It's an election year in the United States, and the screens and airwaves are full of provocative sound bites, pundits, scandals, and the latest political gossip of the day. However, do you really know which political candidate you most agree with on the issues? Looking to help voters educate themselves better on the candidates, and the issues, Taylor Peck and Nick Boutleier came up with iSideWith (www.isidewith.

Few people in the technology world are unfamiliar with the huge rise in the popularity of the photo sharing service Instagram, which was topped off by a $1 billion acquisition of that company by Facebook just a few weeks ago. One of the startups which is looking to tap into that growing community is Los Angeles-based InstaCanvas ( instacanv.as ), which is headed by Matt Munson.

How do you help aspiring actors and actresses break into the film industry? Gary Beer is a longtime film industry insider, having been Managing Director of the Sundance Film Festival from its beginnings until 1999 , and founder documentary cable programming service Smithsonian Networks, which he started while he was CEO of the business enterprises of the Smithsonian Institution.

If you're a photographer or artist, what's the easiest way to display, print, frame, and sell your photos or artwork to

customers? You could handle all the details of printing, framing things, collecting payments, dealing with shipping, and

more--or you can go online and use Fine Art America (www.fineartamerica.com), a Santa Monica company which is doing

all of that for more than a 100,000 members.

If you're a family with kids in sports, how do you share all those videos, photos, and other memories about your kids games? Where do you organize and share all the information about your team's games? Los Angeles-based Weplay (www.weplay.com) is hoping to be the site for all of that, and more. The firm--which is backed by such investors as Derek Jeter, Peyton Manning, LeBron James, and Jennie Finch--is headed by CEO Lane Soelberg, who spoke to us a bit about what the firm's up to.

It's been almost two years since Aliso Viejo-based Buy.com was acquired by Japanese ecommerce giant Rakuten. How has that affected the company--both in culture, as well as a business? We caught up with Neel Grover, CEO and President of the firm, to hear a bit more about life and changes under Rakuten.

How has life under Rakuten been?

Neel Grover: It's been great. We were acquired in June of 2010, and it's been 21 months now, almost two years.

One of the most original, subscription startups to come out of Southern California's tech accelerator boom emerged last week, looking to disrupt not just another retail sector or e-commerce category, but something else entirely: the airline industry. Surf Air (www.surfair.com), launching out of the Muckerlab startup accelerator in Santa Monica, is looking to create a new way of flying, taking aviation and combining it with the subscription model.

If you're a music artist or band, and you want to create your own fan app for the iPhone, Android, or iPad, you're looking at hiring an app development firm, spending six months, and $100,000--right? Actually, no---thanks to Santa Monica-based Mobile Roadie. Mobile Roadie, headed by Michael Schneider, develops tools that make easy for non-programmers to create their own mobile apps.

What does it take to take a social gaming firm to the next level? For San Diego-based Mob Science (www.mobscience.com), an injection of cash, some key advisors--and a deal with Zynga. Last week, the firm announced a funding round and a couple of key advisors, as the company looks to ramp its social gaming efforts and leverage a deal with Zynga. We spoke with CEO Michael Witz about the company.

What's the best way to get the word out about your brand on social media? For a number of high profile brands, it's by using the software and services of Los Angeles-based PromoJam (www.promojam.com), which just announced a round of funding to accelerate it efforts last week from Golden Seeds and the Band of Angels. We spoke with Matt and Amanda MacNaughton, the brother and sister team behind PromoJam, to hear more about the company's platform.

Have you ever traveled to a foreign country, and wish you had a local friend who could show you around? Tired of packaged tours where you really don't get to experience the local culture? That's what TripTrotting (www.triptrotting.com) is hoping to fix. The Los Angeles startup is looking to help connect travelers with local guides and hosts. Aigerim Duiseneyeva and Shana Zheng are the co-founders of the firm, and told us more about the service.

Earlier this month, Los Angeles startup Dollar Shave Club (www.dollarshaveclub.com) made a huge splash with its launch of a subscription, monthly delivery service for razor blades. The company also made quite an impression with its viral video--which you have to watch to appreciate--of CEO Michael Dubin extolling the virtues of the company's products, and panning overpriced, expensive razor brands. We talked with Dubin earlier about the company.

If you're looking get your startup off the ground in Los Angeles, it always helps to have help from folks with connections to the venture and angel community. One of the accelerators which recently set up shop in town which does is Amplify, which is headed by Paul Bricault, who runs Amplify and also is a Venture Partner at Greycroft Partners.

Are you the sort of person who relies on your friends to help you figure out the best places to explore on the web? Wish you could lean on your friends to get insights into the great new services you ought to try? That's the idea behind HypeMarks (www.hypemarks.com), a new startup looking to tap into your social graph to guide you to the web.

Last week, Santa Monica-based Docstoc (www.docstoc.com), the online business documents site headed by Jason Nazar, launched a new website, called License123 (www.license123.com). The new site is a separate brand, offering up help to businesses trying to make sure their companies are properly licensed in whatever city and state they are operating in.

Do you have a pet dog, and do you travel a lot? If so, you're probably familiar with the travails of having to find a kennel to place your dog into, are constantly worrying about how your dog is doing in that kennel, and probably are feeling a little guilty, too, about having them locked up all week while you are away. To address that worry, Los Angeles-based DogVacay (www.dogvacay.

Have you every clicked on a mobile ad on your iPhone or Android phone, and found that the ad you clicked into wasn't usable on your mobile phone? It's not an uncommon experience, and one which drove Holden Steinberg and Jason Crilly to start PageWoo (www.pagewoo.com), a service which is aimed at helping businesses create mobile-friendly landing pages for their advertisements. The founders, who are part of the Los Angeles StartEngine accelerator, talked to us about what they're doing.

Last week, Pasadena-based Punchcard (www.punchcard.com) launched its mobile apps, which help local retailers provide rewards to loyal customers. The firm is backed by Idealab, and is headed by Internet veteran Andy Steuer. We caught up with Andy, whose executive experience ranges from ZeroDegrees, NBC Internet/Xoom.com, Infoseek / Go Network, to CNET and Snap.com, and whose last firm was MerchEngines, which he sold last year, to hear more about his new startup.

Earlier this month, Los Angeles-based MeUndies, debuted its subscription, e-commerce service for underwear and other basics. The firm is one of the companies which has recently emerged from Science, Inc., the digital studio/accelerator headed by former MySpace CEO Mike Jones.

Southern California has seen a surge in accelerators and incubators looking to spawn new startups in the region. Among those startups is Sandalbay Life, a new healthcare IT firm which is resident at Los Angeles-based StartEngine, the accelerator being run by Howard Marks. Sandalbay Life is actually run by a serial entrepreneur with ties to Marks, Neil Malhotra. Malhotra co-founded Acclaim Games with Howard Marks, and has worked at eCompanies and eMind.

Steve Jillings has a long track record of running successful startups in Southern California, ranging from such companies as FrontBridge Technologies (sold to Microsoft in 2005 for over $200M) and Vantage Media (acquired in 2007). Steve is now in charge of Marina Del Rey-based TeleSign (www.telesign.com), which has quietly become a huge force in providing authentication services to nearly every major Internet service out there.

Consumers have dozens of choices if they want to share their files with others on the Internet, however, if you're a corporate user, there just aren't the same number of options. To address that, Los Angeles-based FileTrek (www.filetrek.com) announced a funding round for its cloud-based software for sharing enterprise and business files yesterday. We spoke with Dale Quayle, the firm's CEO, about the funding and company. Dale's last firm, Integrien, was sold to VMware in 2010.

A couple of weeks ago, twelve companies moved into the new downtown San Diego, EvoNexus incubator--which is run by CommNexus. Running that effort is Kevin Hell, the founder of DivX, who we caught up with to learn more about EvoNexus and how the group is trying to help grow technology startups in San Dieog.

In November, Michael Jones, the former CEO of MySpace, announced his plans for Science Inc. (www.science-inc.com), a new “technology studio” aimed at building new businesses in Los Angeles. This week, the firm launched two companies--EventUp (www.eventup.com) and MeUndies (www.meundies.com)--the first companies to come out of the group. We spoke with Michael about those companies he is launching as part of Science, and how they came about.

Southern California has had its share of new startup accelerators launch in the last few months, however, few people here have actually experienced an accelerator firsthand. One of the few who has is Alex Benzer,the co-founder of Silverlake-based SocialEngine (www.socialengine.com) and Fanmix (www.fanmix.com). We heard from Alex to learn how SocialEngine was bootstrapped to $1.4M in sales last year, what he learned from his experience at TechStars, and where he's going with Fanmix.

How do you come up with a compelling, mobile videogame title? Jonathan LaCour, founder of Playzon, decided that he'd tap into the collective genius of students looking to get into the videogame industry, and is taking the top student-developed gaming titles from one videogame school and turning them into mobile games for the iPhone, Android, and Facebook. LaCour's advisors include Sean Rad of Ad.ly and Clark Landry of GraphEffect.

How do you leverage your years of experience manufacturing and designing furniture for stores like Ikea and Crate & Barrel into the online world, and harness the interest of consumers to purchase their furniture online? That's what Braden Richter, the CEO of Los Angeles-based LuxeYard (www.luxeyard.com) is looking to do with the new startup, which combines the world of home furnishings with the concept of flash sales.

How do you take what you've learned, having been part of the growth and creation of the traditional, videogame industry, and apply that to the new world of social games? That's what Los Angeles-based Seismic Games (www.seismicgames.com) is looking to figure out, headed by Greg Borrud, Eric Gewirtz, and Chris Miller. We caught up with Greg Borrud, formerly the co-founder of Pandemic Games, to hear more about what Seismic is up to.

One of the areas that startups and healthcare investors have turned their attention to in recent years, is leveraging the many advances in technology--wireless, smart phones, software, and more--and applying those to the health area. Among those startups is San Diego-based Independa (www.independa.com) , which is trying to crack the code to figure out how to apply the convergence of wireless technology, cloud computing, and software to elderly care.