Monday, October 20, 2008
Invest in the 401-Keg plan while economy is down
If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you will have $49.00 today. If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in AIG one year ago, you will have $33.00 today. If you had purchased $1,000 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you will have $0.00 today. But, if you had purchased $1,000 worth of beer one year ago, drank all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for recycling refund, you would have received $214.00. Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily & recycle. It is called the 401-Keg.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
FFWD is the new Pandora of Online Video
FFWD.com just came out of private beta today. A few months ago i attended Under the Radar at the Microsoft campus and saw Patrick Koppula present his online video startup "FFWD.com" and I felt the fire for online video reignited in me. I was truly blown away at how he fully captured the idea i had for MyTV for ManiaTV a year ago.
Patrick and I have never met before that day but i had heard about his prior startup venture iLike.com which he co-founded. I can see how closely the layout looks to what I was working on at ManiaTV early last year! For my friends who are still at ManiaTV will know what i'm talking about:)
Some Positives on FFWD:
1. The User Experience execution is really dead on - lots of white background, short 4 line sign up, pick your interest with thumbnails (limited choices) and bam! start enjoying the pandora of online video!
2. I was able to invite all my 1850 contacts from my Gmail all at once:)
3. Non crowded video search experience, intuitive options to drill down on my interests
Other notes:
1. I can't rewind to prior video that i watched unless i save it
2. I tend to not scroll down to see who else was watching the same channel and wish I could
3. no place to comment or give instant feedback
Patrick and I have never met before that day but i had heard about his prior startup venture iLike.com which he co-founded. I can see how closely the layout looks to what I was working on at ManiaTV early last year! For my friends who are still at ManiaTV will know what i'm talking about:)
Some Positives on FFWD:
1. The User Experience execution is really dead on - lots of white background, short 4 line sign up, pick your interest with thumbnails (limited choices) and bam! start enjoying the pandora of online video!
2. I was able to invite all my 1850 contacts from my Gmail all at once:)
3. Non crowded video search experience, intuitive options to drill down on my interests
Other notes:
1. I can't rewind to prior video that i watched unless i save it
2. I tend to not scroll down to see who else was watching the same channel and wish I could
3. no place to comment or give instant feedback
Friday, July 11, 2008
Blogging badly
Hung out with a professional blogger today and the best advice I've heard regarding blogging is that you need to blog and blog badly for about a year before you get all the bad writing out of your system.
But how do you know when all the bad has gone out from you? He also mentioned about blogging about the simple things like..."That was an awesome $5 dollar footlong today at SubWays" or "We just got this cool white bean bag at the office and made our PR team jealous".
Do people really want to know that i owe a book to the Stanford Library? Or that I ran out of gas while I was only 2 miles from home the other night which made my wife furious and rightly so? Or that I recently cut my own hair with thinning scissors and that my hair looks like crap? Or that I am a horrible non-profit fundraiser for LiveStrong San Jose? Or that I never wanted or intended for SocialURL to be full of half naked people and that I truly wanted to solve the problem of presence on multiple social networks, reputation management and how to systematically spread your social profiles in one place for the best Social Media Optimization results?
By the way i have a new problem that I am solving...how to stop blogging badly:)
But how do you know when all the bad has gone out from you? He also mentioned about blogging about the simple things like..."That was an awesome $5 dollar footlong today at SubWays" or "We just got this cool white bean bag at the office and made our PR team jealous".
Do people really want to know that i owe a book to the Stanford Library? Or that I ran out of gas while I was only 2 miles from home the other night which made my wife furious and rightly so? Or that I recently cut my own hair with thinning scissors and that my hair looks like crap? Or that I am a horrible non-profit fundraiser for LiveStrong San Jose? Or that I never wanted or intended for SocialURL to be full of half naked people and that I truly wanted to solve the problem of presence on multiple social networks, reputation management and how to systematically spread your social profiles in one place for the best Social Media Optimization results?
By the way i have a new problem that I am solving...how to stop blogging badly:)
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
July 13th LiveStrong 5K run
Lost my grandparents to cancer so this run is for those who are still fighting- join me in supporting this run.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Breaking into Madison Avenue
Under the Radar in Mountain View yesterday was a much better turnout than I expected. I truly wish we spent time to present at this event. I don't believe you really have anything real in the startup world unless its somewhat validated.
Its also not validated if you don't get the buy in from advertisers.
Ellen Mcgirt, Fast Company/Moderated a fireside chat for the finale of Under the Radar in Mountain View.
Panelists included:
Scott Schiller, Glam Media (cofounder of IAB)
Jeff Stiers, JWT (project Sector64)
Chris Colbourn, R/GA
Tom Bedecarre, AKQA
Props given: Hubert founder at Curse.com- went to Intel asked who works in the food chain in marketing, persistence in getting one Marquee advertiser was key to his success
Target: Old world was on 60seconds (TV) to plug brand for toothless, Now its blogs etc.
What Madison Ave looks for: REACH, TARGETING & ENGAGEMENT - planner figures this out
Problem: REACH + TARGETING + ENGAGMENT = VALUE...what other revenue models will win? Relevance matters...PUSH /REACH MEDIA vs CONNECTING MEDIA...not about new revenue models. Not about search advertising.
Just because Facebook has a lot of people doesn't mean its valuable...utility mode is not same as consumption mode on TV
Blogging Ad Networks are still untapped market...
Its also not validated if you don't get the buy in from advertisers.
Ellen Mcgirt, Fast Company/Moderated a fireside chat for the finale of Under the Radar in Mountain View.
Panelists included:
Scott Schiller, Glam Media (cofounder of IAB)
Jeff Stiers, JWT (project Sector64)
Chris Colbourn, R/GA
Tom Bedecarre, AKQA
Props given: Hubert founder at Curse.com- went to Intel asked who works in the food chain in marketing, persistence in getting one Marquee advertiser was key to his success
Target: Old world was on 60seconds (TV) to plug brand for toothless, Now its blogs etc.
What Madison Ave looks for: REACH, TARGETING & ENGAGEMENT - planner figures this out
Problem: REACH + TARGETING + ENGAGMENT = VALUE...what other revenue models will win? Relevance matters...PUSH /REACH MEDIA vs CONNECTING MEDIA...not about new revenue models. Not about search advertising.
Just because Facebook has a lot of people doesn't mean its valuable...utility mode is not same as consumption mode on TV
Blogging Ad Networks are still untapped market...
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Comcast buys into Web3.0 with Plaxo...
A Letter from the CEO and Founders
Dear Plaxo member,
We are excited to announce some of the biggest news in the history of Plaxo. Plaxo has signed a definitive agreement** to be acquired by Comcast, the nation's leading provider of entertainment, information and communications products and services. We've got at least a few months to go before the acquisition is completed, but we wanted to send you this note to let you know what's coming up and how it affects you and your account.
Plaxo will remain an independent brand, organization and entity. We've been busy at work on our networked address book service and our next-generation social network, Pulse (if it's been a while, please come back and check out all the new features). And, through additional projects with Comcast, we'll be able to take these services to a lot more users and places than we could on our own... including the TV, phone and more.
If you'd like to read more about some of the great new things we're planning, please read our official announcement.
So, what does this mean for current Plaxo members like you? The services you know and enjoy from Plaxo will not only continue to exist, but will also continue to evolve and improve. We will continue to make our basic services free, and we will continue to serve customers in multiple languages across the world. But, we'll now be able to invest even more in our services, and we will enhance them with more users and more content available across a wider array of devices.
We will also continue to protect your privacy and give you control of your information. We will continue to protect your data with one of the strongest privacy policies, which will remain in effect even after the transition. And, we'll continue to be a strong advocate for the open social web.
We've put together a quick Q&A about your privacy, account and your data.
Last, we'd like to extend an enormous thank you. Whether you've been a Plaxo user for a long time or just recently joined Pulse, we'd like to thank you for making Plaxo a vibrant network. We are excited to open a new chapter today and look forward to helping you keep in touch with the people you care about.
Sincerely,
Ben Golub, Chief Executive Officer
Cameron Ring, Founder and Chief Architect
Todd Masonis, Founder and Vice President of Products
Dear Plaxo member,
We are excited to announce some of the biggest news in the history of Plaxo. Plaxo has signed a definitive agreement** to be acquired by Comcast, the nation's leading provider of entertainment, information and communications products and services. We've got at least a few months to go before the acquisition is completed, but we wanted to send you this note to let you know what's coming up and how it affects you and your account.
Plaxo will remain an independent brand, organization and entity. We've been busy at work on our networked address book service and our next-generation social network, Pulse (if it's been a while, please come back and check out all the new features). And, through additional projects with Comcast, we'll be able to take these services to a lot more users and places than we could on our own... including the TV, phone and more.
If you'd like to read more about some of the great new things we're planning, please read our official announcement.
So, what does this mean for current Plaxo members like you? The services you know and enjoy from Plaxo will not only continue to exist, but will also continue to evolve and improve. We will continue to make our basic services free, and we will continue to serve customers in multiple languages across the world. But, we'll now be able to invest even more in our services, and we will enhance them with more users and more content available across a wider array of devices.
We will also continue to protect your privacy and give you control of your information. We will continue to protect your data with one of the strongest privacy policies, which will remain in effect even after the transition. And, we'll continue to be a strong advocate for the open social web.
We've put together a quick Q&A about your privacy, account and your data.
Last, we'd like to extend an enormous thank you. Whether you've been a Plaxo user for a long time or just recently joined Pulse, we'd like to thank you for making Plaxo a vibrant network. We are excited to open a new chapter today and look forward to helping you keep in touch with the people you care about.
Sincerely,
Ben Golub, Chief Executive Officer
Cameron Ring, Founder and Chief Architect
Todd Masonis, Founder and Vice President of Products
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Racing to Web3.0
Joe Marchese of SocialVibe wrote his latest entry via Mediapost regarding MySpace, Facebook and Google racing to Web3.0.
It is clear that things are bubbling up and I have been preaching about social aggregation for years now...Its not a matter of whether "MySpace and Facebook play nice" its a matter of what users want. The nice part about web3.0 ubiquity is that neither "MySpace or Facebook have to win" one over the other. Those sites are there to serve the users and their need to connect- sure there is overlap but at the end of the day there are very clear user experiences that set them apart.
I for one would love to have the convenience of signing up to all the new sites (Although I'm not a big fan of Myspace) that interest me on Mashable posts which seems to be about 1 new site every 5 minutes but simply for the purpose of profile casting and search engine optimization as a social media practitioner.
FriendConnect is going to do what ClaimID has tried to do over the last couple of years and quite frankly what I originally wanted for SocialURL from the beginning.
It is clear that things are bubbling up and I have been preaching about social aggregation for years now...Its not a matter of whether "MySpace and Facebook play nice" its a matter of what users want. The nice part about web3.0 ubiquity is that neither "MySpace or Facebook have to win" one over the other. Those sites are there to serve the users and their need to connect- sure there is overlap but at the end of the day there are very clear user experiences that set them apart.
I for one would love to have the convenience of signing up to all the new sites (Although I'm not a big fan of Myspace) that interest me on Mashable posts which seems to be about 1 new site every 5 minutes but simply for the purpose of profile casting and search engine optimization as a social media practitioner.
FriendConnect is going to do what ClaimID has tried to do over the last couple of years and quite frankly what I originally wanted for SocialURL from the beginning.
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