A few weeks ago I posted an interview with Laura Bennett, the founder of Embrace Pet Insurance. What I didn’t mention was how great the company’s blog is. If you care about pets, go check it out here. It has all kinds of great information about pet health, pet insurance and pet care. It was recently nominated for the 2007 Blogger’s Choice Award under the Best Animal Blogger award category. Congratulations to Laura and the Embrace Pet Insurance team!

Today my guest is Jonathan Cobb, the founder and CEO of Kiptronic. The company helps online media publishers generate revenue by providing an easy-to-use ad insertion technology platform. Last year, ad spending totaled $80 million for podcasts and $1.5 billion for online video. By 2011, those numbers are expected to grow to $400 million and $6.2 billion respectively. Kiptronic is well positioned to take advantage of this emerging market. Download the mp3 to hear how they will.

 

 StartupStudio interview with Kiptronic founder Jonathan Cobb [22:54m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2281)

Joe Markham’s dog Fritz liked to chew rocks. That’s right — rocks. Out of desperation to saves his dog’s teeth, Joe created the Kong, one of the most unique, successful and useful dog toys of all time. But building the Kong Company wasn’t easy. When he first pitched his idea to pet store owners, they told him not to quit his day job. Fortunately he disregarded their advice and since then, over 50 million Kongs have been sold. That’s almost one for every dog in the US. Listen in to hear how Joe did it.

 

 Kong Company founder Joe Markham [ 34:38m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2643)

In July 2006 Mignon Fogarty launched “Grammar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing,” a podcast that highlights common grammar mistakes. Since then, in under ten months, she’s been a guest on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and the topic of articles in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, BusinessWeek and CNN.com. On iTunes, her podcast has been ranked as high as #2 and her audiobook topped their best-selling list ten days after it was released. Her show has been downloaded over five million times. Listen in to hear how grammar suddenly became hip.

 

 Grammar Girl's founder Mignon Fogarty [16:19m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (2570)

Blip.tv is the video sharing website that focuses on TV style shows that are broadcast in serialized episodes. In addition to being named in Business 2.0’s list of the 25 startups to watch, Walt Mossberg wrote that it is his favorite website for original content episodic TV shows online. “WallStrip“, “Alive in Baghdad“ and “the show with zefrank” are just some of the choices you can find on blip.tv. Funded by several high profile investors including Ron Conway and Peter Thiel, the company is in an excellent position to take advantage of the next generation of video entertainment. My guest today is Dina Kaplan, one of the company’s five co-founders. Download the podcast to hear the company’s story.

 

 blip.tv co-founder Dina Kaplan [36:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1982)