Aereo has announced that Atlanta, Ga. will be the next market to receive its streaming TV service, with a roll out scheduled for next month.

Aereo’s service enables people to watch and record the free over-the-air local television content (from the likes of ABC, NBC, Fox, CBS, CW, and other) online via desktops, computers, set-top boxes, and mobile devices. It does this by providing tiny antennae for each subscriber (thus making the service legal in the eyes of at least East Coast federal judges so far). The company recently simplified its payment model to give subscribers the option of a $8 or $12 per month plan, depending on how many hours you need to record programming.

The service is already available in New York City and Boston, but the company is planning to launch in a total of 22 markets by next year. And even with Atlanta, Aereo should still be too small to cause any real disruption to the TV industry, but that’s exactly what’s happening. Major broadcast stations have taken Aereo to court, claiming that it’s illegal for the company to provide access to its broadcasted content without paying some kind of licensing fee to them. But since federal judges have ruled on the legality of Aereo, those broadcast companies are taking drastic measures.

Both CBS and Fox’s parent company News Corp. have threatened to take its programming off the air and convert it into cable networks, while CBS has even invested in technology that would mimic Aereo’s functionality for local viewers. Recently, ABC even announced that it would be making the local broadcast streams available via iOS devices.

It’s definitely an interesting development because Aereo is still too young to determine if its got a viable business model (with customers in only a handful of cities able to subscribe to its service), but big TV companies are responding by making their services better for consumers. Aereo might be an unlikely rival, but it’s definitely driving competition.

Cox Enterprises, however, is investing $250 million in one man, placing a massive bet on his ability to create successful companies. The media conglomerate has entered into an exclusive partnership with serial entrepreneur Tripp Rackley to back any startups that Rackley wants to found.

Rackley is a well-known figure within the Atlanta technology community. He successfully started and sold two companies to Intuit and Qualcomm, and he claims to have created more than $1 billion in shareholder value and more than 500 jobs in Georgia. He joined the Cox Enterprises board a few years ago, providing expertise, working with partners, and investing in other companies.

During a phone interview, Rackley said how this unorthodox agreement came about. He was and Cox chairman Jim Kennedy were having a casual conversation about the various ways to grow the startup scene in Atlanta. They discussed venture firm and incubator programs, but both felt that these structures are limited in their scope. Ultimately, they came around to the idea of creating a fund centered around Rackley.

“This is a completely new model,” he said. “I’ve dealt with a lot of investors and venture capitalists, and everyone says the same thing- ‘whatever you do next, I want to invest in.’ That’s the game, but I’ve never had someone who wup with a quarter billion dollar check and say we really mean it.”

Rather than build businesses one at a time, the $250 million is at Rackley’s disposal. He is first and foremost an ideas man who will come up with the foundation for a company and use this money to run with it. He plans to explore a number of sectors, including mobile, payments, security, and media and bring in people he trusts to manage the day-to-day operations.

“My role in this is highly on the innovation and creative side,” he said. “I am exceptionally methodical in my thinking, but my thinking is quick. Everyday I wake up and something changes, you have to be able to move quickly. To have this much capital and a single investor across a variety of companies gives you an immense amount of flexibility and focus in that relationship.”

Experience is the partnership’s first investment. The premise is simple. You are at a sporting event and spot an array of irritatingly empty seats far below. Experience is a mobile app that gives fans the opportunity to upgrade. Once inside the venue, they open the app, indicate the number of people, and choose from available seats. Users pay for the upgrade within the app, receive a digital ticket, and can cruise on down to their new spot.

The fund is separate entity from Cox Enterprises and its subsidiaries. Cox Enterprises is a large cable operator in the U.S. that also holds automotive services, and radio and TV stations. It generates revenues of nearly $15 billion and has more than 50,000 employees. It allocates a significant amount of resources to developing new technology, and research and development, but the fact remains that a large organization can’t move as fast as one man with $250 million in his engine.

Read the press release. 

If you’re one of the young women entrepreneurs behind Black Girls Hack in Atlanta, Georgia, you organize a hackathon. But not your run-of-the-mill standard white male sausage-fest hackathon — this is going to be a “blackhack.”

And it’s a blackhack for women.

Inspired by Black Girls Code in San Francisco, four women founded Black Girls Hack to inspire African American women (and girls) to be software developers and startup founders, as well as to gather, communicate with, and connect all those who already are.

I talked to one of the founders, Amanda Spann, who also serves as the PR coordinator of Black Girls Hack.

“We’re all African American, and we all have tech startups,” she said. “One thing we all struggle with is feeling like we’re the only ones … there are so few blacks in technology.”

Spann is starting up Glamobile, a review and recommendation community in the fashion and shopping space that is currently in stealth mode. Another founder, Kat Calvin, is starting Character’s Closet, a startup that will allow fans to find and eventually purchase their favorite TV and movie stars outfits.

Instead of bemoaning the fact that it can be tough to find black developers — especially female ones — and accepting it as the status quo, the women decided to do something about it.

The first thing they’re doing is #blackhack, and it’s happening November 16-17 in Atlanta. Spann expects about 100 African American women coders to show up, and she’s already excited with the early enthusiasm.

“We’re really amped to have people on board,” she said. “And MailChimp came on only two days after we announced as a title sponsor.”

The event is being run as a charity, and all proceeds from ticket sales will go to Black Girls Code.

photo credit: kk+ via photopin cc

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