EMoney was given the task of moderating a panel called “Leveraging New Markets” in front of a packed room with two other competing panels.

The participants were Ted Sorom, the CEO of Rixty, Bruce Bower, the CEO of Plastic Jungle and Jeff Thomas, SVP of SecondMarket.

There’s no video, so you’ll have to endure a written recap from my perspective as chief interrogator.

First, if you aren’t familiar with these companies, the four of us can attest there’s only one thread in common: Liquidity, and creating marketplaces to make assets more fluid.

The discussion is well-timed as we push beyond e-commerce and Web 2.0 to a new reality, where reducing friction to payments is turning into a large opportunity.

One solution popping up everywhere is to create virtual currencies, which solves the problem of paying for many items at small price points because it doesn’t make economic sense to charge 50 cents to your credit card on a regular basis.

Meanwhile, there’s lots of clogs in the system, ranging from gift cards that are never redeemed, to a large population of people who don’t have credit cards, to the more extreme, like what will eventually happen to all of those unused Groupon and LivingSocial vouchers?

Here’s a look at how all three are trying to add liquidity to the system:

Rixty: The San Francisco company allows consumers to buy prepaid cards with cash to be redeemed for game credits online, such as Facebook Credits and Zynga’s CityVille.

On the panel, Sorom announced that Rixty’s distribution was increasing from 20,000 physical locations to 70,000 with the addition of Green Dot MoneyPak prepaid cards, which are sold at Walmart and 7-11. Greendot charges a $4.95 service fee, which Rixty will redeem as soon as soon as the card is spent online.

Plastic Jungle: The San Jose, Calif.-based company is a secondary market for unwanted and unused gift cards.

The company buys them for up to 92 percent of face value, and sells them at a discount. Bower says some of the highest value gift cards are for Target and Walmart because they are the closest to cash. The lowest value cards are from local retailers or seasonal items, like See’s Candy, which only sell well on Valentine’s Day and Christmas.

SecondMarket: The New York-based company is a secondary market for private stock in companies, such as Facebook and Twitter. It deals in getting liquidity to employees or shareholders, who can’t yet sell their stock on the public market.

The summary is that while cash may still be king, the trend is to enable liquidity.

Some of the high-level takeaways:

– Thomas of SecondMarket: The company is constantly in headlines for being associated with Facebook’s $70 billion-plus or minus-private valuation. He said private company stock sales have become the fastest growing part of its business with transactions increasing to $400 million in 2010, up from only $100 million in 2009.

He said an essential part to keeping the assets liquid is to keep the information flowing, which is inherently difficult with companies that aren’t required to disclose any financial information. The company will soon be partnering with researchers to produce independent reports that will be purchased by potential investors.

Sorom of Rixty: One of the big questions was how dominate Facebook will be able to become as a virtual currency platform.

Most panelists agreed that it was inevitable that it will become a powerhouse, but that it will face hurdles on two fronts. In order for it to win, it will have to appeal both to consumers and merchants. And, currently it charges a 30 percent fee, which is much too high for most physical and even some digital goods.

Sorom said regulations will also limit its activities. Just like at Rixty, they have avoided allowing users too much liquidity. The credits can only be used for pre-approved merchants and can not be swapped or traded among friends. Similarly, Sorom believes that Facebook would not have that have that ability, given current federal regulations.

Bower at Plastic Jungle: Bower saved the best for last. Whenever trying to come up for a good description of liquidity think back to your college days, especially if they were pre-Internet.

As a crafty collegiate, he learned to live off one square meal, turning in his other meal plan points for cash. He purchased brand new textbooks on his parent’s dime and then returned them for used books a day later. All of the cash allowed him to gain the most important liquid asset of all — beer.

Photo Credit: Rick Scully.

Kara opened the week with a bier-trinken good time at Gourmet Haus Staudt, better known as the infamous iPhone bar. Everyone has been speculating about Jobs’ reaction to the whole debacle, and midweek Kara broke the news that we may just get to ask him. Kara revealed that Mr. Jobs will be one of the headline interviews at the upcoming D8 conference. Kara rounded out the week with some great analysis of Yahoo’s (YHOO) concerning brain drain. Kara will have to ask Carol Bartz about it when they see each other next–hopefully she’ll let us watch.

Digital Daily this week featured posts on a series of high-profile acquisitions from everyone’s favorite tech giant. John reported early in the week that Apple (AAPL) acquired Intrinsity, the firm behind those A4 chips driving iPads everywhere. Flexing their market-cap muscle again, Apple also bought up digital assistant software maker Siri, whose iPhone app can do things like call you a cab or find you a restaurant, all via voice. John finished out the week with some post-game analysis of what the fallout from the HP-Palm acquisition will be. We can be sure of one thing, HP (HP) won’t force Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein to handle an iPhone. They give him hives.

Media Memo, fresh off new-baby hiatus, opened up the week with news of the acquisition of the cell phone insider
Boy Genius Report by Jay Penske, who will add it to his already rich stable of blogs including that of celeb gossiper Nikki Finke and Bonnie Fuller. Midweek, Peter took a look at Hulu’s numbers after a Comscore (SCOR) report came out saying they were gaining ground, despite losing both Stewart and Colbert as traffic drivers. Peter rounded things out with a post we’ve been waiting for since we got word of the Flashless iPad. It looks like Wired is going back to the drawing board and rebuilding its magazine application on a platform that isn’t banned.

Walt focused on computers of the folding variety this week with a column that runs down all the things you need to know beforebuying a laptop today. The mailbox was full to the brim, and Walt dispatched the questions with his usual all-knowing ease. Weekend Update was particularly interested in hearing all about using the Kindle in Japan. Katie dedicated her post this week to all things video chat. Weekend Update is a little creeped out by the whole thing, but we may have to get used to it if that next iPhone has a camera on the front side.

Stay tuned for the coming weeks. We’re ramping up for the D8 conference, and this is the best time of year to be an AllThingsD reader.

When BoomTown was kibitzing with SurveyMonkey CEO Dave Goldberg about where to meet up this week for a chat to catch up, we decided to forgo the obvious and instead choose the complete Silicon Valley cliche of the moment.

Destination: Redwood City and the now-infamous Gourmet Haus Staudt.

As in, the beer garden behind the German grocery store where the iPhone 4G prototype was snatched off a stool from a birthday-celebrating Apple (AAPL) engineer by person still unknown and sold to the now-police-shookdown Gizmodo gadget site.

In other words, just like going to the Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) or Google (GOOG) garage, but fun and with German beer.

We chatted with a very delightful bartender, who filled us in a bit on the night–about the birthday party, about the funky place being popular with tech folk and about how most patrons believe the smartphone was stolen.

There is a lost-and-found behind the bar, he said, and pretty much everyone returns items left by ale-addled customers.

And, let me just say, if the conspiracy theory types who think Apple planned the whole thing saw this charming, but dowdy, joint, they’d think twice about some fiendish plot by CEO Steve Jobs.

This is a perfect place to lose an iPhone or anything else you can imagine.

In any case, we’ll see how it all plays out in the days ahead.

Until then, although no video was allowed, but here are some lovely snaps from my in-my-possession-despite-the-giant-glass-o-beer 3G iPhone to enjoy (click on the images to make them larger):

Unassuming Front:

Window With Gnome and German Hat-Wearing Lion (Also Beer, Natch!):

Dave Points Out the Obvious:

Dave and the Sign:

More Sign (Nine! No, 11! No, 13 German beers on tap!):

Stools of No Return:

Gemütlichkeit-filled Dave und Bier Nicht Mehr:

“I recently read in the news that you lost a very special phone at a German beer bar in California. We all know how frustrating it can be to lose personal belongings, especially when it is such a unique item.

At Lufthansa we also noted with great interest your passion for German beer and culture….Therefore we would love to offer you complimentary Business Class transportation to Munich, where you can literally pick up where you last left off.”

– Lufthansa spins a bit of clever PR from this week’s iPhone prototype debacle.

The tool has been around for a while and got a formal roll out earlier this fall, but Google (GOOG) product manager Nick Jacobi just showed it off to the chattering (and tweeting) classes gathered at the Monaco Media Forum, so it’s going to get another burst of attention. (Also of interest, apparently: A dustup between Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner and Arianna Huffington. Looking forward to watching that.)

Anyway, the Insights tool is self-explanatory and entertaining, at the very least. For instance, I used it to find out what 35-44 year-old males who like advertising, beer and football (ahem) are watching, and got this results page.

The most interesting part of the results is a mosaic of videos (above; click to enlarge) that my target demographic is watching, which includes some obvious stuff, like “Amazing NFL Football Catches,” and some really obscure stuff, like an episode of “Shazam.” I also found this Kirby Puckett tribute, which pleased me to no end:

It was meant all in fun, as poking holes in the frothy atmosphere around the innovative microblogging hottie is kind of an easy layup.

But Matthew Alexander called my use of the wacky Kool-Aid pitcher man image (see below) “kinda harsh” in a tweet.

And I got several other how-could-I-not-see-the-genius-in-overblown-investing-hype emails too.

Sensitive Sallys all, but in the interest of fairness, here are some other visual choices–in images and videos–for a metaphorical depiction of the Twitter valuation.

Please select whichever suits you!

Frothy beer mug hat:

Nena-99′s Luftballoons (How much do I love this song? Muchly much!):

Bubbles the chimp with his special friend:

Violet Beauregard blowing up like a blueberry in the “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” movie, including cool Oompa-Loompa song:

And, for all your dreamers, just right:

You know what you can touch? Today? How about a PC you control by shoving your hands in a box full of mud?

Seriously. All you have to do is get yourself to New York’s Nolita neighborhood and drop by Gizmodo’s annual gallery show, chock full of cool, weird and often gloriously useless gadgetry.

Among other geegaws on display: An automated pancake maker, some spark-emitting and dangerous-looking Tesla coils, a “Star Trek” tricorder and a videogame that dispenses beer. And, of course, an array of Apple (AAPL) paraphernalia, including some arts-and-craftsy iPhone cases.

The free show, which runs through Sunday, is mostly a labor of love on the part of head gadgeteer Brian Lam. But I gather it’s now making some money, via sponsorships, for Gawker Media’s Nick Denton. (And if that’s the case, I hope Denton uses some of that money to make sure there’s enough power and air conditioning at next year’s gallery. Also maybe some cots for his charges.)

Lam gave me a mini-tour yesterday afternoon, which I filmed with a Flip camcorder. If want to to see for yourself (it’s much less shaky that way), drop by the gallery at 267 Elizabeth Street.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090923/tablet-shmablet-how-about-a-mud-pc/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090710/how-to-kill-the-rest-of-your-friday/ http://allthingsd.com/20090710/how-to-kill-the-rest-of-your-friday/#comments Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:25:50 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=9181 Maybe you’re in New York and need to waste an hour or two before you scoot out of the office. Maybe you’re on the West Coast and have a full half day to go. But regardless of where you work, it’s a Friday in July. And you’re not getting any real work done at this point.

My time-killing suggestion for the day: AdWeek’s “AdFreak” blog, which is packed with TV ads you probably haven’t seen. Did you know, for instance, that the Kool-Aid man was back?

Or perhaps you’ve wondered what a North Korean beer ad looks like (though honestly, you don’t need to go the full two-and-a-half minutes on this one; 20 seconds is fine):

Or maybe you want to see a guy doing a backflip in a wheelchair, as in this spot for Howstuffworks.com:

One word of warning: Don’t bother with the “Eat Canadian” ad, which is earnest and dull. Save that for Monday, as you’re easing into the week. Enjoy your weekend!

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090710/how-to-kill-the-rest-of-your-friday/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090612/kara-visits-the-lobby-party-on-sand-hill-road-as-opposed-to-the-sandy-beaches-of-hawaii/ http://allthingsd.com/20090612/kara-visits-the-lobby-party-on-sand-hill-road-as-opposed-to-the-sandy-beaches-of-hawaii/#comments Fri, 12 Jun 2009 23:55:23 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=14454

Last night, BoomTown went to a lovely party thrown by David Hornik, the August Capital VC who also runs The Lobby conference in his spare time.

He threw the event because those who attend the annual invitation-only gathering in Hawaii wanted to get together again during the year in Silicon Valley for even more schmoozing.

I went to the first Lobby in the fall of 2007 (you can see my video of that below too), so Hornik let me in to have some pizza and beer at August’s offices on Sand Hill Road and use my Flip video to ask those in attendance where they thought the digital sector was in terms of the economy and innovation.

So here’s Hornik, angel investor Brett Bullington (who is also in the 2007 video, but in shorts) and BillShrink’s Peter Pham, as well a merger of MINIs.

Here’s the video (with my 2007 one below it):

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090612/kara-visits-the-lobby-party-on-sand-hill-road-as-opposed-to-the-sandy-beaches-of-hawaii/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20090527/d7tech-demo-immersion/ http://allthingsd.com/20090527/d7tech-demo-immersion/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 23:15:19 +0000 Oliver J. Chiang http://d7.allthingsd.com/?p=250

Immersion (IMMR) is the company behind haptic, or touch feedback, technology for some videogame consoles and cellphones. At D7, the company will reveal two of its newest technologies: TouchSense for touchscreen keyboards and Immersive Messaging. With TouchSense, the user is not only supposed to be able to get haptic feedback, but can also feel the virtual keys. Immersive Messaging will also use haptic feedback, as well as gesture recognition, to send messages that employ physical senses rather than text.

Session Highlights

Live Blog

• Walt and Kara welcome Immersion CTO Christophe Ramstein to the stage. Rock music plays.
• Christophe: I am here to unveil two new things: Immersive Message and TouchSense Keyboards. Walt: So it makes an iPhone virtual keyboard feel like a mechanical keyboard. Christophe: Bingo.
• Everything here is new, shiny, and of course, available for productization.
• Cue infomercial: Ever feel like virtual typing is difficult? Now there’s TouchSense! Christophe types on the virtual keyboard and we hear the keyboard sounds. Pretty realistic. Kara tries it too. Christophe: What do you feel? Kara: Funny. I feel like it’s going to shock me.
• Walt: This is very cool, but what’s the advantage? Can I not look at my keyboard now. Christophe: It’s about transitioning between keys, and yes, without looking. Sounds alone don’t do the trick. We can do other things with our haptic feedback and kinesthetics too.

• Walt: Do Olli-Pekka and the Palm (PALM) guys know about this? Christophe: [says some stuff]. Walt: But you didn’t answer my question. Christophe: I understand that. [conference takes a beat, then moves on.] This was paraphrased, of course.
• Immersive Messaging: You can get physical sense-feedback through messaging. We also have “hapticons.” Hapti-huh? Kara: It sounds like what Kirk fought in the last Star Trek. Walt: Those were the Romulans.–Only at D7. I think it sounds like the Decepticon’s kid brother.
• Christophe demonstrates a hapticon heart on his phone. He now tells us to use our imaginations….Pretend you (Walt and Kara) are on a trip, and you are lovers. You can create a heart and it can even beat.
• Christophe blows onto his screen, and was able to send the heart over. He says, you can send these heart hapticons over the Internet. Kara: So it’s not like some creepy guy on the plane will send you one. Christophe: Touch the heart I sent you. What do you feel? Kara: It’s beating.
• Now Christophe’s using a hammering gesture, tapping on his phone. Walt feels these taps on the receiving end. Kara: He keeps nailing us. Walt: Not what I expected.
• The CTO starts to wax and wane: There are infinite possibilities. Walt: Actually there aren’t infinite possibilities in this limited-time demo.
• Now onto twiddling. It sounds a bit racy. Kara is intrigued (euphemism). Twiddling is that special time after I get off work, beer in hand, Christophe begins. Immersion may want to rethink that selling point.

• Twiddling turns out to be a way that two people can simultaneously touch their own phone’s touchscreens and virtually feel each other, again through haptic feedback.
• Christophe shows off the ability to say “cheers” to a friend with a champagne sound/feel of bubbles and clinking.
• Walt: Will this be an iPhone app? Christophe: I could tell you, but then I’d have to keeeeel you. Walt and Kara: Fair enough. Off with you now! You’ve been a good sport.

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