Welcome Equity Private of SubRosa Capital to the blogosphere.

I've been blogging for two years now. 

In that time, I've applied and failed to get into grad school, switched jobs, moved, shaved my head, my dog died, hurt myself many times, met Bono, started a meme, not to mention all sorts of emotionion personal life things. 

What a long strange trip its been.

Where will I be in two years?

ooops...   Somehow when I did the new format, I forgot to put my Feedblitz box back.  So, now, if you type in your e-mail address on the right, you can get this e-mailed to you.  This is good for people who aren't into RSS and my dad. 

Have you been wondering about the tabs that appeared recently on my banner at the top--especially the peculiar "Pimp My Web" tab?  Well, wonder no more, because the Pimp My Web section of this blog is now functional, at least in Beta, anyway.  (We've wondered at Union Square Ventures why anyone would ever remove the "Beta" tag from a product.  Why would you ever say anything is done?  There's always room for improvement.  Shouldn't you always be working on something to make it better and soliciting audience feedback?)

The point of Pimp My Web is simple.  I'll be posting screencasts here on how to get the most out of your online experience... mostly for more novice users.  It will be the kind of site you e-mail to your mom to show her how to set up del.icio.us or maybe to view yourself before you set up del.icio.us on your girlfriend's computer and make her think you're smarter than you really are.  Starting a new blog?  Send folks here so they can learn how to use your RSS feed in Lesson One. 

These screencasts are just a start.  Two other things I use are the universal IM client, Trillian, and Linkedin.  Got other suggestions for future screencasts?  How about podcasting?  Drop a comment and let me know what every webhead needs to know at a minimum.

I'm finally upgrading my site template over the holiday weekend...

I participate in a listserv for my high school's alumni.  Today, someone asked for some career advice and I replied with a note.

Not long after I got this e-mail.

Its so unbelievably obnoxious...   I love every word of it!

"hey, thanks for helping tim out, the dude needs it... i keep forgetting to mention that your blog layout is bizarrely out of sync with your apparent tech-savvy.  that thing looks like an aol member homepage circa 1997.  when i look at something like that i kind of expect the writer to be either barely computer-literate or barely
literate period, which makes for some weird cognitive dissonance given your breezy and confident blogspeak.  maybe you know this already but don't have the time/money to get it fixed.  it might be worth putting just a little time into.  one really important thing is making it more readable--the content just doesn't have enough space."

And you know what?  He's totally right.  My blog layout is for suck.

Here's my issue:    I need/want all this playspace on the side for blogrolls, tags, counters, etc.  Now, Pete gives about half of Mashable to playspace and his stuff is readable.

Is it the black?   Can there be no readability with these colors?  Am I destined to succumb to Ajaxian whitespace?

I think I can still get away with black and perhaps the fix is simpler than that.  I have a feeling that if someone could just play around with the actual posting column, break the grey up into rounded ajax looking boxes (one for each post), and fix my titles and footers, it would go a long way.

I don't have the time to do that at all.  If anyone wants to play with my template, I'll e-mail it to them and give them a shot at it, or they can just view the source.  I'm debating whether I care enough about it to pay someone to do it.  Maybe I'll take them out to lunch for their trouble.

Pete Cashmore's Mashable and Chris Baum's User Experience Blog. 

I've been ranking all my blogs... well, most of them little by little, in FeedDemon by title, renaming the titles 0-5. 

My important front line reads are 1's.  This includes Fred's blog and Rob May's Businesspundit.

My 2's are solid.  They fill out the rotation with quality...   but I don't need to read them everyday.  That includes Alex Barnett and Charlene Li. 

3's are things I need to pay attention to, but aren't really part of regular content consumption, like the blogs of our companies, who we hear from anyway, and some MSM feeds.

4's are for something else...  4's are del.icio.us feeds of fun stuff to do and restaurants, and PubSub feeds.

5's are friends.

Then, there's the 0 category.  That's a test.  0's are short lived...   for like a week.  Its a watchlist of stuff I might want to read.  Pete and Chris have graduated from the zeros.

I'm so fascinated by who reads this, especially because of the great people I've met through this blog so far.  That's why I did a demographic survey last week.  I got 95+ respondents, and given my estimate of 2000 readers (roughly 4x the people that show up on Feedburner), that's statistically significant.  Thanks to Pollhost.com for their cool survey service.  It was really easy to setup.

So here are the results:

Selection   Votes Male 76% 74 Female 24% 23 97 votes total Poll results are subject to error.  Pollhost.com does not pre-screen the content of polls created by Pollhost customers.

Selection   Votes Under 25 17% 16 26-30 33% 32 31-35 21% 20 36-40 8% 8 41-45 10% 10 46-50 7% 7 Over 50 3% 3 96 votes total Poll results are subject to error.  Pollhost.com does not pre-screen the content of polls created by Pollhost customers.

Selection   Votes NYC Metro Area 20% 19 Boston/New England 13% 12 Southeast 8% 7 Midwest 10% 9 Silicon Valley area 2% 2 Other West Coast 15% 14 Europe 12% 11 Asia 1% 1 Somewhere else 19% 18 93 votes total Poll results are subject to error.  Pollhost.com does not pre-screen the content of polls created by Pollhost customers.

What do you do?

Selection   Votes Entreprenuer 32% 32 Investor 7% 7 Programmer 15% 15 Other IT 16% 16 Non-IT 29% 29 99 votes total Poll results are subject to error.  Pollhost.com does not pre-screen the content of polls created by Pollhost customers.

First, I was a bit surprised by the gender gap, not because it was so wide, but because I figured it was even higher.  Blogging, especially vc/tech blogging, is so male-dominated, that I was glad to see 24% female readership.  However, I have a feeling that most of that female readership is more of my friend base than anything else.  I don't know very many female entrepreneurs and technologists and I don't think I've had any of them comment on my blog or contact me through it. 

As for the age spread, this I wasn't surprised by.  I've had this theory that I get a good chunk of the younger end of Fred's more normally distributed age spectrum, mostly because people can more relate to me being a guy on the bottom end of the ladder.   

Location turned out to be really screwy.  I can't believe that only 2% of my readership is Silicon Valley based.   Perhaps it is, in fact, true that more of the Web 2.0/web services crowd is more diversified geographically because they're not as tied to hardcore tech centers.  Perhaps it is, in fact, true that more of the Web 2.0/web services crowd is more diversified geographically because they're not as tied to hardcore tech centers.   The other screwy thing is the 19% somewhere else crowd. Is that Canada?   South America? Where are those people?

No surprises in the job area...and in fact its what I want..  While I do like hearing from other investors, I'd much rather be chatting with the creators, operators, etc. than have this blog be a bunch of VCs chatting with themselves.

The Red Cross has put up a banner page that links back to places for you to give.  Its textbook sell side advertising.  They put up the ads and people just come and grab them.  Smart idea!  So, in addition to donating a few bucks, if you can donate some pixels to spread the word on where to give, that would greatly be appreciated.

I'm just curious about who is reading.  If you wouldn't mind, please take 10 seconds to answer the polls on the left column on my blog.  You need to click vote after each selection, and don't forget to click "back" in the results page so you can answer the next question.  The poll will be up for a week.  Thanks for your time.  I'm curious about the results.

Since a good chunk of you are new, I thought I would add some links to what I consider to be some of my better posts, so now I have a new linkroll down the left sidebar.

Also, I just posted a couple of new pictures to my photo section on the blog. 

Enjoy the weekend.  I'm off to take a ride on my new pre-owned bike from Craigslist.  I bought a Trek 7100 yesterday.

Hilarious!  Thanks Hunter!

Link: This is going to be BIG! - Jamba is a goldmine..

"Still amazed by the volume constriction that seems to occur during the blending process. I mean, you can suck down a smoothie with no problems, but try to eat four scoops of ice, half glass of OJ, two bananas, eight strawberries and half a frozen mango? No way."

So, you'll notice a few changes on the blog...  I finally got around to making all the menus work, which explains some of the weird posts you just saw.  Basically, I created a post that's going to act like a guestbook, so you can click the top menu and "Sign My Guestbook."  The second is that I have a Flickr badge now, so I'll have  a section/post for pictures.  I'll also be adding some to the Picture "Hall of Fame" or something like that.

More importantly, though, is that the Tag Team has linkrolls up and running.  The first one I've created is for my blogroll, which a lot of people have asked for.  If you'll notice, its in alpha order.  I don't think that's a feature yet, but Tim's working on it.  He coded that one for me on the fly when I realized that chronological order makes absolutely no sense when you're just creating a "Blogs I read" list.

Do you want a link roll?   Go here.

Then you can insert the little piece of javascript on your sidebar.

Link: del.icio.us/toby/toby:blog.

I love when I get links and I'm like, "What the hell is this?  ooooooh.... I get it."

So Toby from MusicMobs has built himself a blog in del.icio.us... well... sort of.

He's tagged and grouped his posts so that the front page has a group of four links... a link to del.icio.us links about stuff he likes, a link to outgoing links of interest, his linkroll, and his "blog", which is essentially a link to other things with a short comment in the extended field.

hmm...  Is del.icio.us going to give Typepad a run for its money?   Doubtful, but this is cool nonetheless. 

I have SO MANY things I want to blog about, take pictures of, etc. but I have no internet at home yet, and on top of that, my Treo is busted.  I get a new Treo on Friday and internet on Saturday, so you should see a lot of posts this weekend.  In the meantime, I'll be just letting all this stuff build up.  If I seem distracted or I'm sitting uncomfortably (depending on the quality of the blog post I'm thinking about), now you know why. 

Its amazing how disconnected I feel without e-mail on my phone and broadband in the apartment.  I might as well be living in Saskachawan.

So Fred had a blog post stolen from him yesterday and Michael Parekh had the same thing happen a few days before.  Their posts are winding up on this blog.

By who?   Fred's post listed an author link to this site.  But who is A1Technology?  There aren't any people listed on the site.

So I did my usual hard target search and it turns out that the guy responsible is relatively easy to find.

"A Fred divided against himself cannot stand!!"

So people are complaining about having to trudge through all of Fred's posts about his family, his travel, and his music to get to his posts about venture capital.  Its affecting how he posts and really has him troubled.  Frankly, I think some of his readers are being obnoxious, and I'd be offended if I were him.  Fred's a nicer guy than I am.

Didn't we all agree that blogs are a conversation?  Blogs are about people...  whole people.  Even if you only post about one particular subject, if its a post from the heart its about more than just politics, technology, marketing or law.  The smallest atomic element of blog isn't a post or a category.  Its me.  I am the smallest atomic element on my blog.  To really know me through this blog is to pay attention to all of it.  Sure, you can highlight a post or sort categories to find something in particular, but to break off part of it and disregard other parts to suit your liking or, even worse, suit an argument, is taking something out of what is a lot of surrounding context. 

This whole professional vs. personal conversation matter reminds me of our mixers for the SEMI mentoring program at NYSSA.  I remember this one hot-shot quant Stern student coming up to me and asking me if I knew/dealt with synthetic derivatives while I was at GM.  I told him that I knew what they were, but since this was an after work function, surely there could be more interesting things to talk about.  I mean, we were supposed to be assessing whether you wanted to get matched up for a whole summer with someone.  I didn't choose to mentor that student.

My blog has even less posts about VC and tech than Fred's does, mostly because I'm still learning and don't feel I have a lot to add to the already great conversations that are going on.  If someone asked me to cut down on my kayaking and softball posts, I'd tell them to take a hike. You wouldn't put up with that in person.  Why should you put up with that on a blog?  Imagine if an entrepreneur came to meet with Fred, and Fred opened the meeting by saying, "You caught me at a good time, because my daughter just won her basketball game."  What do you think his reaction would be if the entrepreneur responded by saying, "Yeah, I'm really not too interested in your family.  I'd like to talk about the video blogging space and hear your thoughts on that." 

I think that's just plain rude and it doesn't seem like that's the kind of person we'd like to do business with.  I say that because that's not the kind of person Brad and Fred seem to enjoy working with.  I'm pretty sure "investing in rude, self-centered people who aren't interested in others and can't empathize with the people they work with" isn't in our investment thesis.  It takes minimal effort to listen to someone's 2 minute family shpeel and almost no effort to skip through posts with titles like "Fordham loses another softball game" if you're reading on an RSS reader.  (At least its really easy on Feed Demon, anyway.)  Someone who can't listen isn't going to make a very good entrepreneur (and I'm not saying that b/c I know about venture capital... people who don't listen don't make very good anythings...) because they think they have all the answers and, well, no one does.  I don't.  My co-workers don't.  That's why listening and paying attention to the bigger picture is so important.

Not only that, if you have any networking skills whatsoever, you won't glaze over Brad's piloting story, but you'll listen intently and note it on the back of the business card you collect from him.  "Pilots plane."  Charlie:  "Kayaks on the Hudson."  Joshua:  "Doesn't like rollercoasters."  Inevitably, you're going to need something else to talk about sometime... a way to make a sincere connection.  Otherwise, you just have your business, and then what if we pass on it?  How will you keep up the connection?  Plus, what if some major life event gets blogged about and you're just subscribed to just the VC tag?  If I knew someone was reading my posts about technology and they totally skipped over the fact that I lost my family pet, I'd think they were pretty insensitive.  When I was at GM, every single placement agent and investor relations person worth their salaries knew about Larry Rusoff's three girls.  Did they really care about how the little ones were doing?  Maybe... maybe not, but it was worth mentioning, because it would bring the best out in him.

No, this is who we are.  Get to know the people of Union Square Ventures.  Fred's a family guy who loves music.  I'm into team sports and outdoor activities.  Brad's a pilot (the things you don't know about non-bloggers...) and a sailor... and he has twins.  We don't talk about business 100% of the time, and if you want to get to know us, you need to get to know us sincerely--meaning accepting the whole us. 

I will never separate my RSS feeds into categories.  Read all of me or read none of me.  Skim what you're not as interested in, that's fine, but don't expect me to cut my thoughts/persona into little chunks to be divided out by my audience segments. 

Link: Bubblegeneration - Evil Corporations Only.

Good blog.  Great resources.  Check the sidebar for some really interesting presentations and articles on digital music and peer created content.

Yesterday, I got an e-mail from the VP of Strategy and Planning of Trylon Communications.  It was a mass e-mail with the subject "BDI Blog Event - Continuing the Conversation".  Trylon co-sponsored this blogging conference that I went to a couple of weeks ago that I really didn't find particularly interesting.   Then, on top of that, they sent me another mass e-mail today.  Basically, they're touting their services, but if anything, they're making it blatently obvious that either a) they didn't actually attend the conference or b) they don't understand blogging at all.   Here's the jist of the exchange:

"Dear Charlie,                                                 

Thank you for attending the BDI blog event on May 3^rd.  I hope you found the presentation on “Blogs and the Impact on Media Companies” to be worthwhile.   On behalf of Trylon Communications which co-sponsored the event, and our President/CEO Lloyd Trufelman who spoke on the panel, we wanted to provide some follow-up since there was so little time to answer everyone’s questions on the topic."

I didn't go to the panel.  I signed up for it, but struck up an interesting conversation with a PR person from the American Foundation for the Blind and skipped out.  Now there's a productive group.  They just published quick tips on making blogs accessable to the visually impaired.

"Accordingly, I am forwarding links to some recent articles that might be of interest.  The first, by USA Today’s Kevin Maney, reports that blogs might not be new, but rather a continuation of a press trend that began in the 18^th century! "

You don't say?  Wow, that's really... um... interesting, I guess...  if I was into bar trivia.  The other links she sent?  One from New York magazine and the State of the Media report.  Nothing like passing links on blogging written by mainstream media to someone who not only blogs, but teaches an MBA course on blogging.  But that's not even the best part!  They link to a PDF press release (eek..  a press release!  How non-bloglike!) and cite that blogs are...

"a PR opportunity that our firm noted back when Web logs emerged in 2002 and has been practicing on behalf of our clients ever since."

Hmm... So you've been at this for 3 years and you tell me by linking to a press release in a mass e-mail that I never opted-in for?  Somewhere out there, Steve Rubel's "spidey-sense" is going off and he can't figure out where the trouble is.  Its right here, Steve... in my inbox.

"Considering our firm’s track record of delivering cost-effective, tangible editorial and corporate PR results exclusively for many top trade and consumer publishing and media clients nationwide since 1990 (all without strict billable hours or long-term contracts),  there may be a future match between our expertise and your company’s needs."

I highly doubt it.

So, I replied and gave them all the reasons why they should be blogging this, maybe politely informing me of their blog, and then never contacting me by e-mail again unless I ask for it, and simply letting me decide whether or not I want to subscribe to their blog.  I also asked where the opt-out link was on their e-mail.

The response?

I get this awful thing in my inbox...

  Now I'm on their "PR Ideas" HTML newsletter mailing list.  Unsubscribe?  I have to type in my name and my e-mail and then click a box and then click submit if I want out.  So, you send me mail, then I have to type in the e-mail address you just sent me this mail at in order to stop getting it?  I'm sketched out beyond words. 

Pubsub presented at the conference.  Let's see if they subscribe to their own Pubsub feed and find this.  I can't wait to hear their response.

Lesson for the day:   Don't spam a blogger.

So yesterday, I broke 1000 hits for the first time, and I'm on track to probably do close to that again today.  I have 80 subscribers via my Feedburner feed (I can maybe name 6 of them) and lord knows how many on my Typepad feeds.

However, most of you are pretty quiet.  Most of the people who comment aren't into RSS, so I've got this population of people that I don't know who like to read.  Now, my guess is that most of my traffic comes from Fred's blog, so you're reading b/c you want to hear what's going on with Union Square Ventures or our portfolio companies.  That's fine, of course.  But I'm just sort of curious who some of you are, so if you'd like to introduce yourself for the first time via comments, to me and the rest of the crowd, feel free.  I'm particularly curious who CBT the Mac User is and whether or not there are people who know me who check this out, but don't actually tell me that they read.