GRA/TAG Competition for the $250,000+ Grand Prize goes “Hollywood”
with Audience Voting on TAGtvOnline.com
ATLANTA (April 10, 2010) – Just as American Idol and Dancing with the Stars combine professional judging and audience tallies to determine winners, an online audience voting feature for the best company video presentation has been added for a second year to the TAG/GRA annual Business Launch Competition where candidates vie for a grand prize of cash and services totaling $300,000! The online Fast Forward People’s Choice audience voting will take two companies that the judges did not select into the semi-finals as “wild cards.” The audience has power!
Online voting will continue for 10 participating Business Launch competitor technology companies from April 19 through the 30th in the People’s Choice contest. To gain audience votes, each company refined their venture capital “elevator” pitch into a one minute presentation which was professionally taped and put online for audience votes on TAG TV at TAGtvOnline.com. Every People’s Choice vote will be important! The two highest vote getters will become Fast Forward “wild card” entries – if the judges did not select them to present and defend their business plan as semi-finalists in May – leading to the final judging of the prize winner on June 2, 2008.
Who will be Georgia’s venture capital “idol” and stay in the competition? Considering the videos are not meant to be serious presentations to the judges – that comes later -- it will be interesting to see who breaks out of the box and shows passion or gets audience attention in some other way at the end of the two-week contest. Be sure to vote for a favorite emerging technology company video on TAGtvOnline.com!
According to one of the two 2008 People’s Choice winners, CEO of ProperNotice Henry Dan, the video competition wild card position in the semi-finals was crucial. “Looking back, without that video, probably we would not have made it to the Finals. Because of that win, we got to present to the semi-final judges and, due to a skillful presentation and an excellent Q&A, we were selected to go the finals,” he said. Many contestants agreed that the competition, although fun, helped them refine their value proposition as well as their contact base while executing strategies for stimulating votes.
Peoples Choice participants will be presented not only to the Georgia technology and venture capital communities on TAGtvOnline.com but also to a world of opportunities afforded with placement and appropriate investment search keywords on the most popular peer-to-peer video sites such as YouTube. All 17 competing companies have the chance of being discovered by investors and customers in Georgia and around the world!
The exciting annual GRA/TAG Business Launch Competition is an event designed to help a local start up technology-based company launch its business. Applicants, then semifinalists, then finalists vie for the $50,000 cash award and services valued at an additional $200,000+, for a total grand prize of $300,000+. The comprehensive prize provided by GRA and TAG is a way to reward high-tech entrepreneurship and assure a deserving Georgia start up company has everything in place to be successful.
The purpose of the Georgia Research Alliance (GRA) and Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) Business Launch Competition is to support economic development in Georgia by encouraging and supporting the creation and growth of new companies that will strengthen and expand Georgia's strategic high tech clusters.
Once again, worldwide peer-to-peer video technology distribution is coupled and packaged with the excitement of the online voting for Georgia’s Peoples Choice on TAGtvOnline.com, a joint venture of TAG and globalspeak.com. Stay tuned for the announcement of the winners!
About TAGtvOnline.com
A joint venture between the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) and globalspeak new media, TAG TV features TAG event videos such as GRA/TAG Business Launch Competition, the Georgia Technology Summit and the Excalibur Awards. The WebVisions series highlights a new technology related video each week day from the most popular WWW social video sites. WebVisions features news, products and speeches of influential technology leaders such as Bill Gates and CEOs of Google, Twitter and more. RSS technology feeds a variety of new technology-related video and radio programming to the site daily. Tech Talk with Tino, the flagship weekly radio show hosted by TAG President Tino Mantella, has featured interviews with top executives from Google, AT&T, The Weather Channel, Caribou Coffee Company and Georgia Aquarium, as well as best selling authors such as Dan Ariely (Irrational Predictability) and Don Tapscott (Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything). Learn more about TAG TV at www.tagtvonline.com.
About TAG
The Technology Association of Georgia is a non-profit organization whose mission is to support its members by generating opportunities for personal, professional and business growth. By forging strategic alliances, TAG serves as a primary catalyst to foster a rich environment for economic development in Georgia's technology community. TAG is made up of 3500 members representing technology leaders from over 600 Georgia-based companies, affiliated technology and business organizations. For more information on TAG, visit: www.tagonline.org.
About GRA
A model public-private partnership between Georgia universities, business and state government, the Georgia Research Alliance helps build Georgia’s technology-rich economy in three major ways: through attracting Eminent Scholars to Georgia’s research universities; through helping create centers of research excellence and through converting research into products, services and jobs that drive the economy. To learn more about GRA, visit www.gra.org.
About globalspeak
Since 1998, globalspeak, the exclusive producer of TAG TV and TAG Radio, has pioneered cutting edge new media marketing communications platforms. Utilizing advanced Internet video and audio technology for government agencies, organizations and corporations, globalspeak has been at the forefront of the Media 2.0 technology evolution. Beginning with one of the first live streaming media broadcasts over the World Wide Web in 1998 for the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) for marketing purposes, hundreds of subsequent client projects have included virtual collaboration environments, corporate Webcast presentations and channels, live trade networks, and virtual venture forums for various industries. With years of marketing expertise, Globalspeak creates unique solutions for any communication or collaboration challenge. In addition, Globalspeak video production, multi-media and new media expertise helps companies and organizations realize the promise of the Internet to syndicate or monetize branded content, drive business response, collaborate or create new revenue streams without adding unnecessary IT infrastructure or expense. Learn more about globalspeak at www.globalspeak.com