- Startups - News Panel with Rafe Needleman and Peter Horan - TWiST #213

0:00-1:30 Welcome everyone, to TWiST live from the CNET/CBS Interactive studios in San Francisco!

1:30-2:15 Welcome to our guests, CNET editor Rafe Needleman and Halogen Media Group's Peter Horan.

2:15-3:30 Thank you to GoToMeeting for sponsoring the program--they help make trips like this possible!

3:30-5:15 First story: Amazon is said to be opening big-box style stores selling their own branded merchandise. What will the stores look like? Rafe, what do you think?

9:45-11:30 Will Amazon have a brick and mortar store in the next three years?

11:30-12:30 Tyler: If they already know that they're going to ship to a major market, why not go ahead put a store there?

12:30-14:00 Will we see Amazon come out with smartphones, TVs, etc.?

14:00-16:45 Is there a way the consumer will lose in this scenario?

18:15-20:15 Next story: Twitter has gotten a major redesign that compartmentalizes its major elements and gives brands more creative control over their page. Rafe, have you played with this at all yet?

21:30-23:30 If you're a business and you can only build on Facebook or Twitter, which one do you choose?

25:45-26:30 Peter: Think about Google's miraculous scaling over the past five years.

26:30-28:30 Thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring the show! Everyone please thank @squarespace for providing such an awesome product.

28:30-31:30 Next story: Evernote's new Hello app is designed to let people to physically swap phones to enter one anothers' contact info. Is this product too weird to go mainstream?

34:45-38:30 Next story: Zivity's PayPal account was shut down (and later restored) this week after the payment giant claimed that Zivity violated obscenity laws. Was this an arbitrary decision or was there any merit to it?

38:30-40:30 Jason: All this will serve to do is create PayPal alternatives. (See: Dwolla.)

40:45-44:30 UP maker Jawbone apologized this week for defects with their product and offered customers a full refund. Did they offer a mea culpa quickly enough to regain consumer confidence?

47:00-49:45 Rafe: If Amazon does open a retail store, the issue of customer service could be a real challenge. Who do they get to work there?

58:00-58:45 Rafe: The right model for today is app stores and vertical integration.

58:45-1:00:45 Next story: Google has launched a new social reading platform called Currents. Peter, what do you think of this product? Why is Google doing this?

1:03:00-1:05:00 Jason: I think that there's a model for micro-payments to content publishers.

1:05:00-1:08:00 Peter: Publishers have to focus on value-added content and they have to take content out of the free stream.

1:09:45-1:14:15 Last story: This week Time Inc. brought in former Digitas CEO Laura Lang to run the company. Will bringing in someone from so far outside the publishing world work in this instance, Peter?

1:21:15-1:22:00 Thank you to Squarespace and GoToMeeting for sponsoring the program. We'll see you all next time.

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Jason: @jason

Tyler: @steepdecline

Rafe: @rafe

Peter: @peterchoran

GoToMeeting: @gotomeeting

Squarespace: @squarespace

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