else. I hope Amazon will see this and use it to fight for the consumer. None of us want the “theatrical” versions of any type of product. It is simply waste.

The message from the crowd is that we want the best any product can be right from the start. Mark my words, there will be a social media startup that will leverage this concept into such a powerful pre-launch feedback system that no company will dare release anything without first consulting the wisdom of the crowd.

I hope that day comes soon. Until then, I am waiting for the extended Blu-ray version.

At Old Bisbee Roasters their goal is to allow you to experience small farm coffee “roasted to taste” and delivered fresh. And I mean fresh. When I order a few pounds, they roast and ship it the same day. It usually arrives one or two days later. The experience of walking out to the mailbox it quite amazing. From 30 feet away you can smell the coffee. I am not kidding. The fresh roasted aroma is so amazing and so strong all you can smell, even when you are outside, is roasted coffee beans. It overwhelms your senses and the taste buds explode.

You will taste the pride, love and devotion of Bisbee’s coffee growers in every cup. Whenever possible, the coffee growers family or farmer’s co-op name is printed on the label, as well as the growing region and country of origin. Bisbee’s roasts these intense and unusual coffees by taste, not to color or brewing style.  For this reason, you will find there are no “French Roasts” at Old Bisbee Roasters, only the roast that develops the most flavor from each bean.

Everything I have ordered has been unique and incredible. There is nothing like it. Some types of beans brew to a liquid consistency of thick dark chocolate. Much thicker than a traditional brew, but not overpoweringly strong. This is because the oil content in the beans is higher since you get to brew it only a few short days after being roasted. It is so good, you can feel the love.

Roasting “to taste” allows you to experience the joy of small farm coffee. Bisbee’s is passionately devoted to quality, and finds the best coffee is often available in very short season. Your coffee will be custom roasted in a 10 lbs. drum, packaged with your name and roasting date on the label, and shipped while still warm by USPS Priority Mail. Almost all orders shipped within Arizona are delivered next-day, while orders shipped coast to coast within the US are delivered within two days.

I believe you will find nothing in this world compares to the taste of a truly good coffee from a small family farm. Bisbee’s is beyond compare in the quality and care they show during the roasting process and they are equally as serious about getting those wonderful beans to you as soon as possible. Experience something beyond the typical franchise coffee chains and frou-frou boutiques. Try something that supports the small family farmers and makes a positive impact on the world around us. You won’t be sorry, Old Bisbee Roasters will take you to a whole new level of appreciation for the magical brew that keeps us geeks fueled each day. Enjoy!

There is a handy new icon that shows if a tweet was retweeted. There is also a new link in your right hand navigation menu called “Retweets”. This is a simple feature upgrade but one that was long overdue. Now retweeting is a one click process. Click the image below to see a larger screenshot of the welcome screen as the feature is enabled in your Twitter account.

One other cool point to note, at this time, you only see the RT icon from other users who are part of the BETA. Kinda neat to see a mix of old and new RT formats in your thread and see who the beta was enabled for.

I was recently introduced to an entire community, many in their 30s, 40s, and even 50s, who haven’t left their childhood dreams behind and who continue to embrace the magic and wonder that is the Star Wars universe. Some people collect stamps. Some people work to fine tune their car. Others search for the finest whisky on earth. This group of individuals spends their free time reverse engineering the original costumes of their favorite characters from the Star Wars franchise and building their own Star Wars costumes. Some of them even wear these costumes to birthday parties and conventions such as Comic Con!

While the naive would dismiss these individuals as “geeks,” the artistry, talent, and attention to detail are undeniable. Take “The Dented Helmet” for example, a site that is primarily dedicated to the Star Wars character Boba Fett. This site not only explains that there were multiple Boba Fett costumes used throughout the films but has broken each costume down to its most basic components and identified many of these pieces and parts individually as a number of “found parts” were used to create the costume.

Found parts are real world items which have been re-purposed as a detail on a costume. Did you know that parts from record players, cameras, horse girths, army tents, calculators, dark room equipment, scuba gear, and dental equipment are all found on the Boba Fett costume?!? Neither did I, but The Dented Helmet not only know them but have them identified, categorized, and can even tell you where to buy them!

This fan group dissects the smallest details of the Boba Fett costumes, catalogs every last little detail and are a “family-friendly” group who just wish to pass on their love of Star Wars and passion for creating costumes to the next generation!

While you may be too “old” for this sort of thing, it is never too late to build a costume with your kids who can recapture the same passions you enjoyed as a child. If nothing else, give The Dented Helmet a quick look to see a whole world of creativity and talent that often is easily overlooked.

So far the traffic to the site has far surpassed what Andy and I had expected. We did this as a fun project because we thought the service was needed and no other site was providing a quality service similar to this. We have been pleasantly surprised with how well the site has been received by the media and especially by users. You guys rock!

It is amazing to see how things evolve that you never even think about before launching a project. For example, namechk has received hundreds of tweets about the site on Twitter in different languages from people all over the world. Namechk is not “language specific.” You can enter a username in French and it will tell you if it is available. International traffic and props from international users was definitely a cool surprise.

Andy is the best .NET developer I have ever worked with. Developing Namechk only took Andy a couple days in his spare time. We have a lot of useful ideas for the site and plan to add additional features in the near future.

Now that the site has been so well received there have been a large number of requests by users for additional features such as auto-registration on all the sites we query. We are looking into this to see how it could be achieved in the best user experience possible.

Andy and I realize the need for efficiency in securing your username or vanity URL across the web and we hope Namechk helps in that regard. We would love to hear your feedback so please connect with namechk on Twitter and let us know what you think.

More news will follow in the weeks to come. Thanks everyone!

The WeAreNetwork is a national network of local search engines built to power vertical portals that need a local search engine added to their own website. We feed the directory and results via an API that our clients integrate directly into their websites. Since the content is human edited, the results are far more relevant than traditional Yellow Page local search models and the majority of the results served by WeAreNetwork include local website URL’s, not just a phone number and street address.

To find out more about why human edited search results are better than traditional algorithmic ones, check out this article “The Human Touch That May Loosen Google’s Grip“.

Over time, the Las Vegas search engine will power a large number of local Las Vegas portals and should see significant search volume.

Evan Williams, cofounder & CEO of Twitter, on the Charlie Rose show.

Twitterpated: Best Twitter Apps

1. Tweetdeck – this is probably the most popular Twitter app. It provides a modular user interface that can be customized to display various Twitter data in an all-in-one display format. You can also setup groups to only follow a sub-set of those most important to you instead of seeing tweets from everyone you follow.

2. Socialtoo – is also one of the most popular twitter apps which sends you a daily email with information on who follows and unfollows you.  It can also be set to send an automatic response when you are followed/unfollowed as well as automatically follow or unfollow those who follow/unfollow you.

3. Power Twitter – is a Firefox extension that embeds rich media (Flickr, YouTube, etc.) and open web lifestreams into twitter browsing.

4. Twilert – is a Twitter application that lets you receive regular email updates of tweets containing your brand, product, service, well any keyword you like really.

5.Twitterfeed – can post directly to twitter, identi.ca, custom laconica installations, and via Ping.fm, simultaneously to the many services supported by Ping.fm. Good for connecting the blog you author content for to Twitter directly.

If you want a more comprehensive list of the best Twitter apps, the site below lists them based on popularity.

The 100 Most Popular Twitter Applications