Blog Articles Search Results
- The Ryder Cup of Word of Mouth. Sean Moffitt at Agent Wildfire, author of blog Buzz Canuck, just published a list of top 23 U.S. Word of Mouth bloggers. As described by Sean..."...these broad-minded bloggers and company heads have distinguished themselves by trying to understand how ideas spread, online and offline, through a range of different strategies and tactics. In my opinion, they are much closer to the purpose and benefits of web 2.0, co-creation, social networks and other web, cultural and social phenomenon."I tip my hat to him for adding me to the list. I'm honored to be among this group. And I need to work on fulfilling this honor by keeping up on this blog, though these days I do a lot of blogging on Social Commerce and WOM on Bazaarblog.Here's his list of the USA Team:1. Jackie Huba/Ben McConnell - Church of the Customer (Austin, Texas)2. Andy Sernovitz - Damn! I Wish I Thought of That! (Chicago, Illinois)3. Pete Blackshaw - CGM (4. Jim Nail - Cymfony5. Ed Keller - Keller Fay6. Jeremiah Owyang - Web Strategist7. Rohit Bhargarva - Influential Marketing8. Owen Mack - CoBrandIt9. Walter Karl - WOM Study10. Fred Reichheld - Net Promoter - Boston11. Max Kalehoff - Attention Max12. Oliver Blanchard - Brand Builder13. Charlene Li - Groundswell14. Sam Decker15. Joseph Jaffe16. John Moore - Brand Autopsy (Austin, Texas)17. Peter Kim, Being Peter Kim (Austin, Texas)18. Mack Collier - The Viral Garden19. Spike Jones - Brains on Fire20. Ron McDaniel - Buzzoodle21.John Jantsch - Duct Tape Marketing22. Kim Proctor -...
(09/07/08 09:00 PM)
- Could Sara Palin Become The Hottest Niche on eBay?.
Skip McGrath’s Blog:
When it comes to instant hot niches related to news stories and events, Cafe Press usually leads the way. Sara Palin is Hot on Cafe Press and becoming hot on eBay.
After Sara Palin’s speech to the Republican convention, I went to Cafe Press, the site where independent online sellers create and sell merchandise [...]
(09/05/08 09:00 PM)
- Blog: Race and Entrepreneurship.
(09/05/08 09:00 PM)
- Lookery is in Boulder Tonight.
The gang from Lookery is in Boulder tonight and having a publisher meetup from 6:30pm to 9:00pm in the TechStars Bunker at 1375 Walnut Street. I've started using Lookery on Feld Thoughts and am starting to collect a different set of analytics about you, oh blog reader.
Lookery is a user-targeting service and advertising network. They provide free analytics to promote to publishers, bringing them attention, organic traffic, sales leads, and partnership opportunities. They are looking for publishers who represent:
- as much Facebook app and consumer Internet page volume as possible , preferably attached to big registration databases, and
- as many online marketing services execs as possible.
Cool stuff - definitely worth hanging out and having a beer with them if you fit the description or think you might want to partner with them. Sign up on the Facebook page for the event.
(09/04/08 09:00 PM)
- Making $1 Million Online is Possible. There are so many Internet marketing strategies that offer you ways to make money online. There?TMs blog advertising, article submitting, link building, paid surveys, email marketing, banner advertisi...
(09/03/08 09:00 PM)
- Meg Whitman: Selling McCain to Small Biz.
(09/03/08 09:00 PM)
- Metaphors and Defrag.
Eric Norlin - who runs the Defrag Conference - has a good post up today titled The metaphors we've outgrown. He riffs off of the Google Chrome announcement. At the end of it, he answers "what makes Defrag different."
People ask me all of the time what makes Defrag different? I kind of giggle and tell them that I’m proud that we’re not a conference loaded with case studies. Don’t get me wrong, that has a very useful place (in a nearly mature market). We’re just nowhere near that place. Defrag is about gathering to explore, imagine and build these new metaphors. The web should be getting smarter, more implicit, more enabling.
Let the rest of the world get mired down in economic uncertainty, productivity enhancement and cost reduction. There’s plenty of time for you to do that (trust me). Come to defrag and help us grow out of these metaphors. And then watch as the supposedly “pie in the sky” things you find at Defrag are suddenly “real world” things that you’re using and implementing everyday. Kinda cool, huh?
For all those interested, I'm still using Chrome - mostly enjoying it a lot but starting to notice the things it is missing, especially all those fun implicit web plugins I've been using.
(09/03/08 09:01 AM)
- Bettors Use Prediction Markets to Gauge Likelihood of Palin Departure.
(09/03/08 09:01 AM)
- Blog: Mortgage Problems for the Self-Employed.
(09/02/08 09:01 PM)
- Mr. White: A Spy Tale from Russia.
(09/02/08 09:01 PM)
- Foodzie - Online Marketplace for Artisan Foods.
We've done TechStars for two years now. While I love every company involved, each year I've had a major crush on one particular company. This year it was Foodzie.
I liked Rob, Emily, and Nik from the minute I met them at TechStars for a Day. They came up to me and offered me chocolate. Brilliant. They then explained that they were creating an online marketplace for artisan food producers and growers. Their target customer are foodies. As a foodie (and major consumer of artisan foods - just look at my body shape even after running all the marathons I do) I totally got it.
They did a great job this summer honing their business, working out logistics and pricing, and getting their first few producers up and running. Are you a chocolate lover - give Seth Ellis Chocolatier a try. Popcorn anyone - how about Boulder Popcorn? And organic tea - try Tetulia Teas.
Having contributed to the very long list of potential artisan food producers that the Foodzie crew is testing (where "testing" means eating stuff and making sure it's really good) I can assure you that there is a bunch of great stuff coming.
If you are an artisan food producer - or know one - and want to get connected with Foodzie, drop Emily an email. If you love to eat, cruise the Foodzie site. And - if you like food porn, take a look at the Foodzie blog.
(09/02/08 09:01 PM)
- Early Stage Investing in an Uncertain Economy.
I'm on a panel on Tuesday September 9th from 5pm - 8pm titled Early Stage Investing in an Uncertain Economy. It's being sponsored by the Rockies Venture Club and is being held at the Denver Marriott City Center. If you are interested in attending, you can register here.
Since the Rockies Venture Club is largely targeted at angel investors and entrepreneurs it should be an interesting conversation. The TechStars Demo and Investor Day two weeks ago was packed and the 2008 TechStars teams are seeing very high interest in their early stage rounds. If this is a data point, it would indicate that the "uncertain economy" isn't having much impact.
As an early stage VC investor, I don't pay much attention to the macro economy. I've written about this in the past - some of our best investments have come during crappy economic periods (say 2001 - 2003). We are funding very early stage companies with an expectation that it will take them 5+ years to mature into a successful business. Lots can happen in 5+ years.
I'll save my snarkier remarks for the panel.
(09/02/08 09:01 PM)
- Yes, An Entrepreneur Can Take A One-Month Vacation.
Start Up Blog:
I just got back from a one-month vacation in Sicily.
You may ask how I did this. Isn’t it hard to own a company and take time off? Don’t you worry about everything going to heck while you’re away?
Not for me.
Why? One thing: An awesome team.
The talent, skill, intelligence and commitment of the staff [...]
(09/02/08 09:01 AM)
- Your Google Adsense Really Make More. Since its introduction in 2003, the Google Adsense program has greatly help bloggers defray hosting charges and other costs related to running blogs. Blogging can be very expensive especially when you...
(09/02/08 09:01 AM)
- Sticking To One Point - Relevancy. When I ask the numerous amateurs who approached me for counsel on how to put together a lucrative online presence, "What do you desire to blog about?" I frequently get only uncomprehending...
(09/02/08 09:01 AM)
- Alcatel-Lucent CEO Shares His Thoughts.
(09/02/08 09:01 AM)
- 7 Effective Ways To Writing Headlines That Will Be Read. If you have not read my previous article, The Power Behind Magnetic Headlines, visit: http://www.dominictay.com/blog/the-power-behind-magnetic-headlines.
I strongly recommend you to re...
(09/01/08 09:01 PM)
- Yahoo Finally Got Back Into My Daily Folder.
The very first folder in my browser toolbar is called "Daily" and it's the folder I right click and choose "Open All in Tabs" first thing in the morning when I do my email / web / blog drill. For a long time my.yahoo.com was in there; I took it out about a year ago because I was getting all the information I wanted from other places.
Last week, Alan Warms from Yahoo sent me an email about the new Yahoo Political Dashboard. Fred already beat me with a blog about it titled Polls vs Markets but I totally agree with him - Alan and his team have done a dynamite job creating a political dashboard that I'll now look at every day. It's now the 11th item in my Daily folder.
(08/30/08 09:00 AM)
- MARKETING FROM SMALL BUSINESS MAVERICKS. Small Business Blogging Essentials: How to Use Your Blog as a Marketing Tool.
Not every one realizes that adding regular content to your site consistently in the form of a blog not only will inc...
(08/28/08 09:00 PM)
- My Relationship With Apple Is Like My Relationship With The Republican Party.
Scott Converse has a wonderful post up titled Is Apple a Republican? After reading it, I pondered my relationship with Apple and realized that it is just like my relationship with the Republican Party - there are some things that theoretically appeal to me, but endless deal breakers that push me away and head fakes that leave me cynical.
If you are a long time reader of this blog, you know that every six months or so I try again. I go to the Apple store and buy whatever shiny new Mac toy there is. A G5 - yeah. A MacBook Pro. Sure. An iPhone - definitely. A MacBook Air. Yeah, this will be the one. After tens of thousands of dollars spent on Apple products, the only three I am using today are my Apple 30" Cinema Displays (I love them), my G5 in my office (which I'm running Vista on), and my iPhone 3G (which has now lasted three weeks notwithstanding the endless dropped calls and lack of Outlook Task synchronization.)
The Republicans promise me smaller government. Oops. Better fiscal policy (e.g. no deficits) - double oops. Distribution of power to state and local government. Um, yeah. Equality for all. Patriot act, immigration policy, wars, anyone. The list goes on. I've always described myself as "conservative fiscal policy, liberal social policy" where theoretically a "moderate Republican approach" would work for me.
Wrong. The big deal breaker for me is abortion. I couldn't ever vote for a pro-life president. Stay with me, you'll get the Apple analogy soon. There are plenty of others - war, immigration, protectionism, religion - but I still fantasize about that enlightened "conservative fiscal policy, liberal social policy."
Ironically, my friends the Democrats have always had the liberal social policy down and now appear to have a much better handle on the conservative fiscal policy side of it. I was a Reagan youth, but have voted Democrat ever since. And while many think I'm a hard core Democrat, I'm actually an Independent.
About the time I voted for Reagan, I had an original Mac. My first computer was an Apple II. I even had an Apple III for a while. My Mac had one floppy drive and 128k. I loved it even though it was basically useless. When I got my first IBM PC (two floppy disk drives, 64k) and started writing software on it (and making money with it) I became a PC / Microsoft user. My Apple fantasies continued unabated - every few years I'd buy another one and end up discarding it after a few weeks to go back to my PC. There were always "deal breakers."
The deal breaker for me with Apple for the past few years has been Microsoft Exchange support. Entourage 2004 was so inadequate that it never became an option for me and Entourage 2008 disappointed me so much that I punted. I don't really want to run Entourage - I want native Exchange support in all the Mac products. ActiveSync anyone?
I tried with the first iPhone - I really wanted to like it - but it just didn't get there for me. Remarkably, after resisting for many years, Apple finally licensed ActiveSync and integrated it into the iPhone 2.0 software. Voila - I dumped my Dash and am still using my iPhone 3G several weeks later.
But - Apple forgot one thing. Tasks. Apple syncs Mail and Calendar with Exchange, but not Tasks. For anyone that is a hard core Outlook user (like me) that manages to a zero inbox, Tasks are important. It's kind of like being pro-choice but being against birth control. Weird. Limiting. And intensely frustrating.
Third party apps are starting to appear that try to sync Tasks, but they are all weak. KeyTasks from Chapura seems to come the closest so far, but it's not server side sync (with Exchange) - you have to have a client side agent running. And of course, it doesn't have categories ("Category support coming soon.")
Theoretically wonderful, but always comes up short with a deal breaker. We didn't even get into religion yet, but ponder that as you think about the Cult of Mac vs. the PC / Microsoft.
I definitely have too much politics on the brain. I can't wait until 2009.
(08/28/08 09:01 AM)
- Mesa Falls Marathon.
On Saturday I ran the Mesa Falls Marathon. I've now completed a marathon in 12 of the 50 states - almost 25% of the way there. My co-conspirator for this one was Matt Blumberg, who ran the last half of it with me and wrote about it in Half as Long, One Third as Hard.
This was a small marathon - my guess is around 150 people ran it. My goal was to finish in the top 200 which I accomplished comfortably. My serious goal was to break 4:45. My official time was 5:02, although according to my Garmin 305 my running time was 4:52. I can confirm that I lost about 5 minutes to a bathroom break at mile 10 and another 5 minutes at the half way mark and on a few pee breaks. So - I was close. However, I finished much stronger than I had two months ago at Grandma's Marathon in Duluth so I'm pleased with the progress of my training under my new coach Gary Ditsch.
Mesa Falls was a beautiful marathon. The first 10 miles are on a dirt road in the middle of no where. Tranquil, quiet, and wonderful. I had trouble getting into a rhythm - my shoes were too tight, I had to pee, and then around mile four I got an upset stomach. There was a porta-potty at mile 6 but I felt better so cruised by it. Predictably, at 6.5 miles, I had to go. For a brief moment I considered turning around, but powered on to mile 10 where I took a delightful 5 minute break.
We immediately turned onto a road and I totally kicked ass - covering the next 3 miles in 27 minutes. It was a decent downhill but I felt much lighter. I stopped for 15 seconds right at mile 13 to look at the incredible view at Mesa Falls and then stopped again at 13.1 to meet up with Matt, make the "Uncle Spike sign", have Amy take a few photos of us, and change my shirt.
It was huge to have Matt join me. The course had a brutal uphill between mile 17 and 20 that Matt towed me up. I marched through to mile 23 where I finally slammed into the wall. I don't really remember the 25 minutes that it took me to run mile 23 and 24, but Matt said I was pretty calm. I got a seventh wind at mile 25 and covered the last mile in under 10 minutes.
Thanks to everyone who supported me on this one, especially my sponsors Return Path, Pixie Mate, NewWest, and Bill Flagg who made an extra generous contribution to Accelerated Cure. And of course - my sherpa Amy and my friends the Blumbergs.
Next up - Mount Desert Island Marathon in Bar Harbor, ME on 10/19/08.
(08/27/08 09:00 PM)
- What A House Hit By Lightening Looks Like.
The parents of a close friend just had a direct lightening strike on their house. It immediately burned to the ground and everything was lost.
The simple advice from my friend if this ever happens to you is "get out fast and not go back for anything that is not a human being." She also suggested that you check your home insurance to make sure you are covered for this.
(08/27/08 09:00 PM)
- 7 Copywriting Tips To Increase Reponse By At Least 50%. There are several components of persuasive copywriting. Any one of them cannot do without the others.
To craft a sales copy t... (08/25/08 09:01 AM) - How To Get People To Understand Your Offer. Here's this article's copywriting tip: To actually relate with your prospects, you want to be appreciated.
- Increase Your Response Exploiting Basic Human Psychology. If you have been learning web copywriting and appreciate a small amount of psychology, you'll undoubtedly be aware of of the phrase "... (08/23/08 09:01 AM)
- Fantastic Post By Calacanis On How To Get PR.
Anyone who has worked with me knows that one of my favorite lines is "marketing is stupid." And - if you really know me - you know that I don't actually mean "marketing is stupid", but I use it as a proxy for "most PR people suck, most marcom is done poorly, and most companies have no idea what they are trying to accomplish with all the money they waste on shitty marketing and PR."
Last week I got one of Jason Calacanis' email missives from his new email list (post-blog). It's been reblogged on the Silicon Alley Insider blog titled Jason Calacanis On How To Get PR For Your Startup: Fire Your PR Company. There are a few things I disagree with, but on the whole it's one of the best long essays I've ever read on how to do PR for your startup.
While there are a few technology PR firms (or more specifically - people) that are just awesome and worth the money, the vast majority range from marginally useful but not worth the money to completely useless. If you are the CEO of a startup, I encourage you to read Jason's post slowly, and then re-read it, and then think about what you are doing to get PR for your company.
(08/22/08 09:01 AM)
- In The Stupid Patent Advertising Category.
It's DNC time in Denver and all kinds of weird advertisements are popping up all over the place, including the airport. My partner Jason sent me a photo of this one today with the heading "Puke".
I put this in the "you've got to be fucking kidding me" category. Let's break it down. Here are the messages:
- Life Liberty and the Pursuit of More Patents
- Averaging 2 Patent Applications Per Day
- Official Wireless provider for the Democratic National Convention
Let me guess - AT&T is positioning themselves as a key supporter of no patent reform. Or, maybe AT&T is positioning themselves as key advocators of patenting everything under the sun. Maybe they are advocating that they should give their engineers bonuses for every patent they file. Maybe they are trying to say that a good democracy has lots and lots of patents. What ARE they trying to say?
Regardless we know that big companies can submit lots and lots of patents. Hey AT&T - two applications per day isn't actually all that many anymore! How about telling us about some of the real innovation you are doing.
Actually, can you just spend some time improving your 3G network so my iPhone calls don't drop as often?
(08/21/08 09:01 AM)
- Gluing EventVue and Twitter Together.
At Foundry Group, one of our investment themes is Glue. We've done a handful of investments in this area, including Gnip. Since Gnip's launch last month, it's been put into production in a number of cases - some obvious, some subtle. Part of the fun is watching the adoption of it evolve rapidly as we continue to build out the core capabilities of the what Gnip can do.
I had a long conversation with a VC I work closely with about the value Gnip ultimately provides to its various constituencies (data providers, data consumers, and end users) and how / where it expects to get paid in the long term. During the conversation, we covered a number of different potential areas, but I realized that my thinking could be much crisper. That's normal for this stage of a startup as Gnip is still very early stage (we've done one seed round of investment and are gearing up for the next financing) but the exercise of defining a clear business endgame (vs. just a technology endgame) is extremely helpful and self referential, as it creates more focus on what we should actually be building.
There is nothing quite like an example. Yesterday, we had the TechStars 2008 Investor and Demo Day. EventVue - one of the TechStars 2007 companies - provided the online community infrastructure for the event. They automatically extracted all the data from the registration system and build an online community. As part of this, members of the community could add their twitter account and - if they had already been a member of another EventVue conference community - like me - would automatically have all their information already in EventVue and wouldn't have to do anything.
The then created a techstars08 twitter account. This rebroadcast all the tweets from anyone at the event that had a twitter account set up in their EventVue profile. However, rather than writing the polling software to Twitter to continually check for updates in the twitter stream, the used Gnip for this.
EventVue had a data set (I don't know the number - but lets say it was 100 userids) of twitters at the conference. They wrote a tiny piece of code that monitored Gnip's twitter notification stream. Whenever someone in the set of 100 usersids appeared in the twitter notification stream, EventVue's handler then queried twitter for that one discrete piece of data and then rebroadcast it on techstars08.
This took a huge load off of Twitter. It was much easier code to write for EventVue. It created a virtually real time twitter rebroadcast stream. I'm sure I'm missing at least one of the technical nuances - hopefully the guys at EventVue will write up a deeper post on what they did, how they did it, and why it was valuable to them.
Look for plenty of more thinking out loud from me on our Glue theme as we bring some of the investments we've made into sharper focus.
(08/21/08 09:01 AM)
- The Upcoming Idaho Marathon.
Marathon #12 is on Saturday. I'll be running the Mesa Falls Marathon in Ashton, Idaho. 157 people ran it last year so it's a deliciously small one. I've been training with a new coach - Gary Ditsch - for the past six weeks with a goal of ultimately getting below 4 hours. My goal for Mesa Falls is sub-4:45 which given my training and how I feel should be achievable.
If you recall from my last marathon (a mere two months ago in Duluth) I'm now running to raise money for the Accelerated Cure Project. My goal is to have raised $100,000 at the end of running 50 marathons ($2,000 / marathon); to date I've raised $2,375.
As a result of my two anchor sponsors - Return Path and Pixie Mate - I've already got $1,250 in the bag as Return Path is contributing $1,000 and Pixie Mate is contributing $250. So - all I need from you dear readers is another $750 of contributions to make my goal for this marathon. Any amount will do.
Thanks in advance for Matt Blumberg, the CEO of Return Path who will be running the second half of the race with me with the explicit goal of getting me across the finish line sub-4:45. And finally, thanks to Amy for putting up with all of this marathon nonsense.
(08/20/08 09:01 AM)
- ASP = SaaS = Cloud = ?.
Matt McAdams has a clever blog up titled Up next: telesoftware! He discusses the rise of our favorite new buzzword (hint: it's "Cloud Computing") and spends some time harkening back to its origin (hint: it's the "Application Service Provider.")
I was around at the birth of the ASP as the co-chairman of one of the early ASPs (Interliant) which started out life in 1996 as a "web hosting company" (how passe) and evolved in 1997 into an Application Service Provider. I clearly remember the tech media latching onto the ASP label at the end of the 1990's right alongside prefixing everything with a lowercase e and postfixing everything with ".com".
The cynics were simple minded - they simply referred to the ASPs as the return of mainframe - or even better - timesharing. Interliant enjoyed rapid growth and a brief period of what looked like success before being decimated during the collapse of the Internet bubble.
Platform-as-a-Service has emerged suddenly with a vengeance. IBM System/370 anyone? The S/370 had this nifty thing called "virtual memory", which evolved into VM, which lives on today as the great new "virtualization" trend.
Telesoftware? Nah - that sounds too much like Telemedicine (what ever happened to that one?) I think we are going to be talking about "planetary computing" once "cloud computing" runs its course since "Sun computing" has already come and mostly gone.
(08/19/08 09:00 PM)
- Are You Rich or Poor? Even the Experts Couldn’t Tell You.. During back-to-back appearances in California Saturday night, presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain were asked to address a simple issue: Define “rich.” Obama: If you make $250,000 a year or more, you are “doing well.” McCain: “How about $5 million?” That information alone was enough to spur hundreds of divisive blog posts. However, the presidential candidates’ cluelessness [...] (08/18/08 09:00 PM)
- Approaching A VC.
My partner Chris Wand has a long guest post up on Ask the VC titled How Should I Approach a VC I Don't Know? Lots of good do's and don'ts for anyone looking to connect with a VC.
(08/18/08 09:00 PM)
- Free Podcast Player Widget. This content from: Duct Tape Marketing Free Podcast Player Widget Susan Bratton of Personal Life Media has created the podcast player widget to beat all podcast player widgets. This is really something that I’ve sort of looked for going on several years. There are other players that you can embed on websites and in blog post, but [...]
(08/15/08 09:00 AM)
- Tech I Use.
I'm one of those guys that can't resist downloading a piece of software to try it out. I buy every gadget, download everything that comes my way, and create an account on every web service I notice. I've told Ross (my IT guy) never to come back from a trip to Best Buy without buying me something to play with. Yes - I have poor impulse control.
I'm finding that a lot of the stuff I'm trying is sticking with me these days. I still have a wide range of things that go into the discard pile (which - if it's a physical device - means I give it to Ross as a gift after playing with it for a week or so.) But - a surprising amount is useful.
As I think more about our Digital Life and Human Computer Interaction themes, I realized it might be fun (at least for me) to start writing about some of the experiences (good and bad) I'm having with "tech" as a typical early adopter. I'm sure those of you out there that are
gadget freaksearly adopters will have fun suggesting new toys and helping me out with the ones I'm having problems with.So - look for the trials and tribulations of my gadgets in my new Tech I Use category.
(08/14/08 09:00 AM)
- Breast Cancer for Husbands.
My friend Mitchell Ashley has started a really powerful new blog titled BreastCancerForHusbands. I'm at the age where several of my friends have now fought with breast cancer - fortunately no one close to me has died from it.
Mitchell's wife Mary Ellen has breast cancer and he's decided to blog about his experience with it. Mitchell is a brave writer and speaks his mind clearly - he's not afraid of talking about the ups and downs. He also doesn't pull any punches, as is evidenced by his post Don't Be An Edwards Dumbass, Support Your Wife.
Highly recommended reading for anyone with a friend or family member struggling with any kind of cancer. Mitchell - thanks for being brave enough to blog about this stuff.
(08/13/08 09:00 PM)
- The Schedule.
August is theoretically a slow month. Um, yeah. As I pondered what I've got in front of me the next few weeks, I thought I'd share the things you are invited to come to and play with me.
Thursday 8/14 @ 5:30pm: Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado party on top of the Foundry Roof Deck.
Saturday 8/16 @ 8am: Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado Annual Give Back Event at Foothills Community Park.
Monday 8/18 @ 6pm: The 2008 Boulder Sushi Regurge Open sponsored by Lijit. Contact Micah Baldwin for more info. There are only seven sushi restaurants in downtown Boulder - surely you can find us.
Tuesday 8/19 @ 6pm: Gnip office warming party in Boulder at Gnip's new top secret location on the east end of Pearl Street.
Wednesday 8/20 @ 10am: TechStars Demo and Investor Day. There are still some general admission seats left. If you are an angel or VC investor and interested in a floor ticket, email me and I'll get you set up.
Wednesday 8/20 @ 6:30pm: Boulder TECH Cocktail 2. I assure you this will not be dull.
Saturday 8/23: Mesa Falls Marathon in Ashton, Idaho. Root for me.
Tuesday 8/26 @ 9:00am: 2008 Technology Roundtable as part of the DNC. I'm a panelist along with a bunch of people that are much more serious than I am. I guess they invited me to lighten things up.
Yeah - that feels like enough social events. I think I'll then go hide under a rock until after Labor Day weekend is over.
(08/13/08 09:00 PM)
- New West Joins Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado and Beer.
There's lot of good Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado stuff going on. The other day I wrote about the EFCO Annual Give Back Event that is happening on Saturday (please come join us.) Today, New West announced that they have joined the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado.
Tomorrow (8/14) at 5:30pm, Application Experts is announcing that they have joined the Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado and is having a rooftop party on the Foundry Roof Deck to tell anyone that's interested why you should care about EFCO. A bunch of TechStars folks with be there along with me and my partner Jason Mendelson - come join us for a beer.
(08/13/08 09:00 PM)
- In Quest of Logo: Update. For those of you who remember my burning desire to acquire a logo for my blog without pulling out a home equity loan, here’s the result No, it hasn’t taken quite this long to get, but close. The process was painless, I believe because however slightly, I knew the designer. He knew a little [...] (08/12/08 09:00 AM)
- EFCO Annual Give Back Event.
The Entrepreneurs Foundation of Colorado is having their first annual "give back" event on Saturday 8/16. If you are an employee of a company that is an EFCO member, you and your family are invited. EFCO is doing this in conjunction with the Intercambio-KGNU Friendship Fun Run. The logistics follow:
August 16 at Foothills Community Park (at Broadway and Violet, Boulder)
8 AM & 9:15 AM Adult 5K
8:45 AM Kids' 1K
11 AM to Noon - Intercambio Strategic Planning Session
Noon - Celebration Family PicnicFor some background on Intercambio, I asked Lee Shainis, the Executive Director, a few questions.
- Who is Intercambio? We are an innovative, efficient and independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded in 2001 that works to build respectful communities and broaden opportunities for immigrants through language education, cultural exchange and friendship.
- What does Intercambio do? We provide affordable and flexible English classes for over 1,000 adult immigrants each year, taught by over 350 trained volunteers at immigrants' homes, other nonprofit agencies, and at public buildings. We also offer community resource information and workshops as well as intercultural exchange through community social events such as potlucks, fiestas, camping trips and park clean-ups. Over 1,800 people attend our intercultural events each year.
- Why is this important for our community? In recent years, immigration has sparked a great deal of fear and discomfort in our society. Immigrants are striving to feel more confident and successful in their surrounding communities, but language barriers, fear, and lack of cultural understanding are severe obstacles. Intercambio provides a sustainable solution to these challenges and addresses the root causes by bringing together individuals from different backgrounds for an ongoing period of time with the objectives of learning from each other, building understanding, and creating a more inclusive community in which people of all cultural backgrounds feel better able to communicate, participate, and contribute. We are transforming the way immigrants and non-immigrants are able to communicate with each other, while fostering intercultural friendships that lead to deeper cultural understanding.
Come join us for what should be a fun and interesting morning. Register for the fun run and - if you are interested in volunteering to help with the event - please email Brandon Rattiner.
(08/12/08 09:00 AM)
- Ignighter - Group Dating.
As the TechStars 2008 companies gear up for Investor Demo Day, many of them are asking me to write about them on this humble blog. I'm really proud of what they all have accomplished this summer - it's pretty remarkable to look at them now and compare them to where there were at the beginning of the summer. Many of them are launching (or have recently launched) so I'll start talking about them as individual companies.
The Ignighter team - in addition to coming up with a new approach to online dating - have provided endless laughs throughout the summer (note to self - always include at least one team of comedians in the program each year.) The first time the Ignighter guys did the now infamous "elevator pitch" exercise, I was confused and simply responded "Oh - you have a group sex site."
The Ignighter guys (and everyone else in the room) took this in stride and I found out later that they were secretly almost pleased with the misconception. I made it clear to them that this wasn't a good thing and that I thought it was important to deliver the message of their site more clearly. Over the course of the summer they worked really hard on it and now it's a novelty when someone's mind goes to group sex when he/she hears Ignighter's elevator pitch.
Ignighter is launching this week and their first fun launch event is a group date between Obama and Clinton supporters in NYC. If you're going to be in NYC and want to attend or learn more about the event, RSVP here. They promise me there won't be any political sex scandals that emerge from the event.
(08/12/08 09:00 AM)
- How To Freely Give Away Your Stuff For A Profit. This copywriting tip may just be the most profitable one you've ever got. I know that's a bold claim but this copywriting tip is so pot... (08/08/08 09:01 PM)
- This Week’s Links. Fortune has a fantastic article on influential bank analyst Meredith Whitney. The Online Journalism Blog describes how influential bloggers, once they’ve tasted the bittersweet milk of a widespread audience, become more like run-of-the-mill journalists. Assuming journalism has some kind of standing commitment to objectivity, what’s wrong with being a journalist? Discovery News talks about psychogenic outbreaks, [...] (08/08/08 09:00 PM)
- Women leaders are set up to fail..
Economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett?writes in her Harvard Business Blog, "Winning the Talent War," with the recent dismissal/demotion of Erin Callan (Lehman Brothers), Zoe Cruz (Morgan Stanley), and Sallie Krawcheck (Citi), a 2005 article in the British Journal of Management entitled "The Glass Cliff: Evidence that Women are Over-Represented in Precarious Leadership Positions" is being scrutinized anew.
(08/08/08 09:01 AM)- The Irrelevance of Silicon Valley Envy.
A few weeks ago I wrote about the AEA survey that ranked Boulder as the #2 CyberCity in the US. I suggested that this was misleading since #1 was "San Jose/Silicon Valley", which is not actually a city. If you'd decomposed "San Jose/Silicon Valley" into the various cities that actually make up Silicon Valley, they would have been #1 through at least #5 and Boulder would have been #6.
Ever since I'm moved to Boulder in 1995, the "what do we need to do to be more like Silicon Valley" meme pops up ever regularly. I've spent a lot of time in Silicon Valley, have lots of friends and colleagues there, and have made (and continue to make) lots of investments there. It's a special and unique place.
Over the years, I've asserted that Colorado has no business trying to "be like" Silicon Valley. There are lots of things that Colorado can learn from Silicon Valley and a lot of them are happening / being created in Boulder right now. However, it's a great example of the cliche of "applying best practices" (where Boulder is learning from and applying the best practices of Silicon Valley) rather than strict emulation.
This came up in an interview with me on ColoradoBizTV that just went up today. I have a three minute riff on why "Boulder, Denver, and Colorado in general ebbs and flows with Silicon Valley envy and that's an error" and why "the Boulder entrepreneurial scene is as healthy as it's ever been."
(08/07/08 09:00 PM)
- I've Deleted All My Alerts And Replaced Them With Filtrbox.
I have been looking forward to this day for a while. I've always been obsessed with following any news or blog mentions of any of the companies I'm an investor and the people I work with. For the past few years I've satisfied my obsession with an extensive set of Google Alerts (via email), Yahoo Alerts (via email) and Technorati Alerts (via RSS). Occasionally I'll add something else to the mix usually through RSS (such as a FriendFeed or Summize keyword feed.) My email rules shunt everything to my "daily" folder so I only have to look through it once a day (when I read through my RSS feeds.)
Last week I deleted all my alerts. I was able to do this because Filtrbox - one of the TechStars companies from last year - is now finding much more than 100% of the information that my alerts were picking up, including 100% of what I got from the alerts. I'd been running the two in parallel for about six months and saw the lines cross about two months ago, but went ahead and had both run just in case. I'm now confident that I won't miss any of the alert stuff.
Dealing with Filtrbox is so much easier and more pleasant. I enter my keywords into one UI instead of Google, Yahoo, Technorati, and others. I get a daily email digest of everything Filtrbox found. I have a history of all the data so if I want to go find an article from a month ago, I can easily find it in Filtrbox. And I get a bunch of cool data visualizations.
I've watched Ari Newman, Tom Chikoore, and team evolve Filtrbox from its starting point last summer at TechStars. I'm blown away - they've really nailed it. Ari and Tom took a deliberately "slow and steady" approach - making sure they really built something deep and robust before releasing it to the world. They accomplished this - and it's ready for action.
As a special bonus for all you Olympic fans (like me), they've put together an Olympic Blog Widget that is customizable and pulls from their data sources. Guys - super cool.
(08/07/08 09:00 PM)
- Enterprise 2.0 and Defrag.
Eric Norlin has a good post up titled Enterprise 2.0 as part of a larger theme. In it he addresses the question "Is enterprise 2.0 bullshit?" Eric doesn't think it is, nor do I. However, there is still a lot of difficultly getting real alignment on what it means, what is unique about the enterprise characteristics, and why anyone should really care.
I've seeing an interesting and predictable phenomenon occurring. Corporate IT has gotten energized about implementing "social computing" and "all that Web 2.0 stuff." The analyst crowd is writing about all the different Enterprise 2.0 categories and starting to extensively position products in pretty matrices. Several big software companies, including Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle are making major pushes into this "category." Loads of startups are emerging in every segment. TechCrunch even has an a new property called TechCrunchIT.
Early adopters are doing what they always do - pilots, proof of concepts, workgroup deployments. White papers are appearing. Web conferences are happening. Inevitably an "Enterprise 2.0 Conference" (or several derivatives) will appear.
But Eric and I think something is missing. What is going round and round as Enterprise 2.0 is a subset of something bigger. For example, we are in the beginning phase of new issues surrounding the entirety of identity computing and the web. We are now in a land where people have multiple online personas - their "work self", their "home friend self", their "secret second life self", their "hidden porn login self", and their "this is what I wish I was like self". While "identity management" has been an endless "IT problem to solve", this isn't really "identity management" anymore - it's "I consume and generate a shitload of data in different contexts that are persistently stored out in the open for all to see - how do I deal with that?"
I could give another dozen examples of the subset issues contained in what we are trying to explore with Defrag. I expect Eric will keep banging away on them on his blog. And - more importantly - I hope you'll come join us at Defrag on November 3rd and 4th in Denver as a group of really interesting and smart people attack some of these issues and try to make sense of them. If you register this month, use the code "brad1" and get $100 off your registration fee.
(08/07/08 09:00 PM)
- What Am I?.
When I work with software all day long, I sometimes forget that there are seriously cool and amazing things in the world that people build, like hadron colliders.
(08/07/08 09:00 AM)
- Interview With Jon Fox of Intense Debate.
Allen Stern has a great interview up with Jon Fox, the co-founder of Intense Debate. Jon and Intense Debate were part of the first year's crop of companies from TechStars and are going great guns right now. They create the comment replacement system that I use on my blog - if you are a blogger and haven't tried it yet, wander on over to Intense Debate and take a look.
Jon covers a lot of ground in his interview, but I especially like his answer to Allen's last question: "What tips do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs?"
Jon: I would say two things. First, find yourself a mentor, or at least a friend in the business that can help to get you hooked in. If you don't know anybody yet, reach out to a handful. My experience is that these people are generally more than willing to help, and happy to bring someone new into the mix.
Second, don't be afraid to just dive in. I realize not everyone can do this, but it's really hard to go half way into the startup lifestyle. Recruiting a team, raising money, building a product, etc all require lots of time and effort and you really can't do it only on the weekend. It's a bit scary at first, but once you get in it's tough to believe you've lived any other way.
As the second year's group of TechStars' companies gear up for investor day in a few weeks, it's fun to ponder how far some of last year's companies have come.
(08/04/08 09:01 PM)
- Help prevent what you treat....
In reading a recent post on Bill's blog in his Monday Morning Motivation series, he offers the advice to chiropractors, or any doctor for that matter, that their highest calling is to help prevent what they treat.
...but what are you doing to help make yourself obsolete?
...The highest calling of any doctor (of any ilk) is to help prevent what it is they treat.
That got me to thinking about my philosophy as a consultant and speaker. It's hard for those of us who work on the retainer system to hold the philosophy of "helping to make ourselves obsolete", but that's exactly what we need to do. There is such an abundance of opportunity out there and by working closely with our clients (whether our consultative calling is inside or outside the enterprise) to move them to a higher platform of strategic or digital marketing execution expertise, we're truly offering the service that they need (and not the service, that we need...)
ACTION REQUIRED:
Think about this in your interactions all week. What have we done to truly understand the client and share our wisdom on making them better marketers (or, whatever they are) so that you too can one day be obsolete to them and move on to helping clients help themselves? That is the highest calling of any consultant.
(08/04/08 09:01 AM)
- Twitter will replace blogs as the Web's best social tool.. In Robert Scoble's latest column in Fast Company, "Stream of Consciousness," a few of his tweets from microblogging service, Twitter, were arranged in streams to express the conversations he had with others while using the tool.
In this week-long glance at his tweetstream, Scoble said, "Twitter is the public square. Lots of noise, little signal. Blogs are like a speech. Signal, but little noise ..."
(08/03/08 09:01 AM)- How Venture Fund Economics Work.
Fred Wilson has an excellent post up today titled Venture Fund Economics. It appears to be the first of several posts he's planning to write on this topic.
"When I write about venture fund returns, there are always comments and questions that lead me to believe that the economics of a venture fund are not well understood. And since most of the readers and commenters on this blog are people who work in the startup ecosystem, I think its important that the economics are better understood. So I am planning on some posts on this topic in the coming weeks."
Everyone that is interested in venture capital in any way should read this post (and presumably the subsequent ones.) I'll try to remember to point them out when they appear.
(08/03/08 09:01 AM)
- Must Have iPhone Trick for Bloggers. When I go around the country to blog related conferences I find that the majority of bloggers I meet are Mac folks and iPhone nuts. With that in mind I give you the ultimate iPhone blogger trick. Basically this is a way to create your own little glassy iPhone application icon and put it on your phone’s [...]
(08/01/08 09:01 PM)
- Why I Spend A Month A Year in Homer, Alaska.
I wish it were as simple as "the weather." After 27 days in a row of rain (ok - we had sun for part of two days), the sun finally came out today.
I've been coming up to Alaska in the summer for about 15 years. Amy grew up here and after we started going out together it seemed like a trip to her home state was in order. I grew up in Texas, so after putting up with the "if you cut Alaska in half Texas would become the third largest state" jokes, I took a trip and immediately fell in love with the place.
There are many magical things about Alaska. Everyone here has a story. The scale of things is unbelievable. When the sun shines, nothing is wrong with the planet. But my favorite is that everything here needs a power wash and I get to wear jeans anywhere I go. We bought a house in Homer six years ago and have been coming here for about a month a year ever since.
I've written about my need for a periodic downshift as one way I manage the intensity level of my life. I’m fundamentally an introvert, yet I spent much of my life in extrovert situations. Over time I reach a point where I need a break from human contact. My month in Homer is my ultimate annual downshift. While I'm up here I work about half time, which means a 40 hour a week schedule. Since we don't know many people here I end up with a remarkable amount of reading, thinking, running, and chilling out time. We don't have a TV - and we don't miss it.
Over the course of the year I get tired. I get up every day at 5 am. I run 5 to 10 hours / week. I work 12 – 15 hours a day, Monday to Friday. I work on the weekends. I travel. As I get older, I've found I simply need some time each year to sleep until I wake up.
I want more focused time with Amy. When I die, I won't have had enough time with her. We take a week off together every quarter, but that's not enough for either of us. I want to spend more time with her and this is a way to get a lot of time together.
I periodically need to refresh / reboot my brain. I need time to think, experiment, and play with new ideas. Getting away and having a month in a totally different context does that for me.
Entertainingly, I always have plenty of deal activity that happens in July. This year I was involved in a major financing and another transaction that should close soon. Anyone who works with me knows I am available, but very mellow. Ah - the magic of DSL and a cell phone.
While a month in a different context doesn't (and can't) work for everyone, hopefully this provides a glimpse into how it works for me and answers the question I've gotten over and over again this month of "what are you doing up in Homer, Alaska?"
(07/28/08 09:01 PM)
- Connecting Your Brain Directly To The Internet.
It could happen before you expect it. I read a lot of science fiction and have been fantasizing about the opportunity to jack into cyberspace for a long time. We are getting one step closer with our latest investment in EmSense.
(07/28/08 09:01 PM)
- Robert Scoble On Twitter.
The Power Of Twitter
-I am using RSS less and less lately. Mostly due to FriendFeed, but also because of Twitter ...
-People worry about companies starting to use Twitter for marketing. If companies misuse Twitter, block or unfollow them. Problem solved. Remember, it's who you follow that defines you...
-Twitter is the public square. Lots of noise, little signal. Blogs are like a speech. Signal, but little noise ...
(07/25/08 09:01 PM)- Google Knol Provides New Content Platform. Google announced an new Wikipedialike content site called Google Knol some months ago. However, the site opened to the public with a simple announcement on the official Google Blog this week. On the surface this looks like a place to go and build pages, or knols as Google calls them, on specific topics of expertise and [...]
(07/25/08 09:01 AM)
- A Very Good String Of Books.
I had a week of "a book a day" where every single one I read was great. I'm now slogging through an "ok" book (The Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism
) so I thought I'd take a break and write quick reviews of the excellent ones that I have read lately.
The Last Lecture
: Wow. Randy Pausch is just incredible. A well known CMU professor with a great zest for life, Randy was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer in September 2006. He broke into the mainstream with his awesome lecture titled "The Last Lecture" which was the final lecture he gave at CMU. It's a riveting 76 minute lecture that the book was subsequently based on. Both are worth every second you spend on them. As of today, Randy is still alive, but according to his blog he recently "has also taken a step down and is much sicker than he had been. He's now enrolled in hospice." (Added the morning of 7/25: Randy Pausch passed away last night.) I don't know Randy personally, but after hearing his lecture, reading as much of his as I could find on the web, and then reading The Last Lecture
The Mascot: Unraveling the Mystery of My Jewish Father's Nazi Boyhood
: I had a wide range of emotions after reading The Last Lecture
Just Do It: How One Couple Turned Off the TV and Turned On Their Sex Lives for 101 Days (No Excuses!)
: If you are a happily married couple living in Denver with two youngish daughters and you decided to embark on having sex every day for 100 days, what would it be like? Yup - that's what this book is about. It's extremely well written - has the appropriate amount of titillation and salacious stuff without being over the top while being an enjoyable romp through the complex life of a modern couple that I expect many people can relate to. Equal parts brain candy, philosophy, biography, and - well - sex.
The Billionaire's Vinegar: The Mystery of the World's Most Expensive Bottle of Wine
: I'm not an oeniphile so I didn't expect to love this book, but I did (thanks Frank for the recommendation.) I learned an incredible amount about the history of wine while getting a great look into the mysterious world of high priced "rare" wines - and what appears to be a massive fraud that evolved over a 20 year period surrounding a wide range of "rare" wines. The cast of characters is extensive and while this is clearly history (going back to Thomas Jefferson) it reads like a thriller. Yum.
Glasshouse
: After that stretch of books I needed some mental floss. I loved the Charles Stross sci-fi book that I read last week and on a reader's recommendation went on Amazon and bought all of his books for my Kindle. This one was even better, and I've got another half dozen to go before I run out of things he's written in the past few years.
The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crash of 2008 and What It Means
: I figured Soros would be a challenge after Glasshouse. Every other chapter (the philosophy part) was. I always enjoy reading Soros's books; I never completely understand them but I enjoy his blunt and cynical view about the markets and how people interact with them.
Now - this incredible stretch of great books couldn't continue. It doesn't. I read about half of The Pirate's Dilemma tonight. It's ok, but all the commentary between the examples are unnecessary as the examples are the meat (and stand on their own.) Fortunately, I know how to skim.
(07/25/08 09:01 AM)
- The Dark Knight.
Amy insists I'm the Good Knight so we'll call this a good night for the Dark Knight.
(07/24/08 09:01 AM)
- My Dad's Summer Camp Story - 1950.
I love it when my dad writes about personal history on his blog. He's a great storyteller and is extremely articulate about living and growing up in a generation that seems very very far away from today, as well as very far away from the generation I grew up with.
His post titled Herald Tribune Fresh Air Fund Summer Camp 1950 made me smile an enormous smile. I can totally see my scrawny 12 year old dad surrounded by these huge guys from the Red Hook District in Brooklyn, being scared shitless but keeping it all inside, and winning them all over on the ball field.
Love ya dad.
(07/24/08 09:01 AM)
- Doubling Down.
Fred Wilson - my friend and co-investor in Zynga - titled his post on Zynga's $29 million financing Raising The Stakes so I couldn't resist titling my post Doubling Down. And I'll echo what Fred said - I'm amazed with the hand that Mark Pincus (Zynga's CEO and founder) has and am delighted to be sitting at the table playing it with him.
Zynga just announced that Kleiner Perkins has led a $29 million round that includes new investor Institutional Venture Partners and the old investors (Union Square Ventures, Foundry Group, and Avalon Ventures.) Bing Gordon from KPCB has joined the board - Bing recently joined KPCB and was previously the chief creative officer at Electronic Arts where he had been a key executive since 1982. The TechCrunch article has some good info in it including the news that Zynga has acquired Yoville.
When we made our initial investment in Zynga last November, the idea of "social gaming" was just starting to emerge. Mark and the team at Zynga started with Texas HoldEm Poker (hence the poker theme in the first paragraph) but rapidly expanded into a number of other socially-oriented games on Facebook that you could play with your friends. When I wrote about some of these games in my post Wanna Play Zynga Games With Me? I was just starting to understand the potential power of social gaming. Over the past six months, I've become an incredible believer in the appeal of social gaming as a broad idea and see it as a disrupting force in the overall gaming industry. Oh - and as a user it's also a ton of fun to play these games with people I know all over the world.
While gaming is nothing new (and continues to be a fantastic business), the science of social gaming - figuring out how it works, making the games compelling, and dealing with the broad platform issues that come with massive scale - is really hard. While the popularity of Facebook seeded the social gaming phenomenon, it is now rapidly evolving onto new platforms such as other social networks like MySpace as well as connected devices like the iPhone via the iPhone AppStore.
While I've had a bunch of fantastic experiences as an investor, the tempo, pacing, quality of the people, and success of Zynga has exceeded anything I've ever experienced. I attribute it all to the genius of Mark and the fantastic people that he's surrounded himself with. And it's cool to be doubling down with investors like Bing, IVP, my friends Fred Wilson and Rich Levandov, and the entire team at Zynga that are the real folks making this happen.
(07/23/08 09:01 PM)
- Upgrading WordPress the Easy Way. One of the trade-offs involved with using blog software that resides on your server is that you may have to endure updates to add new features and fix potential security risks. Hosted services such as TypePad or Compendium Blogware simply push these live without any work on the part of the user. I for one [...]
(07/23/08 09:01 PM)
- Alltop is Great Listening Device. Before you blog, before you create a social media strategy of any sort, you need to listen. By listen I mean tune into the truckloads of relevant industry content that’s being put out there, filtered and aggregated for your review. If you’re going to do that you want to start by following some of the [...]
(07/23/08 09:01 AM)
- Glue and Comments.
Since last summer I've been talking about comments as the Dark Matter of the Blogosphere. I use Intense Debate* for the comment system on my blog and have learned a lot by experimenting with it.
In the past six months comments have moved to the forefront of the discussion around user generated content. While the various new commenting systems that have emerged have played a part in this, I think the broad activity around systems that enable small bursts of user generated content (Twitter, BrightKite*) and systems that aggregate a wide variety of user generated content (FriendFeed, SocialThing*) are playing a huge role in this and more "comment-like" data is being generated all over the Web.
One of the investment themes I'm most fascinated with right now is the one we call "Glue". We've made a handful of investments in the Glue theme at Foundry Group including Gnip, AdMeld, and Topspin. We've also been working with our good friend Eric Norlin - the creator of the Defrag Conference - on a Glue Conference.
I'm always looking for great, simple examples of Glue and I found one accidentally the other day. I put up a blog post titled Brilliant Op-Ed Crushing McCain On The Economy. I posted it on Sunday morning and then went out for a two hour run. I came back to about 20 comments on it in my inbox. Even though the post was done on my blog, I noticed the comments were from FriendFeed accounts being emailed to me by Intense Debate.
Here's what happened. My blog is one of my FriendFeed services. A vigorous debate broke out on FriendFeed between a couple of people. I wouldn't have noticed it until Monday when I checked my FriendFeed ego feed (I only do this once a day.) However, Intense Debate is "glued" to my FriendFeed account so any comments that show up on a blog post of mine on FriendFeed automatically show up in Intense Debate on my blog. It's a small feature, but a brilliant one, as it brings the overall conversation associated with my blog post back to my blog where I actually want it.
There are now 46 comments on this particular blog post (unexpected - I don't write that much about politics and it was a Sunday post.) Most of them are from the FriendFeed discussion, but some are from my blog readers. They are intermixed where I want them - on my blog. Even though they are coming from multiple sources, they persist permanently on my blog due to a tiny feature in Intense Debate.
Now - this is all much too complex still, but it's why the Glue is so interesting to us. We are continually looking for unnecessary complexity in the metaverse and ways to build really large companies that (a) take advantage of the complexity, (b) simplify the complexity, or (c) both. If you make glue, email me!
* Yes - I'm aware that each of Intense Debate, BrightKite, and SocialThing are TechStars companies from 2007 - and I'm immensely proud of the progress each has made and the fact they are in the midst of what I consider to be a very interesting and vigorous segment of our little tech universe
(07/22/08 09:01 AM)
- Running and Conferences.
I've got some fun things for you to do this Monday morning (or at least to put on your schedule to do.)
Want to learn how to run? How to Go From Sedentary to Running in Five Steps.
If you are already running, join the Gyminee Running Challenge or Gyminee Weight Loss Challenge. Or - join me on Gyminee in my Lifehacker inspired six week program to do One Hundred Pushups.
Developing software for your iPhone? Check out iPhoneDevCamp Colorado on 8/1 - 8/3.
Like 37 Signals? Jason Fried is talking at the Oriental Theater in Denver on July 31st.
Defrag is starting to heat up. Eric has a post up in response to the "tech has gotten boring" meme that is making the rounds. That that he says "bah" and talks more about his thoughts in Anything but ho-hum.
(07/21/08 09:01 PM)
- Excellent Story on the Failure of Monitor110.
It's unusual for a founder to write a long thoughtful post on the failure of his company. Roger Ehrenberg - the co-founder of Monitor110 - which shut down earlier this week, did just that on his outstanding post titled Monitor110: A Post Mortem. The post is oriented around Roger's "seven deadly sins":
- The lack of a single, "the buck stops here" leader until too late in the game
- No separation between the technology organization and the product organization
- Too much PR, too early
- Too much money
- Not close enough to the customer
- Slow to adapt to market reality
- Disagreement on strategy both within the Company and with the Board
Every person in every company that I'm involved with should read this post carefully. Every entrepreneur should also. Failure is part of the entrepreneur experience - Roger has done us all a great service by being willing to be deeply introspective and share his thoughts on what went wrong at Monitor110 in such a direct way.
(07/19/08 09:01 AM)
- The Who, Inflation, Blogging, and Global Warming.
It's time for another quick list of interesting things I found this morning on the web along with my occasionally witty commentary.
Harmonix Party: Rock Band owns LA with Who concert. I love everything about Harmonix and Rock Band. Er, um, The Who just played at a Harmonix / MTV party at the Orpheum Theater in LA. The Who. The Who! One of my best friends - Warren Katz - who was also an angel investor in Harmonix had the following to say about the party:
"My jaw is on the floor and I am speechless. Not because I semi-randomly got hooked up with a game that's turning out to be one of the greatest hits of all time. Not because that game is actually fundamentally changing how a great hunk of the world interacts with music. Not because this game hosted a party featuring my favorite rock band of all time, The Who (and I would have hurt myself to get on a plane for this party). I am stunned mute because, in my opinion, one of the three best songs in Rock and Roll history, "Won't Get Fooled Again" (the other two being "Paradise By the DashBoard Lights" and "Bohemian Rhapsody"), was referred to throughout this article as "the theme from CSI". We cannot possibly be that old, and the youth of today cannot possibly be that out of touch. It actually took me a minute to realize what song they were talking about."
Alex, Eran, and all the rest of the people at Harmonix. You are the coolest nerds ever. Ian - you have real competition here in the cool nerd category!
Latest shocker: June prices go up, up, up: "Consumer prices rose 1.1 percent in June from the month before, far faster than the expected rate of 0.7 percent and almost double the reading from May, the Labor Department said Wednesday." Hmmm - an annualized rate of 13.2% - that would be "inflation."
SAP, Oracle Boost Software Prices: "Unlike price increase for food, fuel and many other commodities, the changes in software don't stem from a shortage of supply or a rise in demand. They are attempts by software makers to increase their bottom lines, said Brendan Barnicle, an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities Inc." Well - yes - but it's also called an "oligopoly." SAP annual maintenance, which has been at 17% for a while, will now be at 22%. Oracle simply implemented a 15% - 20% across the board price increase for US customers.
Blogging's Dead, Long Live Blogging: While this particular meme goes round and round and round, especially among the A-list bloggers talking about blogging (or not blogging), Fred nails why he - and I - blog in this post. Whenever someone asks me "why do I blog" I now have a new link to send them to.
Chill out - it's just a normal cool summer: My part time meteorologist Josh Larson emailed me this link. Apparently it's just been a normal summer in Alaska with endless clouds, cool weather, and for the last 24 hours non-stop rain. ""We were in a warm phase of the Pacific decadal oscillation in the '80s and '90s. (Some forecasters) believe we may have entered into the cold phase." Where is that damn global warming when you really want it?
- Increase Your Response Exploiting Basic Human Psychology. If you have been learning web copywriting and appreciate a small amount of psychology, you'll undoubtedly be aware of of the phrase "... (08/23/08 09:01 AM)
