Business Services Industry

Venture Voice Launches World's First Interactive Podcast Awards Show; Apprentice Winner Kelly Perdew, Blogger Founder Evan Williams and Excite Founder Joe Kraus Among Nominees

Business Wire, Dec 28, 2005

HUNTINGTON, N.Y. -- Venture Voice, the premier podcast radio show covering venture capital and entrepreneurship, has launched a competition that gives listeners a voice by voting for the 2005 Entrepreneur of the Year. Listeners can cast their vote at http://www.venturevoice.com/entrepreneur2005.> During an interview, Venture Voice host Gregory Galant said, "Podcasting allows us to bring the stories of startups to life - but so far we've only been telling one side. We've given entrepreneurs a voice. Now we're handing the microphone over to our thousands of loyal listeners."

Listeners may call 212-461-4850 or send an audio file to give an impassioned rant about who should win. People may also vote on the website, but audio votes are given five times more weight.

Everyone who's been interviewed on Venture Voice is nominated:

Drew Clark of IBM Venture                  Dick Costolo of FeedBurner
 Capital Group                             Brad Feld of Mobius Venture
Deborah Farrington of Starvest Partners     Capital
Jason Fried of 37signals                   Fabrice Grinda of Zingy
Jeremy Hague of Skylook                    Scott Heiferman of Meetup
David Hornik of August Capital             Joel Spolsky of Fog Creek
Kelly Perdew, winner of The Apprentice      Software
Philip Kaplan of AdBrite and               Tom Szaky of TerraCycle
 F'dCompany                                VideoEgg Founders
Joe Kraus of JotSpot and Excite            Mena Trott of Six Apart
Scott Rafer, formerly of Feedster          Derek Sivers of CD Baby
Evan Williams of Odeo, founder of Blogger (acquired by Google)

Listeners may cast their vote until January 9th. Venture Voice will announce the winner in its January 17th podcast. The podcast will play audio clips from listeners, followed by an acceptance speech from the winner. This contest gives an unusually high level of interactivity to podcasts, allowing listeners to shape an entire show.

About the Host

Greg Galant has worked at CNN.com and for a venture capital firm. He launched Venture Voice after graduating from college May 2005. He's also the CEO of RadioTail, the leading company facilitating podcast advertising.

While running an entrepreneurship workshop for high school and college students for five years, Galant noticed a need for information about starting businesses and created Venture Voice to fill the void.

RadioTail matches podcasts with advertisers. It provides unique technology to place and track podcast ad campaigns. Clients include McGraw-Hill.