All of the major job sites have career content on them... Monster, Careerbuilder, Hotjobs...

...but they're not really there to actually help you.  They're probably just on there to keep you on the site longer or act as linkbait.  At the end of the day, we all know that their cash is coming in from perpetuating the old business model of paying for job posts and selling resumes to recruiters--essentially playing both sides.  They're never really going to help you find a job the way every career expert says you should be looking--networking your way to opportunities and putting yourself out there.   When I work with college students, I always tell them that the goal is that, when they graduate, they never ever have to submit their resume to any traditional job post--that someone who knows them seeks them out for an opportunity.  When I ran the GM pension fund's internship program, we had 3000 resumes come in through Monster for 12 positions.  Half of those jobs got filled through networking.  That's a dirty little secret that Monster & Co. doesn't want college students to know.

Well, it seems the word is getting out.  Monster reported disappointing earnings and announced a restructuring recently.  In a 2.0 world where services like Indeed can aggregate jobs from company web sites, professional association boards, smaller niche boards, as well as the big sites, there's just not  a strong value proposition for being a big player who charges employers hundreds of dollars per post.  Of course, that doesn't even cover the fact that they then go and charge schools to be on the system.

That's not the only business model that works against student interests.  Some sites, like Vault.com, have premium subscription areas.  That's great for students who can afford it, but a lot of students are just barely scraping by as it is.  Holding back your best info for the students who can pay for it isn't just an old business model, I sort of think its morally questionable as well, but I digress.

If students themselves make up the shallowest pockets you ever want to build your business model on, then certainly the career offices aren't far behind.  Most of them are understaffed and underbudgeted and simply cannot afford to pay for expensive subscriptions.  To be honest, I highly doubt most of these subscriptions are worth it anyway.  Do you think the content could be better or more timely than what the best industry bloggers are writing about?

For the most part, if you're in the content business, and you don't think you can generate more money from advertising than you can from subscriptions, you're basically telling me that your content isn't useful enough that people would actually want to use it.  A lot of career counselors question whether or not they're getting their money's worth when it comes to all of these subscription services, or rather if the students are using it enough to find it useful, but they have little alternative.  The way I'm tapped into my career--through blogs, social networks, unconferences, listservs, etc...  all for free...  no one's really packaging that up for the college crowd.  Instead, a lot of people are gauging them with old business models and propriety content.   

One of my last tasks at Oddcast was to get a Facebook application out.  Using our partner APIs, which allow us to add Voki to nearly any environment, we were able to build the app pretty quickly after I specced it out. You can create a Voki and send it to individual friends, broadcast it in your newsfeed or paste it to your profile.

So, given all the noise about how crowded Facebook is getting, if you want to make sure your friends really get the message, try using your own voice and a speaking character that looks like you, or a fish, or a robot, or whatever...   Get the Voki Facebook app!

As a general rule, I never signed an NDA while I was at USV.

I was also recently talking to a startup about potential employment who wanted me to sign one, too.  I balked.

I've been banging the transparency drum for quite a while--the idea that you should tell as many people as possible about what you're up to and not worry about keeping your idea a secret.  The basis of that is as follows:

1. Chances are that if your idea is a good one, in a big enough space, someone's already had it, so you won't really be tipping anyone off.
2. It doesn't take long to build anything, so even if you kept it secret, at most you're going to have a three or four month headstart, which is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things.
3. The idea isn't nearly as valuable as the execution.  You could say you're going to build a LolCat maker, but if you can only use one kind of cat, its not going to get any traction whatsoever.  The devil is in the details.
4. Speaking of the details, you're likely to get them wrong the first time anyway...or learn more as you go along, so your first idea is never really a good one.   

But the question is, will I eat my own dogfood?  I had a conversation about this with an entrepreneur a little while ago and we both agreed that when its your own startup idea--the one you're really passionate about--there's a slight bit of hesitation.  I certainly understand the fear... that you tell someone you're working on something and the one competitor that could ever possibly do what you're doing turns around and releases your idea and puts all of its weight behind it--all before you could even hire your first developer.

But that's paranoia.  Reality tells us that startups, for the most part, move faster and can focus better on particular problems.  That's why big companies buy startups--they know they can't really build things internally and get it right, let alone on time and under budget. 

On top of that, by not being public about what you're up to, you lose the opportunity for feedback and collaboration.  Perhaps someone out there has already tried what you are thinking of and has some tips.  Or, they bring with them a completely complimentary skills set and could be a potential partner.  You never know until you start talking it up.

Plus, I'm convinced that, to be successful, you really need to immerse yourself in the community you're trying to serve.  If you want to do a healthcare services startup, you need to be in the healthcare community talking with doctors, patients, etc.  Tell then what your ideas are.  Get feedback.  Get new ideas.  Entrepreneurs who work in well protected  bubbles (echo chambers) do not succeed... do not generate momentum...  their ideas die on the vine.

Still, its scary just putting it out there.

With all that being said, I'm going to start a conversation here--a conversation about an area that I'm exploring.  Yes, to do a startup.  Its funny because I always said I'd never do one.  I also used to say I'd never work at a VC, too, and also had no interest in working for a portfolio company.  Thankfully, I've also said many times that I also have no interest in being really rich, too, so I should be set there. 

So what is it?  What's the space?  Partners?  Funding?  Etc.  Patience, grasshopper.  There's a lot to do and a lot to talk about and there will be no shortage of coverage on this blog.

Jason's exhausted by Facebook.  OM calls it Facebook Fatigue.

Do you know how many friend requests I have waiting for me?  None.

Why?  Because I don't ask people to connect to me who aren't my friend and don't link to my Facebook in my feed everyday.

I mean, what's the point of being friends with all of my blog readers of Facebook?  Do I want to see the latest photos uploaded by the 2000 people who read my blog?  Um, sorry, not really. 

When Fred says "[Jason is] drawing attention to the problems with Facebook", he's really not seeing how the average person on Facebook, which is still a college student or recent grad, is using it.  I picked out the first five actual college students that I'm friends with and counted up their apps.   They average less than 3 a person.   Fred's got about a dozen or so, as do I, but I'd never think I was the average user.  A lot of these TechMeme All-Stars are extrapolating their own experience... all six weeks of it, and making judgments on the whole platform.  Man, if I was a college kid interested in getting hired by a VC firm, I'd start a blog all about how college kids actually use Facebook.  I'd be doing polls of my friends, video interviews, etc.  I think it would be an eyeopener for all of us, frankly.

Hearing Jason complain about all his requests is like when your older cousin comes and plays with all your stuff, breaks it, then hands it back to you and says, "This doesn't work... its busted."

You know who really knows something about Facebook?  danah... because she actually spends much of her time talking to the kids who are on it.  There's no substitute for getting out there and talking to young people, whether its in a classroom or in focus groups or whatever.  My time spent in the classroom last semester was incredibly valuable for me to talk to students about how they actually use the internet.  At least Fred has a few kids of his own he can talk to and stay grounded in. 

I'm so excited that Twitter and USV are now FOLLOWing each other.

But I do hear a few murmers here and there that go something like, "I don't get it... what's the business model?"

A lot of people criticize Web 2.0 apps because they don't have an apparent business model up front.  What people aren't seeing, however, is that value creation is a business model at such an early stage.

When semiconductor startups get funded, it takes quite a lot of money to design and build a chip, and revenues are often nowhere to be found for the first year or two of the company's life.  No one complains about the business model, however, because its simple:

"We're building these little things and people will by them.  See...we drew a hockey stick.  We have a business model."

But having a business model in Excel has never stopped a hardware company from going under.  Why?  One of the main reasons is technology risk.   Its entirely possible that while you're building your hardware, some genius at MIT will invent a chip standard that the whole industry adopts while you're still touring fabrication plants in China.  Plus, you may not be able to build exactly what you want to build because, as Wile E. Coyote will tell you, sometimes it doesn't exactly work the way you want it to.  For example, there was a company around a few years ago called AirFiber.  AirFiber was supposed to solve the last mile problem by shooting teh interwebs around with frickin' laser beams through the air.  The technology completely worked in the lab and you could get the internet from building to building without digging up the ground.  The business model?  Sell these laser routers to telecom companies.  Simple, right?

Not so much.  Turns out that the beam wasn't wide enough and when the telecoms tested the stuff out in the field, they kept getting blips...  birds would fly through the beam.  Telecoms balked before they could update the technology.  Business model:  Fekked.

The point I'm making is that today's web service startups have very different characteristics.  There's little to no technology risk...because you can build just about anything.  Ever hear someone say, "We were going to have a wiki in it, but we just couldn't get the thing working."   Therefore, people assume that you should automatically fast forward the development of the business to the point where you should pretty much start generating revenues as soon as you build it.  That's a little bit unfair, because these things are different animals.  Its not entirely clear exactly how some of these things will get monetized and sometimes it takes creating value first to see it.

Take Google and Skype.  Google created lots of value for its users by building a great search engine.  Only then did someone realize you had a great inventory of expressed demand that you could advertise against.  So, instead of technology risk, investors took the business/execution risk that the smart folks they surrounded the company with would figure out the business side.

In the same way, Skype, as a P2P app could never have charged for its services until it got to a critical mass of distribution.  Just because you built it and it works doesn't mean the product is done.

So, we can all guess what Twitter's business model is going to be, but you know what, we'll probably be wrong.  It doesn't matter because the metrics that count, like active user growth and engagement are all pointing in the write direction.  This is a company creating value for its users, and doing it with more and more users everyday.  It will find a business model and at first, value creation for users is, in fact, a business model.  Its the very reason why Web 2.0 startups fail--they just don't build anything particularly compelling for users. 

Others say that you had a similar problem with Web 1.0... poor business models... it was just about the eyeballs.  This is a misconception.  There wasn't any more crap in Web 1.0 than Web 2.0 or frankly at any time in the history of innovation.  The issue was a capital issue.  Venture got way overfunded, grew too fast on the cost side, went public too fast and blew up when valuations disappeared under the scrutiny of the public markets.  Its not like these things didn't have potential.  Webvan may have gone under, but Fresh Direct makes a really nice little business here in NYC and they didn't raise nearly the kind of cash that Webvan did.  eToys may have gone under, but you can probably buy all that stuff on Amazon now. 

Business model or no business model, it really comes down to careful, rational, smart execution, and realistic funding.  I have no doubt that some West Coast firm probably wanted to put $10 million into Twitter and then probably would have followed up with another $15 million a year from now and that's the kind of thing that ruins businesses. 

So I didn't actually get it going yet, because I'm probably moving to a new mailbox, but Helio just launched its Microsoft Exchange support... and they pushed the little sucker right to my phone without telling me.  I had to find out from another blogger.  Apparently, tech is ahead of PR.

Assuming this works, even if its just a timed sync, its awesome.

Now if only that Exchange server could be Gmail/Gcal, I could die.

Link: IPhone Use Disappoints; Apple Slides - New York Times.

Apple’s shares slumped 6 percent on Tuesday after AT&T said the early surge of iPhone buyers starting service on its network was smaller than some analysts had anticipated.

    (Nelson Muntz: ha-ha!)

I was talking to a VC about a company with a million plus users and I realized how many web applications I've signed up for and never went back to, or only used once and never went back to again.  I'm a registered user on those sites, but so what?

What's really important to driving value is that someone uses your service more today than they did yesterday, and startups need to make sure their data capture is robust enough to be able to slice and dice this.

The services that have created the most value for me are ones that I use more now than the first day I started with them: Typepad, Flickr, del.icio.us, Twitter, LinkedIn, Last.fm, Facebook, Highrise.  Sometimes, my usage of them grows because others join or I see what others are doing with it, like Twitter.  Other times, the product is flexible enough that I can find new uses for it and grow into it, like del.icio.us and tagging things for: myself as a memory tool.  All of these applications are ones that I started out with slowly but I use them more and more everyday.

If I was a VC, I'd want to know account level data.  Andrew is looking into time spent on the site for the USV portfolio, and of course that's good if it grows, but I'm not sure how comparable that is across different types of sites.  Plus, sometimes I'll leave a site open all day and never do anything with it because I forget about it.  For me, logins is a good proxy, but not perfect either. 

Run the numbers...  How many of your users logged in more in the 2nd week of usage than they did in the first?  Week 3?  Month 3?

Registered users is an absolutely meaningless statistic.  A million registered users and $5.35 will get you a Jamba Juice in NYC.

Most reviews give the reviewer a very short amount of time to look at something and then tell the world what they think of it--not enough time to find all those little quirky things you're used to doing with your gear that wouldn't come up in day one.

So, after a month of having the Helio Ocean, James Bond ringtone and all, here's 5 and 5 on either side:

I like...

1. The form factor and design of the hardware itself.   The double slider is fantastic.  I can dial numbers like a normal human with ease and type e-mail in a separate place.  Its sturdy and scratch resistant as I've been keeping it in the same pocket as my keys and that did a number on my Treo in the past.  And, the thing is, with a phone, you have to imagine the hardware is more important than the software because that can always be fixed, upgraded, added upon, etc.  If you don't like the actual brick itself, there isn't a lot you can do with it.
2. Built in apps.   Doing offline gmail on the subway is heaven and its hilarious to answer a "Whatcha doin?" IM on AOL with "Walking down Broadway." 
3. The price.   I'm all about getting value for my dollar and paying $65 pretax for unlimited texting and high speed data... I thought it was a misprint.  That and the phone was only $250.  I don't think I'll ever spend $600 on a phone again... certainly not if its coming out of my pocket anyway.
4. Integrated multimedia.  When I send photos to Flickr by e-mail, it asks if I'd like to get something out of my photoalbum, rather than having me chase down folders and directors like Win Mobile did.  That's the good thing about a closed system... everything on there is meant to work together and it does nicely. 
5. Gaming.  I've already won the championship in the poorly named Derek Jeter baseball game on this platform... and rented it twice for 99 cents a week.  Its 7 to buy, but I think I'll get tired if it before than.  Buying a game and paying for it was a snap, and the graphics and speed are great.  The Mets could use a 2 hitter like F. Suarez on Brooklyn.  :)

I don't like...

1. Calendar/contact sync...  coming soon?   I'd love for someone at Helio to tell me when they plan on supporting Exchange sync for calendar and contacts.  That would tip me off as to what kind of solution I should be searching for in the meantime.  Would it kill them to let us know?  I mean, I bought the phone because I trusted the "coming soon" would come through... the longer it goes, the more likely it will be that I'll try to get out of my contract b/c of false advertising...   six months is not coming soon to me.  Coming soon is a month, maybe two.  In the meantime, I had to manually upload contacts, which didn't work 100% and I have no mobile calendar integrated into the phone, which is killing me.   
2. The menu architecture is screwy.  I miss the Start menu from Win Mobile... mostly b/c I could put my favorites in it.  I spend most of my time texting, Gmailing, Google Mapping, and snapping photos...   I want to be, at most, two clicks from that, but I'm an extra click and maybe two.  First, the menu that shows when the phone first comes on is just blank and pointless.  I have to hit the Menu key to get Helio's graphical menu, which gives as much real estate to buying music and videos as it does to the camera, which might be good for others, but not for me, so I want to be able to change what's on that menu...  or Favorite past it entirely.
3. Phone home?  Go back to the first screen.  This is a phone, correct?  So how come when I'm on any other menu other than that blank pointless first screen, I can't activate the phone app by pressing the green phone key?  That's silly.  I have to hit back like four times sometimes to get to the first menu to be able to make a phone call.  Also, when I go straight into my contacts, pick a contact, and click the "Call" link via the middle button, it doesn't work.  Same when that call button pops up when I'm in my e-mail and it autodiscovers a phone number...  clicking call just takes you back to the rotating Helio menu and does nothing.  Didn't anyone QA this thing?  That needs to be fixed.
4. Autotyping.   Can I turn this off?  I'm using to hitting the Shift key on my own things, and also not expecting when I do hit shift at the beginning of a sentence, because it autoshifts for me, when I hit it again, I go into Caps Lock accidently.  I can't tell you how many times I do this.  Its not saving me any time.  Plz turn off, kthx, bye.
5. No blogging tools.  Writing, reading, nothing.  I really really miss my Newsgator mobile, which I suppose is a bigger problem thant they don't use a platform someone can write useful apps to, but this is the one that bugs me the most.  Seriously, how much would it cost them to build an RSS reader?  If they built a nice one (and got that Exchange thing fixed) they'd get so much more viral marketing through geek channels than their ridiculous marketing campaign is getting them.
6. EDIT:  Oh, wait, one more thing, but this is a Sprint network issue or maybe just a phonewide issue... b/c it used to happen on my old phone...  When I go into the subway and then come back out, it will not reconnect on the data side unless I turn the phone on and off.  If I come right out of the subway, and then try to sync anything... nothing happens.

Bonus:  Don't call it a phone.   Helio has the most ridiculous marketing campaign I've ever seen, mostly because it does nothing to actually sell the product.  Just a big blue flame, picture of the phone, and the words "Don't call it a phone" does nothing for people.  Most people scratch their heads and go, "Well, isn't it a phone?"  It is a phone, trust me.  I have it.

Instead, I would write....  Unlimited texting, IMing, e-mail for a limited price...$65 a month + $250 for the phone.  I'm pretty sure that would get more people in the door.

All in all, if they fixed Exchange, you'd have a much more serious market for this phone, b/c that's the most important thing a lot of people want to do.  The little nit picks about menus and extra clicks aren't so bad at all and I like the phone... its just not making me as productive as I could be.

Blogging, RSS reading, and Exchange sync please!

Scott Gatz is thinking exactly what I am...   Facebook is not LinkedIn.

Lots of people who are new to Facebook have been friending me that I would consider more professional contacts... some people I don't even know.

Its not that I don't want to be connected to them, but I agree with Scott when he says,

"I’m turning down invitations from people I know well. I’m clicking “REJECT” to those professional contacts. I want my facebook to be my closest friends (professional and personal). I want it to be a fun place, I want to know what music they are listening to, what they are doing, restaurants, fun stuff. I’ll use a professional network for those professional contacts. I want to keep facebook fun! ...

Since I do want to be friends with you (I like you, trust you and want to keep in touch), I’ll kindly invite you to LinkedIn instead. So don’t be surprised to get a REJECT from Facebook and a INVITE from linked in."

I couldn't have said it better.

I mean, how likely is Jeff Jarvis going to change his Relationship Status?  For Jeff's sake, that should be like watching paint dry.   

The hard thing about all these social apps is that the lines between professional and personal get blurred... so I visit some bloggers in Louisville on my vacation, but others remain in my RSS reader.

So, please don't be surprised or offended if I don't accept your Facebook invite... I'd rather connect to you here on LinkedIn.

Who knew one would need such a thick skin in Web 2.0?

From Vault.com's take on VC...   (My comments in parenthesis)

Venture Capital uppers

1. You often get to be the one making decisions because you have money.   (Except when a deal is a good deal, of course... I mean, you *could* decide to pass on Twitter, but then you'd be an idiot)
2. Over the long term, you will certainly become rich because the job is well paying and you should eventually get "carry" or equity in the firm.    (Yup... all VCs become rich.. every single last one of them... except of course if you suck at it.)
3. Being "in the middle of it all" in some of the most interesting industries.  (Ok, I'll give them that...)
4. You have access to the best minds -the people you work with are typically very smart and interesting.    (As an analyst?  hmm...  :)   )
5. Your job is to absorb and enjoy the positive creative energy of entrepreneurs and direct it toward successful execution.     (What exactly does that mean?   I couldn't imagine sitting at my desk in reception at USV and telling Brad and Fred, "I'll be absorbing and enjoying creative energy for the rest of the afternoon")
6. You could suddenly become rich if one of your companies does extremely well and you were able to co-invest or you have carry.   (You could also stand in a field with a big metal pole during a lightning storm...)
7. You have access to the best information systems.    (Really?   All I got at USV was a laptop and a phone...   Isn't the whole lack of information what enables outsized returns in VC?)

Venture Capital downers

1. You don't have pride of ownership in anything. You're just an investor, not a builder.   (I'm pretty sure ownership is what you get when you hand someone a check... unless I'm completely mistaken about what "equity investment" means.  Also, a quick read of VC blogs will show you that there is no lacking on the pride side.)
2. VC is a slow path to wealth compared with the immediate cash income you get in investment banking, hedge funds or even management consulting.   (No, book publishing is a slow path to wealth.  That's like saying the guy who finishes 22nd in the Tour De France was too slow of a cyclist.)
3. You are a jack-of-all-trades, not an expert. After a few years, you can't do anything other than VC because you grow spoiled by making decisions without much compromise.  (And your muscles atrophy, too... from all that absorbing and enjoying...)
4. Venture capital is fundamentally a negative process. Because you reject 99 of every 100 plans, year after year, over time you focus on figuring out what is wrong with a company so you can reject it and get onto the next deal. What is wrong with the management? The technology? The deal terms? The strategy? After just a few years, that mentality may bleed into your life. What is wrong with my partners? What is wrong with my spouse? What is wrong with me? Oh, the angst!   (I really need to know which VC they interviewed to get this answer.)
5. Because you reject 99 of every 100 entrepreneurs, you make a lot of enemies, no matter how nice and helpful you try to be. No one likes rejection, and passionate entrepreneurs have long memories.    (Yes... that's why so many VCs are killed in the line of duty--like a passionate district attorney putting thugs away.)

(Remind me again how this is helpful to a college student or young person starting their career...)

I'm sorely behind in my tripblogging, mostly because we have such a packed schedule that I didn't really leave time for blogging (good to see I have at least one priority in order...).  However, my pics are mostly up to date here.

Just wanted to let Bay Area folks know that we'll be planting ourselves somewhere for drinks in SF on Saturday night, most likely in the North Beach area... I'd guess around 9ish.   Would love to catch up with blog friends, real friends, etc...

In the meantime, thanks to Drew and Dave from Zillow for inviting Mere and I to Lunch 2.0 yesterday.  It's sort of like a Tech Meetup only its kept to 50 and held in someone's office during lunch, obviously.  Zillow's got a really impressive operating going (and a sah-weet view) and the Seattle tech scene is really buzzing.   

Even though I'm behind on my road trip blogging, I'm going to break for some thoughts on why this bubble isn't like what was experienced the first time around.  My experience with the first bubble was watching it all fall apart from a fund investor perspective at an institutional LP.  We dove deep into trying to assess the damage and try and figure out what actually happened to try and separate the smart VCs from the bad ones--at a time when everyone's performance was completely underwater when we started evaluating the next bunch of funds that came back to market in 2003 and 2004.

There are some marked differences that I was talking to someone about today worth noting:

I just pinged a bunch of random non-techie friends...   you know, the other 98% of the world...  and asked them the following:

1) Are you likely to purchase the iPhone in the next week?  Yes/no

2) Are you likely to purchase the iPhone in the next three months?  yes/no

3) Are you likely to purchase the iPhone ever?  Yes/no


Responses:

Next week?   16 no's.   A clean sweep.

Next three months.  Another 16 no's.   

Ever?  3 yes, 6 no, 7 maybe.

Ok, first of all, maybe wasn't a suggested answer, but besides that, here's what people wrote on the "maybe" side:

maybe if cheap enough, sometime!  But it would have to be drop-proof...and waterproof!

i could be persuaded if i didn't have to switch my plan (because i'm really happy with verizon), if it becomes significantly cheaper and only after they get out the inevitable first generation bugs.

iPhone’s only available currently with AT&T, and I have a contract with Verizon.

No, but only cus I'm poor. If I were rich, then yes.

My favorite radio show, Opie and Anthony, has been doing a "____  day" gimmick to make fun of other radio stations.  Yesterday was "Phone call Thursday" and it just featured listeners calling up with absolutely nothing to say just because it was Phone call Thursday.  Hilarious.

Today is "Point and Laugh Friday" in addition to being "Mispronunciation Friday" and a few other things, and I think I may just make Fridays into Point and Laugh Friday on this blog as well.

So feel free to point and laugh...

...at anyone at the front of the iPhone line.  Including professional line sitters.

...for MySpace for thinking that developers would spend time building apps for them after Facebook has already said anyone is free to make money there and MySpace has a history of bullying the very applications that made the service what it is today. Chris DeWolfe thinks the Facebook platform "is interesting."

...at Yankee fans, who think there's any shot whatsoever of the Yanks making the playoffs. 

...at Facebook app developers for thinking that all they had to do is throw any kind of crap up there and get 7 million users, plus have their business plan solved for them as well.  Oh, so wait... you still need a marketing strategy, a compelling and viral app that provides utility, AND a business model??   

Point and laugh, folks.  Point and laugh.

Spam issues in the past aside, I've usually found Plaxo to be a pretty useful service.  Having moved companies a few times, the process of moving address books around and keeping up to date with people has been made much easier because of it.

So when they announced themselves as the place to sync everything, I was psyched.  Their new interface is terrific.  Unfortunately, it doesn't quite work.

First off, it somehow triplicated all of my calendar entries.  That's ok, though, because they have a premium feature that includes de-duping.  Ahh...  I see their business model now.  Screw up your calendar and than pay to fix it.  Clever!

In addition, they sync with GCal, which is fantastic, because GCal couldn't understand the CSV file that I had exported from Outlook.   Plaxo told me that I had too many calendar entires (about 3x too many, perhaps?) and that it would sync everything for me in the background.   That was yesterday.  Is it still working?  I have no idea if the feature is broken, it just didn't work that time or if its halfway done.

Perhaps I should wait for Plaxo 3.5?

Wow... thoughtfulness in the blogosphere...

I'll read this kind of thing any day over that ridiculous "people ready" flap that killed off a couple of million collective brain cells over the weekend...

From danah...  The part I liked best about this essay was the part that had nothing to do with social networks...

Link: Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace.

People often ask me if I'm worried about teens today. The answer is yes, but it's not because of social network sites. With the hegemonic teens, I'm very worried about the stress that they're under, the lack of mobility and healthy opportunities for play and socialization, and the hyper-scheduling and surveillance. I'm worried about their unrealistic expectations for becoming rich and famous, their lack of work ethic after being pampered for so long, and the lack of opportunities that many of them have to even be economically stable let alone better off than their parents. I'm worried about how locking teens indoors coupled with a fast food/junk food advertising machine has resulted in a decrease in health levels across the board which will just get messy as they are increasingly unable to afford health insurance. When it comes to ostracized teens, I'm worried about the reasons why society has ostracized them and how they will react to ongoing criticism from hegemonic peers. I cringe every time I hear of another Columbine, another Virgina Tech, another site of horror when an outcast teen lashes back at the hegemonic values of society.

I worry about the lack of opportunities available to poor teens from uneducated backgrounds. I'm worried about how Wal-Mart Nation has destroyed many of the opportunities for meaningful working class labor as these youth enter the workforce. I'm worried about what a prolonged war will mean for them. I'm worried about how they've been told that to succeed, they must be a famous musician or sports player. I'm worried about how gangs provide the only meaningful sense of community that many of these teens will ever know.

Given the state of what I see in all sorts of neighborhoods, I'm amazed at how well teens are coping and I think that technology has a lot to do with that. Teens are using social network sites to build community and connect with their peers. They are creating publics for socialization. And through it, they are showcasing all of the good, bad, and ugly of today's teen life. Much of it isn't pretty, but it ain't pretty offline either. Still, it makes my heart warm when I see something creative or engaged or reflective. There is good out there too.

The web is talking about the "problems" with the new Facebook platform.

Brad says, "...as far as I can tell, none of these Facebook apps developers are deriving any real benefits ... other than customer acquisition".

Last time I checked, customer acquisition was a real benefit, no?   Don't people usually pay for customer acquisition?  As far as I'm concerned, the main reason why I suggested that Oddcast build a Voki app for Facebook was exactly that... to get more users.  That's a phenomenal benefit for developers.   Oh, wait.. is Facebook also supposed to invent a business model for you, too.  That's like saying that AdSense sucks because it doesn't promise you customer conversions too, just traffic.

From Inside Facebook... "Where I’ve Been has struck a nerve with travelers, and now has over 400,000 users on Facebook! It’s creating serious challenges for Craig: keeping the servers running is getting pricey, and he’s not making any money from his app."

The problem of not making money with your app is not a Facebook problem.  Its your problem!  It shouldn't be up to Facebook to figure out your business model, too!  Figure out a way to monetize your audience.  If no one wants to pay for the Where I've Been app or you can't figure out how to stick relevant travel ads on it, then it shouldn't exist.  If the Where I've Been app existed at whereivebeen.com, it would have the same exact issues.  Facebook is not a parallel universe where the rules of needing a business model don't apply.   This is real life, folks... and if you can't figure out a way to get the bills paid, well, sorry...   This isn't Facebook's fault.  Don't put your mouth in front of the firehose and than complain that the water comes out too fast and that you have a small bladder. 

Fred thinks the issue is "...Invite overload and application noise. I cannot keep track of all the invites I am getting, both the standard invites and the application invites. And what's worse, I can't keep track of all the applications that all of my friends are using."

I don't really think this is a Facebook specific problem either.  In fact, its actually a testament to how pure the signal usually is on Facebook.   Right now, I have 25 posts in my newsfeed.  Of the 25, 8 of them are notifications related to my friends adding or subtracting applications.  The rest are actual usage of those apps, like Twitter updates, or people adding photos or friends or whatever they usually do on Facebook.  That might be a lot, but compare that to my e-mail inbox.  Of my last 25 threads in Gmail, 14 of them were not from humans.  They were confirmations from purchases, notifications for folks joining the nextNY mailing list, ads, etc.   On top of that, 4 more were blog comment notifications, which were initiated by humans at least, but not direct conversations. 

I'm sure Facebook will adjust this issue, though, but it's not a huge problem.  At some point, there will be equilibrium in the app world and people won't be adding or subtracting nearly as many apps.  Plus, I don't really need to know when someone took something down... and maybe I shouldn't need to know that someone added something.  If you invite me, fine... but I don't need to see that people are just playing.

In any case, I think the same basic rules of needing a business model, needing to be compelling enough to stand out from the crowd, needing to scale, etc. still apply in Facebook.  Let's not forget that.  It's still the web, people, not Fantasyland.

I've been really fortunate.  Since I announced the fact that I was leaving, a bunch of interesting projects and conversations have come up.

And I've been keeping them all on a Google spreadsheet.

That's ridiculous... but does anyone else have any other solutions?

Basically, I want the Salesforce-like ability to attach e-mail conversations to people.   I could actually get Salesforce, but I didn't really like it.  Plus, I don't think I can attach e-mails to people unless it's with Outlook, and I've been using Gmail a lot lately.   Do any consultants use Salesforce just for themselves?  Anything else useful? 

LinkedIn's Outlook plugin doesn't quite do it, because I can't add any info to it.  I may owe someone an e-mail, but I may have a reason to wait, which I can't add.

And while we're on the subject of Google apps, why on earth doesn't Gcal provide IMAP compatibility so I can sync it with my Mobile phone or Outlook cal?   This is a nobrainer and I think a ton of business folks would convert to Gcal fulltime if they could add and view appointments using their mobile phone. 
Anyway, it just amazes me how, once you get out of the Outlook/Salesforce world of enterprise focused apps, how poor the tools are for organizing the professional lives of individuals are.

Link: Report: Murdoch ponders MySpace, Yahoo 'swap' - CNN.com.

"Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. is discussing swapping social networking Web site MySpace for a 25 percent stake in Yahoo, The Times newspaper reports."

Remember when East Germany and West Germany merged and they set the exchange rate at 1:1 and it wound up crushing the German economy to the point where it became known as the "Sick Man of Europe"?   That's the kind of effect Yahoo buying MySpace at a valuation of $9+ billion would be.