Cyan Banister is the Chief Strategy Officer and Co-Founder of Zivity.com, an online social networking community for connoisseurs of pinup photography that offers a secure environment for adults only. Zivity celebrates sexuality and free markets by rewarding models and photographers.

Zivity is Cyan’s brainchild. Her dream to connect the social web with sexy photos is the kernel that became Zivity. Cyan’s idea is a damn good one; that’s why Zivity is the first company in the “adult space” to be backed by Silicon Valley investment.

Cyan brings more than ten years of management experience to Zivity; from scaling operational infrastructure to building teams and championing company culture. Cyan held a senior management role at IronPort where she supervised throngs of employees and oversaw a slew of departments. Her mission for Zivity is putting models first and creating an environment that nurtures artistic freedom. “Freedom of expression without judgment” is her motto.

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Vitaly Feldman and Alexander Koretsky are two Pace University Graduates who launched MetroHorse in June, 2006.

MetroHorse is the Internet’s #1 Marketplace for Business & Personal Services where buyers and sellers of all types of services A-Z can meet to do business without the ordinary hassles involved.

The MetroHorse Online Service Marketplace makes what once used to be considered a difficult and time-consuming process, a quick and easy one by making it possible for providers of services and consumers of services to easily find each other on a single user-friendly platform.

Members of the MetroHorse online community enjoy countless benefits. Service providers on the MetroHorse Marketplace can connect to hundreds of potential service buyers in their local area to expand and grow their business. Selling services on MetroHorse allows service providers to increase their exposure and enables them to create a strong online presence. MetroHorse service providers have their own personal space on the Internets #1 Marketplace for Business & Personal Services to advertise, promote, and list their services for sale.

MetroHorse generates most of its revenue from paid search placement, where businesses pay to have search results on the site list their profiles in front of others.

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PrepMe was founded by three college students. Karan Goel, CEO, is a University of Chicago MBA grad. Avichal Garg, the chief technical officer, holds degrees from Stanford in computer science and management and is also a product manager at Google. Joe Jewell, who heads up curriculum development and content creation, got his degree in Aeronautical Engineering at Caltech with an M.S. in Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Michigan and is finishing a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford. The three also won the University of Chicago New Venture Challenge, a business plan contest, in May, 2005.

PrepMe uses adaptive learning technology to provide students with a customized test preparation course specifically targeting individual strengths and weaknesses. Students are also provided with one-on-one online tutoring and essay coaching from current students at Stanford and the University of Chicago.

On February 1, 2007, Maine governor John Baldacci announced that for three years PrepMe planned to let every junior in Maine use its online SAT preparation program without cost to themselves, their school or the state.

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Garrett Camp is the co-founder of StumbleUpon, a web browser plugin that allows its users to discover and rate webpages, photos, videos, and news articles. These webpages are typically presented when the user, or a Stumbler, clicks the “Stumble!” button on the browser’s toolbar. StumbleUpon chooses which new webpage to display based on the user’s ratings of previous pages, ratings by his/her friends, and by the ratings of users with similar interests. i.e. it is a recommendation system which uses peer and social networking principles. There is also one-click blogging built in as well. Users can rate, or choose not to rate, any webpage with a thumbs up or thumbs down, and clicking the Stumble button resembles “channel-surfing” the web.

In the same way that it matches users with like-minded websites, StumbleUpon’s technology also pairs online ads with targeted demographics and interests.Toolbar versions exist for Firefox, Mozilla Application Suite and Internet Explorer.

Camp came up with the idea as he was working on a master’s in software engineering. Frustrated while trying to find the best photo sites online, he created an early version of StumbleUpon with coding help from Justin LaFrance and Geoff Smith. Soon, they realized that the service could be used with all sorts of media, and not just the photos.

eBay acquired StumbleUpon in May of 2007 for $75,000,000 USD.

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Kevin Rose was featured on the cover of BusinessWeek for the August 14, 2006 issue (see above). The cover text was “How This Kid Made $60 Million In 18 Months”. The story mainly covered his success as a young entrepreneur and explained how he risked it all to make Digg.com a reality. It also says he lost his girlfriend during the launch and that money meant for a house deposit payment was instead used to fund his idea.

Since Digg.com was launched on November 1, 2004, it has made him an internet celebrity. Digg combines social bookmarking, blogging, RSS, and non-hierarchical editorial control. According to a recent article from TechCrunch, Digg will soon be adding an Images category on top of the existing News, Video and Podcasts. Here is an overview of Digg from Crunchbase:

Digg is a user driven social content website. Everything on Digg is user-submitted. After you submit content, other people read your submission and “Digg” what they like best. If your story receives enough Diggs, it’s promoted to the front page for other visitors to see.

In the fall of 2004, Kevin Rose came up with the idea for Digg. He found programmer Owen Bryne through eLance.com and paid him $10/hour to develop the idea. In addition, Rose paid $99 per month for hosting and $1,200 for the Digg.com domain. In December of 2004, Kevin launched his creation to the world through a post on his blog.

In February of 2005, Paris Hilton’s cell phone was hacked. Images and phone numbers from the phone were posted online and it didn’t take long for a user to post the link on Digg. The site started to receive an enormous amount of traffic and it was then, Rose says, he saw “the power of breaking stories before anyone else.”

Digg has been a force ever since. Acquisition offers have been made, Rose was on the cover of BusinessWeek and according to Alexa, Digg is in the top 100 most trafficked sites on the internet. The success hasn’t come without its share of problems though. The site has had to face services aimed at gaming the way stories hit the front page, as well as a user revolt. Digg has however been able to get over these hurdles as it continues to be one of the social news leaders.

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Jason McCabe Calacanis is an Greek-American internet entrepreneur and blogger. His first company was part of the dot-com era in New York, and his second venture capitalized on the growth of blogs before being sold to AOL.

According to Forbes, which ranked it 23rd on the list of most popular web celebrities:

If there’s a Joe Pulitzer if the blogging world, it may well be Jason Calacanis, the media entrepreneur who’s created some of the Web’s hottest sites. As the co-founder of Weblogs Inc, Calacanis oversaw the creation of top sites like Engadget, Joystiq and Slashfood; in October 2005, the company was sold to AOL for a reported $25 million. Following a short stint where he redesigned and relaunched AOL’s Netscape.com, Calacanis recently moved on to become an “entrepreneur in action” at Sequoia Capital. But Calacanis isn’t just a businessman–his personal blog is one of the most popular on the Web.

Calacanis’ latest venture is Mahalo.com, a “human-powered search engine”, which launched in May 2007.

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