Do you want to play softball on Thursday?  Did you go to Fordham?  Well, come on down to Hecksher Field #1 on Thursday at 6:30PM and we'll do our best to accommodate you!  We're having an open practice and then we're going to the Young Alumni Happy Hour (as we do every 3rd Thursday of the month).  This month, we'll be going to T.G. Whitney's.

Here's the field map:

These would be the kind of deal we love at Union Square Ventures, except for one thing, someone has already ripped off one of the little phone number tear-offs, so we can't say its proprietary deal flow.  Brad and his keen eye for deals snatched this off a bus stop on Broadway.  (I saw it on my way in this morning, but thought that maybe $5,000 would be  a bit under our radar.)  In keeping with the team approach to all of our deals, the best spot for this is posted on Fred's door.  (So Fred would notice it right away.)

The best part about the deal is that, as it says right on the piece of paper, that "this is not a sales pitch or a gimmick, but a real investment opportunity."  That's great, because I believe our PPM explicitly stats that we can only invest in gimmicks with the expressed consent of our advisory board, and that's always a sticky situation.

Today was Free Cone Day at Ben & Jerry's.  Kerri and I hit up the location on 23rd Street between 7th and 8th.  You still have time, but as you can see from our pictures, the lines are long.  They're also giving out coupons for a free extra scoop on your next purchase (while supplies last).  The offer ends at 8PM tonight, so go out and get what's coming to you.   Feel free to post your own Ben & Jerry's Free Cone Day pics using the "freeconeday" tag, like I did.  (PS...  Flickr really needs a better way to post multiple photos at a time to my post.   I already have today's pictures on Flickr, but now I'm reuploading them to Typepad.  That's a real pain in the ass.  Otherwise, I love the service.)

Just got this from Flickr...    Now you can all grovel for my two free accounts.  :)

*******************************************************

Hi ceonyc!

You may have heard on the grapevine that we planned to
reward our dear Flickr members who bought a Pro Account in
the early days. Well, it's true! And since you're one of
those lovely people, here's a little something to say YOU
ROCK!

1. Double what you paid for!
   Your original 1 year pro account has been doubled to
   2 years, and your new expiry date is Mar 30, 2007.

2. More capacity!
   Now you can upload 2 GB per month.

3. 2 free Pro Accounts to give away to your friends!
   This won't be activated for a day or two, but when it
   is, you'll see a note on your home page telling you
   what to do.

Thank you so much for putting your money where your mouth
is and supporting us, even while we're in beta. Your
generosity and cold, hard cash helped us get where we are
today.

Kind regards,
The Flickreenies.

As user generated content becomes more important, does identity become less important?

I was thinking about this when I was watching Scoble and Steve Gillmor talk about attention.xml in their little home movie.  Was I watching because its was Robert Scoble and Steve Gillmor?  Eh... Not really.  I mean, that's how I found the video, because I'm more likely to find things from the more popular blogs, but when I was consuming the content--watching the actual video, I don't think I really cared who they were.  In fact, I had to look it up to remember who Steve Gillmor was.  I forget "who" I'm reading all the time, especially when I read RSS feeds and they strip away the format.

I think, in today’s world, the playing field of publishing has never been more level, and it doesn’t matter if you’re the NY Times of a blogger…  your stuff has to stand up on its own.  Legitimacy comes more from being vetted and approved by the community at large than by reputation. 

What about my own content?  Does the amount of myself that I offer up to the masses make my identity more or less critical?  When I post on my blog, my thoughts, in my view, belong to everyone...they become part of a community wide conversation, to be clipped, quoted, linked to, commented on and to inspire new thoughts.  Sure its on my blog, but what does “ownership” really mean?  Do I really own my content if anyone can use it?  Google makes money off my content--a lot more than I do.  So will Feedburner, at some point...and Bloglines and whoever.  I certainly don't feel like I own it when its offered up to the public.

As for my identity, do people read my stuff because I'm Charlie O'Donnell?  Maybe some.  Do people read because they think I'm some punk analyst that has a greater chance of spilling the beans on the del.icio.us valuation than Fred does?  Probably, but again, that's about the content, not about me specifically.  They'd read the blog of Benny, the front desk guy at 915 Broadway, if they thought they'd get the same information out of him. And yet, because of all of this user generated content, we now we have more personal information about ourselves that ever before.  We know about Brad Feld's reading habits, Jen Chung's eating habits, and my cholesterol level. 

Given the old rules of supply and demand, one might argue that the more information that gets put out there, the less valuable it is, but in Web 2.0, that’s not necessarily true.  To a point, the more information you have about me, the more valuable it is.  Knowing that I am a Mets fan might be valuable, but knowing that I’m a Mets fan and a kayaker is even more valuable, especially if you’re trying to sell me a paddle with a Mets logo on it via AdSense.  However, is information like that valuable because I, Charlie O’Donnell, am a kayaking Mets fan?  Not really, because if I was the only one, you couldn’t really make a business out of selling one Mets paddle.   No, what really makes my identity valuable is the small group that I belong to—the subset of kayaking Mets fans, and blogging, social networks, Web 2.0 is all about that…  small groups.  What makes Scoble and Gilmor’s conversation meaningful to me is the fact that these two guys are connected to a subset of other like-minded people that they have not only been influenced by, but that they will also influence, and I find this group to have value.  Their conversation, in the grand scheme of the world, isn’t that important, but to an analyst at a VC firm—any analyst, not just me… the group of VC analysts—it is important.  This is what helps give value to things like the list of RSS feeds I subscribe to or the things I tag in del.icio.us.  Both put me in the context of a group and say much about me… or rather, the kind of characteristics people in my small group share. 

Sure, Charlie O'Donnell has a unique voice in that group…   or does he?  I tend to think that, more and more, its not about my unique voice, but more of the aggregate conversation my small group is having that is really meaningful.  If I’m not taking part in a conversation, then I’m just grandstanding and talking for my own benefit—not particularly valuable to anyone but me. 

So, all of the sudden, the Mets have drawn even at 5-5, erasing their dismal 0-5 start.   They beat the Marlins 4-0.  In fact, the Mets have a better record than the Yanks right now.  Tonight, they did it on the back of...  Aaron Heilman??  I've panned this guy so many times before...  he's a career 3-11 in 20 starts.  People are saying "finally" because they've touted him so much, but I have to see another start.  I remember Dave Mlicki shutting out the Yanks one time and that was about it for his career.  At least with Mlicki, he had a 12-6 curve that made me think he had something.  I'm not getting on the Aaron Heilman bandwagon just yet, but I'll throw the guy a bone for a 1-hitter.  Impressive start.  Tomorrow, I'm going to see Pedro's home opener against Al Leiter.  Should be quite a game and the weather is supposed to be faaaantastic.

Link: FreeNYC: We All Scream For Ice Cream.

April 19th...  Free Cone Day from 12PM - 8PM at Ben & Jerry's.  I will be waiting outside the one on 23rd between 7th and 8th at least 15 min ahead of time at 11:45 AM.  Cherry Garcia is my poison.  Who's with me??  What's your flavor?

Link: OnlyOnce: Go Ahead...Make My Day.

After his fascination with the word "sketchball", Fred and I talked once about evaluating character based on some kind of a "sketchball scale".  I can't tell you who we'd put on the bad end of that scale, but Fred suggested that, at the very tip of the other end, on the good side, we'd put Matt Blumberg, CEO of Return Path.  I met him at the Union Square Ventures Christmas party and I'd have to say I'd agree.

So, it was very fitting when I read Matt's post from today about his attempt to be nicer to fellow joggers in Hudson River Park by waving at them.  Only 2 of the 30 even acknowledged him, but, undaunted, he still suggests, "go ahead -- be 10% more friendly or smiley today.  See what effect it has on people around you.  Make someone's day!"

Please wave to Matt if you see him tomorrow morning.  Fred and I will vouch for the fact that he's not nuts.  He's just a really nice guy.

At work, I use a fancy tablet with all the bells and whistles.  At home, I have a four year old computer that runs on hamster power.  My dad uses an abacus and AOL dial-up to connect to the internet.  Everyone's got a different way of getting on and, unfortunately, everyone's got their screen set to a different resolution.  So, while older computers were struggling to keep my columns squeezed next to each other, Fred, for example, was complaining that I was only using half the screen.

So, I went to Learning Moveable Type, as I do for all of my template questions and searched for "screen resolution."  Of course, Elise's site had the answer, this time written not by Ms. Moveable herself, but by Arvind Satyanarayan.   The solution was to make my widths relative to each other.  So, in my stylesheet, instead of making my container 800px wide, I made it 95% wide, so its fits across 95% of your screen.  I did about a 40%/60% mix for columns and we'll see how that works out.  So now, everyone should be happy, even if they're surfing via abacus.

I love making everyone happy.  Between the new two column format and the white on gray, I think the readability of my template has gone up tenfold.  Blogs tend to be much more effective when reading them doesn't burn your retinas.
 

From Brian:

[10:19] cuth23b: Brian Roberts is on pace for 92 HRs, 218 RBI, and a .412 BA
[10:19] cuth23b: AND
[10:19] cuth23b: 46 steals

Tien posted about using Flickr to peek into the lives of other people's stomachs using Fresh Direct and I was all about it.  Now there's a "nycgroceries" tag on flickr.  Just upload a screenshot of what you ordered, or a photo of a receipt, and tag it "nycgroceries".  Its a way more interesting waste of time than taking pictures of the back of your computer and using the picture as your desktop, making it look like your computer is see-thru.  (Fresh Direct should give anyone who does this via Flickr $5 off their next order... anyone work there?)  Here's my latest order:

_____________________________________________________

Tomorrow, at 6:15PM, the Fordham Young Alumni softball team plays its inaugural game at City College.  Spectators are encouraged!! 

Here's how to get to the field...

_________________________________________________________________

Link: SearchViews: Jeremy Jaynes Convicted, Google Ad Hilarity Ensues.

Too good to pass up...

Link: A VC: New Boathouse on the West Side.

Woooo!    Kayaking season starts May 14th!  Supposedly, we have a new boathouse, too.  Details to come...

Brad definitely needs to start blogging.  I’ve learned a lot from him in the short time I’ve been at Union Square and I think he needs to be propagating that wisdom throughout the Blogosphere.  He’s very direct and he has a very no nonsense way of cutting right to the heart of an issue, while at the same time being very thoughtful and curious.

So, last week I had a call with someone from a major IT services company.  I was doing some research on a space, trying to understand the market and look for interesting new technologies.  The call was very productive and this person pointed me in the direction of a relatively new startup company on the west coast.  Now, we’re primarily east coast focused and probably wouldn’t lead a west coast deal, but I still wanted to talk to this company, if nothing else than for informational purposes and to discuss the market. 

When I was at GM, I had my intro/setup to any call or meeting down pat.  I had clear definitions of exactly what we wanted out of any interaction, and for the most part, it was kind of easy, because we did pretty much everything.  No matter who I was talking to, they pretty much wanted to talk to us, because there was always the possibility that we could invest.  Now I have a much narrower mandate and need to realize that I can’t just flash a deep pocket around to get people to share information.  In fact, there are lots more complicating factors for me now.  For one thing, this east coast/west coast deal made me unsure of exactly how I was going to position our conversation with this company, since we couldn't exactly be that agressive in pursuing them.  On top of that, we had looked at another deal in the space, and while it got funded by someone else, I wasn’t sure exactly how much I could say about the other company, since it hadn’t launched its product yet.  But that all together, and add in the fact that Brad sat down with me on the call to listen in, making me really conscious about what I was saying and how I was positioning USV, and I totally flubbed the intro and found myself scrambling to explain why the heck we wanted to be on the call in the first place. 

Brad later referred to my intro as “World Class Sucky”.  He was totally right, but we had a great discussion about it today.  He said that he never surprised himself how smart he was.  In other words, when he was doing an informational call, the idea that he was going to play it close to the vest and not share info, but yet expect to get info from the other person, or to say something the other person didn’t know, just never played out that way.  We may have seen a competitor, but in all likelihood, the entrepreneurs that we speak to have already seen their competition.  It just doesn’t work to try and be too clever.  He basically said to just lay out what I knew and acknowledge the limits of our awareness of the market.  “Here’s what we know.”  That’s all you can say, and either the person you’re talking to is going to share or he’s not.

Plus, that’s not the way we believe information creates value.  We’re not fans of closed systems of information.  We believe that information sharing in a mutually beneficial way is the best way to create value.  I should know this.  Not only that, I should be listening to myself when I tell students not to try and fake what they know on an interview.  Either you know finance or you don’t, and if you don’t you’re never going to pull one over on your Citibank recruiter.  Brad said, and I agree, that it’s better to come off like someone aware of their limitations, and yet still intellectually curious.  Very rarely are you going to say something the other person doesn’t already know, and even rarer will be the case that you say something you shouldn’t for ethical reasons.  The thing you do want to make sure you do is that, whatever you say, you give the other person the impression that it would be ok for you to speak about them in the same manner.  In other words, don’t violate the trust of Person A when you speak to Person B to make Person B feel like they’re “in the loop.”  All that does is make Person B feel like you’re the type of person that can’t be trusted, and if it ever does get back to Person A, then you’re really screwed.  Of course, that wasn’t the issue here, because it wasn’t that I said too much… it was that I couldn’t figure out what the heck to say.  It was a rare occurrence for me and I appreciate that my boy Burnham had my back.   

Link: Sparring with VCs & Associates to sharpen your skills. - The Jason Calacanis Weblog - calacanis.weblogsinc.com _.

Jason's a...  hmm... is it 5th or 6th degree blackbelt in Tae Kwan Do, so he's very knowledgeable about sparring.  His exchange with a VC associate is a must-read.  Every day that I hear stuff like this, it makes me question whether or not grad school should even be a consideration for me.

Link: Gothamist: Dine In Brooklyn.

April 11-20 is Brooklyn's restaurant week -- Dine in Brooklyn. Close to 200 Brooklyn restaurants will offer three-course meals for a mere $19.55, in honor of the 1955 World Champion Brooklyn Dodgers.

And the answer to my first question...   Yes, Gino's will be participating.  Go check it out on 5th Avenue and 75th Street in Bay Ridge.  Tell Nick the Maitre D' that "Charlie and Carol's son Charlie" told you that this was the "Best Italian Restaurant" in Brooklyn.  He'll take care of you.  Try to sit in Seo (Say-oh)'s section, too.

Link: eBay item 5183660221 (Ends Apr-13-05 18:24:27 PDT) - FOR SALE NEW YORK YANKEES CLOSER MARIANO RIVERA.

You have to love the Yankee fans.  Rivera, probably more so than any other Yankee, is responsible for their current run, and these goofballs have him up on eBay.  Some of these idiots even booed him (not many, but a few) after yesterday's blown save.  This proves my theory...  Yankee fans have no capacity for human emotion.  Remember when the keys to Yankee success were Scott Brosious and Jimmy Leyritz?  Those days are gone.  Now, they have sold their soul and worship The Big Unit.

Link: Curbed: Confirmed: Shake Shack Way Too F'ing Popular.

I went to the Shake Shack Monday afternoon with Brad and Fred.  In fact, I put it on our calendar as a "team outing."  Unfortunately, they didn't seem to have their process quite right on the first day, and the shakes were way too thin.  Given the lines, seems things are in order now.   We shall return.

Union Square Ventures...jacked into the Matrix looking for deals.