Startup

In the final part of our three-part “Media Beat” interview with Jonah Peretti, the internet entrepreneur talks about launching The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed.

“I wasn’t sure if it would be a big success,” Peretti admits, remembering the days leading up to the launch of The Huffington Post. “A friend of mine asked me if he should invest, and I was like ‘I’m not sure’… I didn’t really want to risk my friend’s money.”

He also offers advice for those wanting to launch their own startup, explaining that entrepreneurs shouldn’t worry about what tech blogs are covering.

Part 1: BuzzFeed’s Jonah Peretti: ‘Our Reporters Are Doing the Kind of Work Reporters Love to Do’

Part 2: Jonah Peretti On What It Means To Go Viral

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Riding on the heels of some major investigative journalistic accomplishments, California Watch is making a move to expand its reach to a younger audience. A much, much younger audience. The site has a new children’s section in the works.

Writes Cal Watch’s Ashley Alvarado:

Wee ones will be able to color our “Ready to Rumble” book on earthquake safety right on the site; parents can order or download a copy for home use. Plus, we’ll launch an occasional series of videos featuring Sunny, the California Watchdog, as he helps children understand the issues we report on, like lead in jewelry and the need for clean drinking water.

Looks like when they say “children” they mean children. The site is currently holding a vote to determine the name of the new section. It’s down to Junior Watchdogs, Watchdog Kids and Sunny & Friends. Vote here.

Leila Khalil owns a leading specialized PR boutique firm and blogs about her activities in the celebrity wedding and special events world for the Huffington Post. All of which came in handy when sister Kellee Khalil last year decided to launch wedding photo website lover.ly.

Per an item about Kellee’s efforts in Business Insider, the site is a Pinterest-like destination where users can view wedding photos aggregated from more than two dozen blogs and browse-purchase items shown. Next month, lover.ly will start selling ads across those partnered blogs:

Using her older sister’s contacts, Kellee was able to recruit the initial bloggers for her network. Her sister, of course, was the first on board with her blog Inspired by This. Now lover.ly is a sizable network with 1.8 million uniques and 10 million monthly page views.

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Google has decided to consolidate its Google Music, Google Books and Android Market online properties under a single banner: Google Play. The new digital superstore launched today.

As TechCrunch notes, Google had spent loads of time and energy in recent months trying (unsuccessfully) to brand Android Market. But Google simply has too many digital items to shop outside the smartphone realm. The consolidation has the potential to put Google on par with iTunes. Interestingly, though, unlike iTunes, Google Play is cloud-based. Meaning content can be accessed from any device without the need to clog up space on your hard drive.

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Juntoboxfilms.com, a collaborative film studio and social media platform, gets its name from the American Revolution days. “Benjamin Franklin formed what he called the Junto Society, which consisted of a diverse group of people committed to self-improvement, their community and the aid of others,” senior vice president of digital Rachael McLean tells FishbowlLA. “This is the inspiration behind the name of our company.”

Helping lead this namesake, public-voted 21st century indie film revolution will be Oscar winning actor Forest Whitaker, who was formally announced today as company co-chairman. Inspired by social gaming technology, juntoboxfilms.com will invest a total of $2.5 million in five films this year. They are also hosting a special pre-SXSW digital mixer at their offices in Santa Monica tonight, in partnership with Digital LA.

“We are currently privately funded by individual investors,” McLean explains. “All films are different with the budgeting requirements. The funding will be distributed depending on what the actual film is and the story, that way we aren’t locked into a set amount [per film].”

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In the latest episode of mediabistroTV’s Elevator Pitch, host Alan Meckler meets with piictu founder Jonathan Slimak. Piictu is a mobile app that allows people to collaborate using pictures.

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It seems like a new startup is popping into the media landscape every day. But according to the Small Business Administration, five out of 10 new companies  survive at least five years, one-third will make it 10 years, and only 25 percent stay in business 15 years or more. So what does it take to not just bring the company together, but to maintain its success for a long time?

With help from media moguls, we list the seven traits that makes the difference between a wanna-be with an idea bulb and a successful entrepreneur.

One of the first steps: finding that perfect partner. Cezary Pietrzak was one of four friends who worked together to launch start-up travel site Wanderfly, and he credits their friendship with getting the company off the ground. “You expect to spend a lot of time with other folks in your company and pull late hours, so you have to have a great relationship.”

Read on for more on learning the business, handling those funds and honing on your big idea at 7 Definitive Traits You Need for Startup Success. [sub req'd]

If we told you that a former CEO of Myspace was now involved in the mail-order underwear business, would it surprise you? According to a Portfolio.com profile of the two west coast entrepreneurs responsible for MeUndies.com, which officially busts out of beta today, Mike Jones‘ Science Inc. provided seed funding for the company at the end of last year.

The main competition for MeUndies.com is Manpacks.com. However, both the lower monthly delivery price point and higher-quality source material may give this LA-Turkey based operation a waistband edge:

The underwear is made from Modal, a soft, smooth fabric made of reconstituted cellulose from the beech tree, which, unlike cotton, is designed not to shrink. “It’s a great-feeling fabric,” says [co-founder] Jonathan Shokrian. “We searched for the best factories and the best fabric.”

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AOL/Huffpost is taking a serious plunge into the video content business with their Huffington Post Streaming Network. By this summer, HPSN plans to host 12 hours of daily weekday programming. According to the New York Times, four of those twelve hours will be produced in LA. Arianna Huffington describes her vision for the new site below.

In the latest episode of Elevator Pitch, host Alan Meckler talks with entrepreneur Ella Gorgla about her startup, I-Ella, an online marketplace where users can buy, swap, sell, and borrow clothes, accessories, and shoes.

For more videos, check out our YouTube channel, and follow us on Twitter: @mediabistroTV