I had a little exchange the other day via Twitter with Todd Earwood.  Todd's a part of the Louisville blogger mafia, which includes Rob May, Matt Winn, and Ashley Cecil.  I told them that they need to all make it up to the city one of these days.

At the same time, I just saw that Frank Gruber is planning a trip out here soon as well.  Tara and Chris make somewhat regular appearances in the Big Apple as well.

MBA students from MIT Sloan also made a recent trip to see some NYC companies...  Path 101 hosted a group to show them what we were up to. 

A lot of times, these trips involve a notification of blog friends at the last minute, maybe a Dopplr post, but certainly not a well coordinated red carpet.

What if we got all these occasional tech visitors to all come visit the city in one single week?  We could have a big NYC Open House for the tech community.  We could coordinate meetings, hold open houses at big and small companies alike.  We could get the NYC gov't involved, get group hotel rates, maybe hold it around a conference.  Plus, we could do something social, like all get Mets tix.  (They play SF in July!)

When would be a good time for this?  Who can we get involved?  Who would come?

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My question:  Why not make SL a console game?  

Go here and he'll answer.

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"...it is unwise for a company to spend a lot of money building out infrastructure before a product proves itself."

To be honest, it's just an honor to be nominated, but I won't lie...  It's pretty friggin' cool to be on Silicon Alley Insider's list of 100 "most influential folks in New York digital business".

And you know what else I'm really glad about?   That I'm so far down.   Clearly, the list is going to be a big learning exercise for a lot of the young Web 2.0 crowd who thinks that haven't a blog means having influence.  Get to know these people folks...   they're the men and women behind the curtain... the names you've never heard of.  They don't all show up at Meetups and they don't all blog, but they eat millions of dollars for breakfast.

My thoughts:

Biggest omission:  Jeremy Philips.  At 33, Jeremy is the "driving force" behind News Corp's reported interest in LinkedIn.  He's the EVP in the Office of the Chairman of News Corp.   Not even on the list.  Are you serious??  That's a big miss, guys.   Jason Rapp, by comparison, is #74 and he holds just about the same title that Phillips used to have as head of all internet acquisitions.

Should have been higher:  The Connected Ventures Team.  Their ability to consistently create properties that appeal to a youth audience, from CollegeHumor, BustedTees, to Vimeo is something that makes them all extremely valuable to big media companies.  Clearly, IAC isn't valuing that enough, as the boys are dropping like flies from that wacky looking building on the west side, but I'm sure someone else will.  Look for these guys to have very long and productive careers in digital media.  They deserve to be more than just one notch ahead of me.

Correction:  Path 101 is not "a social network/job site for college grads".  Here's the description from our site:

"Path 101 is a NYC-based startup company focused on career discovery on the web. The site helps everyone from college students to professionals in late-career transition figure out their next career steps using innovative analysis of publicly available resumes and profiles, community powered advice, and personality assessments. Job candidates can figure out what "people like me" are doing with their careers and the site aims to be the first stop for career research--a "pre-Monster.com".

Anyway...  in general, I think it's a really good job of capturing a lot of various different types of influencers.

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Do you know what Twitter is yet?

It's the reason more and more of the blogs you read have been referring to people as @innonate and @robmay. 

Twitter is a social network based on one simple concept:  What are you doing?  It takes the concept of a Facebook or AIM status message and yanks it from those closed networks and applies it as an open platform.  You can send Twitter messages from GTalk, the web, various clients built on an API, or, most importantly, by SMS on your phone. 

While not a mainstream tool yet, it's become a very popular service among key blogging influencers.

One interesting feature is Tracking.  Tracking allows you to get any mention of a term sent straight to your phone.  So, if you are a Twitter user and you send "track snot" to 40404, every time the word "snot" appears in a Twitter message, it will get sent to you.

Being an avid fan of Jamba Juice, I track "jamba".

I figured I'd get a sporadic mention here and there, but, as it turns out, Twitterers are avid Jamba Juicers and I regularly get posts.

Here are the last few:

(MONEKE):           Jamba juice here i come

(lunaraine): i've introduced 2 new fruits into my life. lemon, meet blueberry and banana. we'll all get along just fine. i could go for Jamba Juice now.

(surfingfarmboy): Currently drinking a "Lime Sublime" smoothie at Mix Juice on Hollywood Rd. in Central Kong Kong. Mix Juice is a precise copy of Jamba.

(michryan):           flag football is next, after Peet's and Jamba Juice.  it's a branded family day.

(spookygirl): Hmm....9:33pm. Jamba Juice it or not? My tastebuds are saying yes...but my laziness because they have no drive-thru say noooo.

When people talk about buzz marketing, tracking conversations, as you can see, Twitter is where it's at. 

People ask about the business model...   I have no doubt there's a serious business model in here providing tools and services to brands to enable them to help track these conversations, over and above the "track" feature.  Who's talking about your brand?  What other things do they talk about?  Who are they? But before that happens, brands need to get serious about Twitter. 

I'm quite sure Jamba Juice has no idea what's going on here, or if they have, they certainly missed this exchange:

(emilychang):           jamba juicing

(emilychang): 6 days ago i twittered i was jamba juicing.

today i got a $20 gift card in the mail from jamba juice to emily "twittered about jamba" chang!

(emilychang):           turns out the jamba juice gifter wasn't a twitter-savvy company, but a nice gift from @ceonyc. haha Yeah... so I was the gifter. 

You have to know the backstory.  Quite a while ago, Emily and I got in a little blogger tiff, due to my slightly overaggressive poking of the bear.  It totally blew up in my face.  So, when I saw Emily's first Twitter message, I immediately thought this might be a good opportunity to bury the hatchet.  I went to the site and got her a gift card.  When I saw she thought it was from someone at Jamba Juice, I thought it was absolutely hilarious.  Clearly, she gave the company too much credit for being Web 2.0 savvy. I mean, they don't even have a blog.

So what should they do?  How can other brands and marketers use Twitter?  Here are some suggestions, brought to you with the help of I Can Has Cheezburger.

1. Listen first. "Track" your brand, if nothing else.  It's really great information.  Unfortunately, you can only send tracks to your phone at the moment, but I'm sure that will change.
2. Listen more.  "Follow" the key influencers and the people that are talking about your brand to here their stories, what other brands they use, what their lives are like, etc.
3. Create a Twitter account for your brand.   It's easier than a blog.  Can't find a person who can write two paragraphs a week that legal and PR approve of?  How about just 140 characters or less at a time?  You could get that approved daily without a lot of fuss, I'm sure.  You can even send links through it...  tips, news stories, links to a corporate blog if you have one. 
4. Free stuff.  A bunch of people sent around that "Buy one, get one free" coupon from Jamba that went around a month or two ago.  That's how I found out about it...via Twitter tracking.  Send links to coupons via Twitter... especially ones that can be redeemed with just a phone.
5. Point of advertising follow up.  You put your website on all your outdoor and transit ads, but how many times are people actually in front of a computer when they see it.  Yet, they probably have their phone on them.  Just tell them "Send 'follow jamba' to 40404" to get updates about Jamba Juice via Twitter.   40404 is an easy short code to remember, and instead of just being a one way communication tool, you're signing them up for a platform that enables them to be a connector and word of mouth marketer as well.
6. Twit of the day.  Encourage people to talk more about your product by holding "Twit of the day" contests that mention your brand.
7. Executive twittering.  Twitter makes your staff seem more connected and real, and provides transparency.  When they Twitter about their day, it gives outsiders insight into how decisions at the company are made.  Its all the benefits of blogging, only with a much lower overhead.  Doesn't even require a computer!
8. Mobile information.  Use the Twitter API to build in an information tool via Twitter.  Tell me where all the nearest Jamba Juices are when I send @jamba location 10010.  Flavor of the week?  @jamba weekly?
9. Sponsor a Twitter display.  Conferences are great places to allow people to interact live with a big TV display.  Twitter allows people to send messages that can be displayed in prominent locations... like a conference backchannel.  Connect a few big TVs up to a box, give people instructions, and slap your logo next to it, and you're now the sponsor of the communication hub, and again, enabling all your audience to go forth and spread the word.
10. Track the competition. What are people saying about the other guy?  Here's an opportunity to make the Folger's switch.  "Bob normally drinks Folgers, but today, we've switched his regular coffee with Bright-eyed and blueberry.  Let's follow his twits and see what happens.

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Tags: jambajuice, twitter

Sean told me about this approach to compensating employees at an early stage startup and I'd be interested in some feedback:

You take what you normally would pay someone and for every dollar that they don't take in cash, you give them two dollars of equity.

So, if a developer normally gets paid $100k, and he agrees to work for your startup for $60k, then you have to give up $80k worth of options.

It's really the first time I've ever someone put something logical like that on paper.  Has anyone seen this before?

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I'm sitting in the MIT VC Conference right now, listening to Diane Greene of VMWare, thinking about the conference, presenting last night, and the Boston scene.

First off, the showcase was really great.  I should have blogged it here, but if you were following my Twitter messages, you heard that I livecasted the booth using UStream.tv.   I have to say, I was really amazed at UStream.  I plugged my camera in (first without drivers, which was my bad) and then the Flash linked up with my camera.   One click and I was broadcasting live to the web.  The coolest part was that I could embed the video player and the chat box anywhere I wanted. 

I'd never really checked out any of the Justin.tv stuff or Chris Pirillo's chats, but I got excited about this.  We may employ some of this at Path 101 to further open up our anti-stealth. 

Anyway... getting back to the conference itself.  People had told me that there really aren't that many "community" events in Boston, and that, which Boston has the VC money, the big institutions like MIT, that the community stuff is a bit lacking.  While I met a lot of great people here last night, I was really surprised there wasn't even more people.  I think of it as the equivalent to the ITP show and that gets packed every year.  In fact, there seems to be more people at the actual conference today, which you had to pay to get in.  How come?  Certainly it wasn't the fault of the organizers.  They picked a great spot and people knew about the conference.  Why weren't more entrepreneurs and VCs at the Showcase?  Students?  Or just people from the community?  I feel like it's the kind of thing more people should have been at...  like some swarm from a usergroup or something.  There were a lot of great companies there.  If anyone is involved with any great Boston-area tech community groups, let me know!  I'll repost them!

When I first got there, I have to admit, I was a bit intimidated.  I'm afraid my arts and crafts skills aren't what they used to be when I was in kindergarten, and I miscaculated the size of the boards compared to the size of my printouts.  I printed out twice as many slides about what we did and who we were and they didn't make the board.

Plus, other people had much more impressive displays.... clearly, they spent a lot more money at Kinko's than I did.  I was sort of afraid that I wasn't quite ready for primetime, but once things got going, it was really great.  People were really excited about what we were doing, and I got to meet some people in person that I'd only known virtually, like Alexa DuPont and Hilary Mason.

There were some visitors from companies in the employment space who we might be able to work with in the future, too. 

Most importantly, though...  were the conversations with students.  I had some great conversations with MBA students from interesting backgrounds trying to figure out what they wanted to do who really took the concept.

So what did we show anyway?  Well, we're in development right now and right in the middle of working on design.  I didn't really want to have our contract UX person spend resources on demoware that wouldn't move us forward, so I spent some late nights recently pushing my poor graphic design skills to the limit to come up with screenshots.  So, if you promise not to poke too much fun, and pay more attention to what's going on in these pages than the fonts, colors, placement, clutter, you can see the screenshots here on the Path 101 blog here.

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I was just e-mailing with Andrew, who was nice enough to send a tech guy my way, and I noticed a curious addition to his outgoing mail signature.

"Andrew Parker
Union Square Ventures - Associate"

A doublecheck in LinkedIn confirmed...  Andrew's been an Associate for about a month now.  At first I thought maybe he got a new haircut or had maybe been hitting the gym, but nope... Andrew's been sportin' the glow of a shiny new title.  Congrats!

Perhaps this was the result of competition for talent with their own portfolio companies.  I hear the USV Analyst pool is a great place to recruit from.  :)

I guess all the USV fanboys will have to wait at least another year before another opportunity to work with the boys from 915 Broadway opens up.

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I'm currently getting digital radio silence from two people I really want to talk to, both of whom I've reached out to more than once.   I just don't get it.

Don't get me wrong, I get a ton of e-mails from people and it is often the case that one slips past me and I don't notice it...  but if anyone ever follows up on it, I'll respond right away, usually with an apology.

The first case is someone who is pretty important and influential, but with whom I've corresponded before, always with a response, even if it took a little while.  I've sent them a number of notes related to Path 101, and even had one of my investors contact them about it--someone with whom this person knows pretty well.  Nothing...  nada.... zip.  They even wound up inviting my investor to some event and ignored the whole mention of the company.  It was actually sort of bizarre.  I mean, if you're not interested, you're not interested.  Just say it..  don't leave us scratching our heads.  It's really unfortunate, too, because I think this person could be a huge help to us and it turns out they're involved with another company we're interested in talking to as well (which I just found out yesterday via LinkedIn).  I was like, "Damn, if only so and so would get back to us, we could get an intro to them, too!" 

The other scenario is a younger front end developer who is clearly a ninja in the making.  She does a little bit of everything, has a great blog, and has a little bit of poking the bear in her, too.  I'm DYING to talk to her about joining.  She's clearly "out there" and so I tried Facebook, e-mail.. . I even complimented her Last.fm station, which I listened to one afternoon.  I'm not stalking... all this stuff is out on her blog...  but I've e-mailed twice to no avail.  Not even a peep.  Zip.  Nada.  Nothing.  *Scratches head.*

Again, a simple, "I'm not really looking to join or work for your company" would do.  But you know, I'd love to sit down with her as a relatively recent college grad just to hear what she thinks of the idea, too.  

Again, just don't get it.  Why put yourself out there if you're going to be completely unresponsive?  If you're busy, that's cool... just take two seconds to write back, "Hey, sorry, I'm really busy... can we talk another time?"

So, do I just keep at it until I get a Cease & Desist?  Do I call them out on their unresponsiveness?  I mean, at the moment, without a response, I have nothing... so what do I have to lose?  Should I just let it go? 

Maybe I should send them a Christopher Walken Voki.

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Well that's just creepy.

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nextNY is helping BDI get the word out about its Convergence 2007 conference this Monday, and in return, all nextNY members are getting a discounted rate to the conference.  Check it out!

Present Convergence 2007 The Future of Advertising, Communications & Media

About The Event This full day conference will gather the best and brightest minds to explore how the communications industry is converging. The internet's impact on advertising, pr, and media continue to create major changes in the way organizations and individuals interact. Businesses and consumers are embracing social media, web video, and environmentalism. Communications professionals are challenged more than ever to measure ROI on their initiatives while embracing new and sometimes immature cutting edge tactics. We will explore case studies and provide a platform for highly regarded thought leaders to share their successes, failures and lessons learned. We will also invite the best of breed product and solution providers to share their perspectives on the changing face of communications. Case Study: Harnessing the Power of User Generated Media at Toyota Motor Company Bruce Ertmann, Corporate Manager, Consumer Generated Media, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. Inc. As a global leader, Toyota is on the forefront of innovative ways to support its brand and deepen relationships with consumers and dealers. Bruce Ertmann will share his case studies and lessons learned about how one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world embraces consumer generated media as an important part of its overall branding and communications strategy. Case Study: Results through Convergence: McDonald's Use of New Communication Vehicles to Engage Consumers Heather Oldani, Director of Communications, McDonald's As an industry leader, McDonald's continues to seek new ways to reach consumers in order to meaningfully engage them with the brand and to drive awareness and trial for new products and promotions. With the media landscape continually changing, as well as consumers' preferred channels for receiving information, the Communications Team at McDonald's USA has gone beyond traditional media relations to new communication vehicles to help launch new products and to help build brand trust, often times in close collaboration with marketing. The case study presentation will focus on the results delivered from this close collaboration combined with the use of vehicles for two product launches and the company's efforts to reach Moms with brand trust messaging. Case Study: Casio's Partnership with YouTube To Launch The "YouTube Camera" Melissa Keklak, PR Director, Casio Casio has teamed up with YouTube to help establish itself as an innovative company among younger consumers by equipping some of its newest digital cameras with a YouTube Capture mode. The electronics company secured an exclusive agreement with YouTube to provide software on four of its cameras. "We've always been a youthful-type, trendy company," Melissa Keklak, PR director, Casio told PR Week. However, some of Casio's innovations have been overlooked in the competitive digital camera market, she explained. But with this effort, Casio's PR goal is to be known as "the YouTube camera" and the first in the market to offer this technology, Keklak added.Outreach efforts include promoting the agreement to print, broadcast, online, and new-media outlets. The second phase of the campaign involves giving cameras to editors to review the YouTube mode. Later this year, Casio will launch a contest to raise awareness about the YouTube-enabled cameras. Case Study: Social Networking Meets Madison Avenue - Future Opportunities & Lessons Learned from myYearBook.com, the fastest growing social networking site on the internet Geoff Cook, CEO, myYearBook.com style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'" >www.myYearbook.com is the fastest growing social network on the Internet for 13 to 21 year olds and the only one started by 2 high school students.  They recently announced that the site logged a phenomenal 70 percent increase in traffic over the course of just one month from 2.8 million unique visitors to an astounding 4.6 million.   Geoff Cook will share the inside scoop on how to create and execute successful marketing partnerships between online social networks and brands.  He will focus on how to best work with social networking sites from both pr and advertising perspectives.

Details Monday, December 3, 2007 8:30 a.m. - 6:00 p.m. The Graduate Center/CUNY 365 Fifth Avenue; New York, NY 10016 Registration Fee: $395, to receive a discounted rate of $345 enter promo code CONCO when registering. http://www.bdionline.com/convergence2007 Additional Speakers Robert Aitken, Broadcast Product Manager, AP Online Video Daryl Battaglia, Vice President, Nielsen Tracking System Stephen Berkov, Director, Brand Innovation, Audi of America, Inc. Jack Berkowitz, Senior Vice President, ALM Media Karen Bloom, Principal, Bloom Gross & Assoicates,Inc. Gigi Carroll, VP Concept Director, DraftFCB Michael Clemente, Executive Producer, ABC News Paul Dunay, Director Marketing, BearingPoint and Author, Buzz Marketing for Technology Bart Feder, Chairman, The FeedRoom Adrienne Garland, Vice President Marketing, PR Newswire Association LLC Mindy Gikas, Managing Director, Human Resources, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide Scott Goodson, Co-Founder, CEO & Chief Creative Officer, Strawberry Frog Dan Greenfield, Media Consultant and former Vice President, Corporate Communications, EarthLink James Gregory, CEO, Corebrand Monica A. Hand, Manager, New York Metro Area, Public Affairs & Communications, United States Postal Service Dena Helf , Executive Producer, Video, Vault.com Inc. Peter Himler, Flatiron Communications & President, PR Club of New York John Kaponi, Managing Director, Infocis Press Monitoring Meg Kinney, Executive Vice President, Strategic Planning, Integer/TBWA Jessica Luterman, Managing Director, DeSilva and Phillips Russell Meyer, Chief Strategy Officer, San Francisco, Landor Dori Molitor, CEO, Womanwise Christine Nevin, Director, Business & Media Relations, ConEdison Solutions Stacey Prenner, Talent Management Director, DDB Jason Rissman, Google Stuart Schwartz, The NewsMarket Hank Stewart, VP, Strategic Messaging, Green Team Gus Warren, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, Spot Runner, Inc. Alyssa Waxenberg,Senior Director of Westin and Element Interactive Marketing, Starwood Hotels Sponsors

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Even though I don't use it myself, I've been recommending Tumblr to everyone I know who is just starting to blog.  It's an easy way to share yourself on the web. However, it's making quite a mess out of my social data consumer habits.

A year ago, this is how I consumed social data:    

When someone blogged, I consumed the feed on Newsgator, occasionally clicking through.  Now and then, I'd get someone that would post a Flickr photo or a daily post of links from del.icio.us, but that wasn't so bad.  The Flickr photos were curated and the del.icio.us posts aggregated all the links of the day in one daily post.  Other than that, I was socially connected to particular groups of people on each service, which allowed me to customize my own consuming habits.  I could decide who I wanted to be connected to on Twitter, Flickr, etc... and how I wanted their data.  I could follow you on Twitter, but keep you off my phone.  Each service had its own relevent set of controls.  I could completely opt-out from some services entirely...  I don't use Hype Machine at all, for example.

Now, we've got a lot more interoperability among these various services and a new social aggregation/curation tool in Tumblr.  It's made posting and publishing very easy, but consuming a total nightmare.

Here's what my consuming habits look like now:

It's like someone let John Madden lose on my feeds.

So now, for one, I've got two feeds for one person in my Newgator.  Which Fred do I follow?  Social Fred or business Fred?   If I follow both, I've got overlap, because Fred is not Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde.. he's the same guy...  and you can't completely pull him apart, so he sometimes posts the same thing in both places.  On top of that, God forbid your connected to someone on multiple interoperable services.  They can take a picture, upload it to Flickr, which automatically sends it to Flickr, which also passes it on to their blog.  By the time I get back to my desk, I've seen or heard about the same goddamn Flickr photo three or four times across multiple services.  Not only did I get the Twitter of that photo on my phone, but then all your Twitters go into your Tumblr and I get to see the Twitter of the Flickr photo which was also in your blog and in my Flickr contacts page!!  Argh!

And I didn't even add Facebook, where I also saw that photo and the Twitter about the photo in my newsfeed.  Luckily for me, few of my Facebook friends are Newsgator friends.

Wait.. do I have Newgator friends? Or was that E-mail friends I was thinking of? My friends are everywhere now... I just want to get some fuckin' work done! 

I've even got them in the sidebar of my browser, where I got to see the Twitter of the photo and the photo itself as well in Flock.  And must we see every single del.icio.us bookmark as a separate entry in your Tumblr feed?  Do you know what its like to try and consume a Tumblr feed in a mobile RSS reader?   

Everytime I go to Galpert's RSS feed, there's like 86 unread posts in there, and his Tumblr feed isn't the only one.  I've already unsubscribed from some others.  It's not that I don't want your daily minutia...  I want them on a system with controls that make sense.  I want them drifting by me as SMS messages on the phone through Twitter, not clogging up my RSS reader. I want to be the aggregator.  We keep telling mainstream publishers to microchunk, but now the digerati is putting Humpty Dumpty back together again, and stripping out all the useful levers I used to be able to pull to filter my experience.   There's no way for me to subscribe to Fred without a bunch of overlap, or risk missing out on stuff.  I could leave him on Twitter, because his Twits go to Tumblr, but then I could never direct message him and then I'd also lose the realtime factor. Thunderdome for feeds sucks....   All feeds enter, one feed leaves, because its never really just one feed, and then your audience loses control over their consumption habits. 

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Tags: feeds, web2.0, tumblr, twitter, flickr, blogging

So, first it was Richie Hecker self-marketing his way up to the top spot in Nate's Silicon Alley 100 People's Choice "Most Influential" Award Powered by BricaBox.

Now we can add Hilary Rowland, fashion model and owner of Hilary.com, the current leader with 40+ votes.

It really bothers me when people try to co-opt what could otherwise be a really interesting exercise and conversation for their own purposes.

To counter, I'm actively marketing for who I really think really deserves it, Fred Wilson and Scott Heiferman.  Please do me a favor and vote for them so we knock the self-marketers off the top of the list.

You want to talk influence?  I gotta believe that running the New York Tech Meetup, and actually Meetup.com itself, should count for a lot more than half the votes that Hilary got.  Sure, Scott's no Ford fashion model, but this ain't no beauty contest.  (And if it's just about pure traffic, MY BLOG has more traffic according to Alexa than Hilary.com, and a ton more inbound links according to Technorati... but don't vote for me, b/c others have accomplished a lot more than me.)  You want to talk influential women in the NYC Tech Scene?  How about Ester Dyson or Nancy Peretsman?  Laurel Touby anyone?   Are $23 million exits now chump change?

And Fred Wilson?  This is an influence contest, right?  And he's 11th??  In NYC??  Are we serious?  Ok, anyone who has ever tried to get Fred to link to their blog, use their widget, or invest in their startup, go over there, sign up for BricaBox, and vote for Fred.

I know it doesn't mean anything who wins, but there are just too many self interested people trying to grab the community spotlight lately.  We need to recognize the achievements of people who have long track records of real impact.  One thing that I think the younger folks in NYC need to realize is that there was a New York tech community way before Web 2.0, nextNY, Founder's Club, or any of this other stuff.  Part of me feels like campaigning to run yourself up past the likes of Fred, Scott, Ester, Nancy, David Rose, Kevin Ryan, etc. is a real disrespect to the groundwork that lots of other people laid while we were still in junior high school.

Go to BricaBox and turn in an informed vote!

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We're working with a UI/Design expert for Path 101 and we've been having an interesting little debate about putting a search box on the front page.

Here are some reasons you'd typically want a search box on the front page:

- People understand what to do with a search box.  You see a box, you type something in it, you get back what you asked for. 
- Cuts down clicks--gets people right to what they want.
- It has a high chance of engaging users.  Like moths to a light, users will type something in a search box if you put one on the page.
- It gives you data on what people are looking for.
- It is neat and uncluttered, versus trying to put up links to every possible thing the user could have asked for.

However, there are some things you need to think about before following conventional wisdom.

First, what are your chances of getting the user what they want as a result of that search?

Search relevance isn't easy.  You have a lot working against you.  First, no matter what you ask for in that search box, people will undoubtedly type in all sorts of random, irrelevant crap--i.e. stuff you don't have results for on your site.  Search is chaos. 

If your site is about selling a specific product, like a 3/4'' inch bolt, no other size bolt will do.  However, if you're searcher is just looking for "stuff that holds something in place" and wouldn't mind browsing bolts, clamps, glue and other various fasteners, your search is going to have to be pretty intelligent to understand the relationships between those items.  No open source free text search is going to figure that out.  Search promises to answer your question, but don't underestimate how complicated (or simple) the question may be.

So, if you can't provide relevant search results to your users, what's the point of having it?  Let's say 50% of the time you find something relevant for a user.  What do you think happens the other 50% of the time?  I'll bet you that you lose most of those people, because they're assuming that search is pretty comprehensive and that a search that comes up empty means you can't help them.  However, if you had something closer to a site map or directory on the front page, a la Craigslist, not finding something relevant there, in all likelihood, does mean that you just don't have what they're looking for.  However, at least then you have a chance at guiding that user to something else--a higher chance than you would after you get a "Your search turned up 0 results" message.

Does search=a quickie?

What do you want users doing on your site?  Coming in and taking out just what they want with surgical precision or do you want them to sit and stay a while?  What kind of behavior does search encourage?  Sure, you don't want to make it difficult to get people want they want, but I also think you want more than just a millisecond to show someone what else they can do on the site. 

The well informed click

The power of search is that it gives you information about what the user is looking for.  What it doesn't give you is any idea about who the user is--the context for the search.  That would give you significantly more relevant results.  Consider this example...  You go to a healthcare site and the first thing it asks you is if you are a doctor or a patient.  One click later, you have an enormous about of context and information about what kinds of results you should be showing your users.  Imagine if you had typed in "flu" in just a plain old search box, because you had it, but
all the results you got where "What to prescribe your patients when they have the flu?" and "What to charge for a flu shot?"  You'd think the site was just for doctors and probably move on.  I've been thinking a lot about the "well informed click"--the idea that you can setup your UI in such a way that each click tells you something about your user and what they're looking for. 

The real searchers go to Google: SEO as a replacement for your own search box

Particularly at the beginning of your site's existence, most people looking for something specific on your site won't start out at your home page--they'll start out at Google.  Even when I know that IMDB is the most likely destination when I type in the name of a movie, I still don't go to IMDB first, I start at Google.  So that begs the question...  who winds up at your front door.  My theory is that it's two types of users--people who came in via a recommendation and people who typed something general about what your site does. 

People who came in on a recommendation often come through a well informed click.  Path101.com visitors will come from a link in TechCrunch telling them that Path 101 is the site to go to if you're not sure what you want to do with your life.  When those people click, they're raising their hand and saying, "Yes, that general concept sounds good.. take me to that."  They know a little something about what's being offered and are willing to have you tell them what the site is all about.  They're not "on a mission" to get in and out as quickly as possible with a specific nugget of info or a price or song, etc. 

Similarly, anyone who winds up at Path 101's front door will most likely be typing things into Google like, "How do I figure out what I want to do?" and "Picking a career".  Hopefully, if our SEO is worth a damn, anything more specific like, "Picking a career in finance" would take them to a more specific page within the site.   It will be a while before someone goes to their computer and says, "I want to find a career in finance" , automatically thinks to go to the homepage of Path 101 first, and THEN looks to do a specific search for finance careers.  Basically, we're saying that people either search for specific things at Google or go to your site's homepage because the general concept of what you have interests them, and they're willing to put you in the driver's seat.

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Tags: search, design, ui, interface

I went to TechCrunch 11 last night in Boston.  It was great to catch up with some people I didn't expect to see there as well as some east coast scene regulars. 

However, the one thing that struck me about it was how little value sponsors seemed to really be getting out of this thing.  A few weeks ago, Phillip from Snooth, the wine recommendation service, told me that he doesn't go to tech events... he goes to wine events.  That just made so much sense to me and it really put all these big splashy launches and attempts to get on the big tech blogs just seem kind of a waste of time from a marketing perspective.

Take IDG for example.  I met those guys a few years ago when they pitched their fund to GM and I think they're smart.  But, I couldn't help but think that, if they just held this party on their own, just as many people would have come.  Do VCs really need more inbound traffic?  Isn't the promise that a VC is going to be somewhere enough to make a startup want to show up to an event?  What did they really need TechCrunch for?  If anything, I think the TechCrunch association brings with it a lot of fanboy traffic and noise.  I think they would have been better off throwing some kind of "open house" or some kind of innovative session showing a live VC pitch, their reaction, etc., with follow up drinks.  That seems like a much better place to get the word out that you're an entrepreneur-friendly, approachable, value-adding VC, versus just paying for everyone's drinks.

Even if it did bring in a bunch of entrepreneurs, the crowded bar scene wasn't exactly that conducive to conversation, nor would it have been particularly easy to find the right people you want to talk to anyway.  Maybe it helps elevate their name in the community to associate themselves with TechCrunch, but I gotta figure they shouldn't have any trouble doing that on their own by sponsoring a BarCamp or something.

For the sponsor companies, it seemed even less valuable.  Mzinga "launched" last night, right in the middle of the little demo mosh pit they had going at this place.  It looks like they've build some kind of Web 2.0 intranet--certainly not a direct to consumer product.  Who could they have possibly met in this crowd that would have made the money they spent to be there worth it?  Wouldn't they have been better off going to some Enterprise 2.0 conference, or, even better, hosting a thoughtful discussion on Web 2.0 in the Enterprise with a number of companies in that space, along with some high profile CEO's.

That's one seriously underused method of publicity as far as I'm concerned--smaller, focused public conversations with and for your customers.  I'm going to be working with some people in the NYC area community to do something in January around Web 2.0 and the education market and I'm sure make some great Path 101 connections through it.  That would be a lot more efficient use of our time (and more cost efficient) than to spend a lot of money sponsoring some big party. 

I almost kinda felt bad for some of the companies there last night.  It felt like they spent a lot of money to be there, and the ROI of randomly handing out buttons and flyers and stickers to an audience that probably wasn't even relevant to what they were doing seemed sort of desperate. 

Buzz doesn't make a company...not in the long term.  Putting good products in front of a relevant audience does--and the Web 2.0 blogger/TechCrunch fanboy world just isn't a relevant audience for so many of these startups.  More so than not, it just feels like a good place to get knocked for not using enough AJAX or not being as technologically sophisticated as your competitor, even if that's not what that market is asking for at all.  If Path 101 gets ripped apart or praised by TechCrunch, it's really not going to make a difference in the long term viability of the company, but burning all our cash on splashy event sponsorships definitely would, and not in a good way.

I could be wrong, of course, and I'd love to hear about all the really valuable connections people made last night to justify the expense--there were some good people and good companies there and I'd love to hear that their efforts were successful.

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As always, I'll be the bald guy.  Come find me and say hello.

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Until you start working in a corporate environment, it's unlikely that, if you're a teen, you'll ever need to send an attachment.  Most of the files you have are media files, and you share with friends through various social media sharing sites, services, etc.

That works... until you have to send your resume to someone or negotiate a legal contract.  Yeah, I don't think Facebook has "Track Changes". 

So, while the kids, with their rock and roll and their ripped jeans and hacky sacks... err..  chrome spinners, may not have a need for e-mail now, it's not going away anytime soon.  Plus, most alternative methods, like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, require both the sender and the recipient to both be on the same social network.  E-mail is a least common denominator.  We all have one and it requires no additional signup/login to send someone a message.

It's not going away.

You know, if you're going to write a story about what the kids are doing, talking to the kids is great, but I think there's something to be said for looking at your adult life, with adult responsibilities, and be realistic about where these trends are going.

I mean, I don't see ConEd, Citibank, or Sprint sending me e-bill notifications on Twitter or Facebook anytime soon, so I'd better login to my e-mail once in a while if I expect to have a reasonable credit rating.

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That's great, because New York entrepreneurs, developers, and designers need you.  Maybe you have an idea and need a developer or you're a contract developer looking to dive into your own thing, but need a business person to join you.  Contract work is great, but why settle for working on O.P.P. (other people's projects)? 

nextNY is doing an event all around getting people who want to join startups together.  Best part is, you won't get hounded by recruiters or "venture vultures" looking to sell things to you.  Here, you'll just meet other people thinking about the entrepreneurial path.

Here's the info:

MatchupCamp – matchmaking for startups – is all about startup networking, creating a place for ideas and talent to meet. There are many events matching professional services to startups – this one will focus on those looking to get their hands dirty and build something new. MatchupCamp has the sole objective of bringing together people looking to start, expend, or join a startup in New York (and the tri-state area).

MatchupCamp is for those looking for others to work together building exciting ventures in New York. There is no requirement for full time commitment – anyone who wants to take part is welcomed, even if they only have a few hours a week. The important thing is that you are interested in taking part. If you got ideas or skills, come find others to share them with:

• People with ideas looking for others to develop it into a real product
• Anyone with some free time thinking about jumping into the startup world looking to see what’s out there
• Developers looking for cool part-time or full-time projects
• Startup founders looking for employees or co-founders
• Students looking for internships

Details:

Wednesday, November 28 @ 7PM

For Your Imagination
22 West 27th Street
6th Floor
New York, NY 10001

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Here's one way that online networking is kind of like a kidnapping. If you can't find a reason to work together with someone and follow up on a networking connection in the first 48 hours after a LinkedIn connection, I'd bet your chances of ever making that connection productive significantly drop off. I know a lot of bloggers and other random online connections that I got really excited about at first, chatted for a bit, connected with on LinkedIn, and then never really did anything with.

LinkedIn needs a way to build in not only more specific follow up, but also drop a few hints. If I'm looking for a front end developer, and I connect to you, if your best friend does exactly what I need, it should alert the two of us that there's a connection to be made. Similarly, a "things I can do for other people" page would be nice. It's not enough to float job requests around that say "Do you know anyone for this?" LinkedIn already knows the answer to that. How about you tell me who I know for that job and save me the trouble!?

The other thing that would be interesting would be some kind of reciprocity score. The same way it gives me a score on how complete a profile I have, it should tell me the +/- of how often I ask for something from the system versus how often I provide something to it. Perhaps I don't make enough recommendations, but shouldn't I get credit for the number of nodes I've added to the system?

Does the web ever make you feel really disconnected?

I was going through the contact list in my phone before.  It was a huge repository of little reminders of all the people I don't really talk to anymore.  Social networks get like that, too... they go stale... you keep adding, but there's no pruning. 

Someone should create a social network that is just about 100 people.  That's it... you can only have 100 friends, and when you add someone, you have to boot someone off. 

I love IM, but how many times do you have the following conversation with people?

"What's up?" 

"Not much... how are you?"

"Good... and you?"

"Yeah... good."

And then...  nothing...   AIM is like an ICU, with all these friendships on life support that would otherwise die if not hooked up to the digital feeding tube.

When I die, please donate my screenname to some little kid that needs it more than I do. 

What is it about social networking online that makes it so unlike how I interact with real people in the real world?

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