Ok, we now have our own website.   www.hobokencoveboathouse.org   Link to it.  Love it.  Comment on it.   And come kayaking tomorrow!

Alright, so *hopefully* the www.hobokencoveboathouse.org domain name parking propogates nicely in the next few hours (playing with domain names is such sketchy business), but in the meantime, you can access our website here.   Please don't link to it or bookmarket or whatever until its up and running at its new domain name. 

The details on tomorrow is that we'll be running our free kayaking program at Frank Sinatra Park from 12-5.   Please e-mail Sandy for more details....    I'll post a rainout notice here and up on the temp site if anything changes.

I'm LinkedIn.

I have a Friendster profile.

I'm a member of NYSSA, an alumni of Fordham and an alumni of Regis High School.  I have various levels of data about myself at each of these institutions.  NYSSA and Regis have online databases available for people inside those organizations.  Regis lets me post a resume/bio.  Fordham... well, Fordham puts out a book (yes, with actual pages and everything) every five years or so, which is already obsolete in my case because it doesn't have my current work address.

I have an About page here and here.

I just registered for the NYPEN.

I'll admit to some online dating... but I'll let you match me to those profiles on your own.  ;)

I play kickball and dodgeball for ZogSports, and softball for Fordham in the NYC MetroSports League.  Both of these leagues have enormous online social networking potential that I'd be very happy to participate in, but they don't take advantage of that in any way.  Sportsvite is trying to solve that problem and while its a great idea and a neat implementation, its Y.A.F.P.  (Yet another...err... profile.)  If anyone is looking for an OF/3B in softball who catches and hits a lot better than he runs for a fill-in or a pickup game, that's the site to contact me through. 

The Downtown Boathouse is the same way.  They don't attempt to leverage their network at all.  I don't even know the last names of most of the other kayaking volunteers, let alone what they do for a living.  Its actually kind of an unspoken taboo there that when you're there, you're a kayaker and that's all that matters.  In a way, its sort of cool, but I'm sure I'm probably missing out on a lot of good professional networking because it never gets discussed.  Its a great place for free kayaking in New York City on the Hudson, but a terrible place for efficient social networking.

I also have an outdated profile at MonsterTrak where I'm listed as an alumni contact for Fordham students.   Now, Fordham wants me to fill out Y.A.F.P.  for the alumni mentoring program that I helped start two years ago so that all of the other students in the program can contact me.  I'm all for being helpful, but, to be honest, I'm a little profiled out.  I'll fill it out, but there has to be a better solution, for ALL of these things I'm a part of.

As far as I'm concerned, LinkedIn, at least for all this professional stuff, is far and away the best answer.  Their site is extremely professional.  Their set of permissions based contacting prevents me or my network from being spammed.  That's my favorite profile, but it doesn't solve half my profiling and networking issues.  I can't take that profile anywhere and use it for anything, nor can anyone else use it to really solve their member database issues.  Everything about LinkedIn has to be done on the LinkedIn.com site.  So, people see it as Y.A.F.P. when they already have enough trouble managing all of their member database and profile data everywhere else.

LinkedIn should open up the network through an open API and "Powered by" type services.  Take Fordham, for example.  Fordham University as a whole is never going to get LinkedIn for Groups.  They already have an alumni database.  They don't need two.  However, LinkedIn could provide a "Powered by LinkedIn" front end that would, with permission, give anyone in the alumni database all of these great networking tools that the LinkedIn users already use.  So, lets say I'm Joe Blog, Class of '57.  I've already given the school all my data, but its going to get stale pretty quickly, because they don't have a clunky online database which will take a million years to implement.   Besides which, it becomes Y.A.F.P. for people to manage, and Joe's not interested in that, especially since his own participation in the database might not provide him any direct value.

But, what if Joe gets an e-mail or sees on the alumni website that he can now log-in and get connected via Linked-in automatically to all of these great features if he so chooses.  So, his profile is on the system, but he can opt-in to a Linked-in for Groups type functionality.  If he's already on LinkedIn, that's great, because his profile has been autopopulated, and if he's not, his LinkedIn profile has been autopopulated with the data he gave the university.  If he wants to turn it on, great!  If not, that's his choice.  For LinkedIn, its mostly coming up with a school skinned UI, because they already have the database backend for groups.  For the school, its a really really lightweight, simple, opt-in implementation of the online database everyones been asking for.  Why every professional member database doesn't have a LinkedIn frontend with a one click option to be a LinkedIn member, I have no idea.  Joe would love it, because then he could use the same profile for his school, his professional society, or his softball team.

If you open up the API, you can let people develop stuff on top of the LinkedIn backend.  So, the Sportsvite folks can choose not to show your professional resume, but instead throw on a rating on how hard you can throw.  Currently, aside from the attempts at FOAF, I haven't seen anyone open up their system and attempt to be the profile engine for everyone, but I think LinkedIn has the best shot.  I don't think you can just do this with a closed, LinkedIn.com offering.  You need NYSSA to choose you as their front end provider and Fordham and whoever else wants a "Powered by LinkedIn" database.  Until then, LinkedIn is just going to be Y.A.F.P. and we're still going to have to log on and put our stuff into these clunky pseudo address books.

Seinfeld's got a great skit about shopping in a supermarket... no windows... no clocks.  They're designed to make you forget the existance of the outside world.  Casinos are the same way.   Some corporations are the way

Link: Bubblegeneration - Evil Corporations Only.

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

Got some link love from Brad and it comes at the right time, too, because I've been noticing a lot of the VC Analyst crowd popping up around the Blogosphere, and its made me think about my own role.  Brad charactorizes me as a "New VC Blogger", I'm more of a new VC than I am a new blogger.  Nevertheless, I was thinking the other day that when I do post about being exactly who I am, a new analyst in the VC world, it generally gets a good response, but I don't do it too often.  As I've said before, I'm really pretty overwhelmed (in a positive way) about all I'm learning at USV, and I'm probably too caught up in the idea that my blog posts and ideas need to be completely baked (as oppossed to half) before I should post them.  I don't do a lot of thinking aloud on the blog, but when it comes to the new leaf I've turned over in my career, perhaps I should.  Ok, note to self:  post more about what its like to be a new VC creating your own role in a very small shop.

Also, on that note, I like to think of myself as a consummate networker and I love loose connections.  I find a lot of value in professional societies, but, admittedly, that's not something I've investigated thoroughly enough.  Rachel Masters, who should be blogging herself, who just left Starvest, introduced me briefly to a young venture capital professional society here in NYC but I haven't done much with it yet.  That's something I need to jump on.  So, now, that my first 100 days are over at USV, its time to redouble my professional efforts.  Look for more professional posting here, not because I want to, but because I need to be, for myself.  This blog can and should be my space to think and connect, and, after some self assessment, I feel I should be doing that more related to my new position.

On that note, I'd like to thank my former colleagues at the GMAM Private Markets Group, who are spinning out and moving within the next couple of weeks.  The team, now called Performance Equity Management, got me this great engraved Tiffany clock for my four years of service to their group.  It finally arrived all finished up and shiny this week, and it now sits on my desk.  Thanks!

Since it was Memorial Day weekend, which is way I kinda forgot to post this on Monday, I tried to think of a movie that could somehow tie into the holiday theme.  I scanned my list for anything with war...  nope...  beaches?  Boats perhaps?  Well, actually, beaches and boats I have.

My Memorial Day Weekend 50 Favorite Movies Pick:

Castaway

I saw this in the theater and from the moment the plane goes down and he wakes up on the island, to about the moment he gets saved, I've never seen a theater full of people so engaged, so intently focused on a movie in my life.  No one made any noise.  No shifting, no whispering.  They just sat still, in silence, while Tom Hanks lived and learned, alone, on this island in the middle of nowhere.  It was one of the quiet movie experiences, between both the audience and the movie, that I've ever seen.  It was just exhausting to watch, really.   We'd seen Philadelphia and  Forrest Gump, and while those were good acting roles for Hanks, they were also solid, well written stories.  Castaway... well, was there even a script for this movie?  I mean, it must have been all directions, because he hardly has any lines throughout his time on the island.  Now that's great acting, when you can move an audience just by being alone, quiet, in the middle of nowhere.  We've seen this story before with a boatload of people, or two or three people, but just one guy...  it could have been a real flop if it wasn't done right, but its perfect.  Hanks is perfectly cast and really pushes the envelope on his acting skills.  Oh, and the Wilson the soccerball did a phenomenal job as well.  This is one of those movies that I probably won't watch again, only because its so intense, but its easily one that deserves to be on this list because of its quality.

Link: Opinion Column by PC Magazine: To Tag or Not to Tag, That Is the Question.

Dvorak just panned tagging over at PC Magazine.  Remember PC Magazine?  During the mid 90's, it was like an encyclopedia, or more fittingly a bible.  It was the crown jewel of the Ziff Davis tech publishing empire...  an empire whose fall has seriously cratered the LBO fund who bought it and then threw lots more money in it. 

Well, today, the latest news on PCM is that it cut its guaranteed circulation numbers nearly in half over the last year and the magazine isn't nearly has thick as it used to be.  Frankly, I'm not surprised.  Word of mouth, especially in tech, has become so inexpensive and efficient, I'm not quite sure why I'd pay to read an "experts" opinion, when you've got 10 million bloggers out there already consuming products and writing about their personal experiences with them.  I'd bet that most of the 700,000 paid PCM subscriptions are dentists offices.  People seem to like reading about which PC to buy when they're waiting to get a root canal.

Anyway, so here comes Dvorak writing in PCM and he's ripping apart tagging.  (Thanks to Anil for the link.)  Now, instead of bashing this guy, I'll use a lesson that Brad taught me:  Try to understand why a seemlingly smart guy thinks the way he does before you bash him.   Ok, so here's the summary:

"So far, tags have not even gotten popular enough to reach the stage of vandalism and spam. That they've attracted so little attention does not bode well for them"

So John thinks that if the masses haven't broken something yet, it isn't popular.  I guess he never looks up anything on Wikipedia either.  Frankly, I think its possible to build a system in a way that only incentivizes people to contribute something useful and meaningful.  You know, "spam" isn't the only garbage content people will create for monetary purposes.  I mean, for example, hypothetically, do you think there is more monetary incentive to write ANOTHER "tagging is great, bloggers are great" article, or a potentially congtroversal "tagging sucks and bloggers are brain-dead" article to buoy a dying magazine?

"The "folksonomy" notion is the bloggers' last hope of invention...   ...doomed to failure. The utopianism and idealism that exist in the online societies ignore the real problem with tags, metatags, übertags, folksonomies, and the like...   ...they honestly think that most people are goodhearted. The online world, because of its anonymity, encourages bad behavior. "You suck!" is a common post, and it would be the number-one tag if tagging ever became popular."

Actually, John, two of the most popular del.icio.us tags for your article are "idiot" and "ignorance" so maybe tagging is more popular than you thought.  Is that spam or is that just the voice of the people?

"Apparently it's lost on all of them that the term "tagging," in popular parlance, refers to the worst form of public graffiti. These people don't get out much, it seems."

Yes, and all phrases only have one and only one meaning.  Tagging, those idiots, means graffiti (and of course, all graffiti is bad, right, and never art...  who doesn't get out much?)  So scientists, stop using the word tagging for tracking endangered species.  Don't you know that words means graffiti?  Oh, little kids, too.  You can't play "tag" anymore.  Didn't your parents ever tell you that means graffiti?  Jeez...

So, basically, from reading the article, it seems that Dvorak's argument against tagging is that the public is evil and can't be trusted to catagorize their own world.  So, instead of intelligently designing systems to draw out the best in people, we shouldn't even try to leverage off of social networks and self organizing systems, b/c of the 1% who'll just wind up messing it all up.  We're not smart enough to do that, nor are we smart enough to deal with the 1%.  Perhaps all John needs is a good spam filter or did he not realize the spam war is over.

  Master of Terror 
  Originally uploaded by ceonyc.

See that guy in the red jacket and hat?  That's author Steven King.

Link: WFUV: Let’s Get Digital Panel - The Digital Music Weblog - digitalmusic.weblogsinc.com _.

This should be really interesting.... and I'm not just promoting it because its a Fordham related event:

"If the new world of mp3 blogs, mash-ups, downloads and ringtones boggles your mind, tune in to Let’s Get Digital on Thursday, May 19 at 9:00 PM, as host Jen Guerra takes a musical look at all things online. The New Yorker Pop Music Critic Sasha Frere-Jones, CDBaby.com Founder Derek Sivers, Berklee School of Music Vice President David Kusek, Creative Commons Executive Director Glenn Otis Brown and others join Guerra for an hour-long program examining how the race to get online affects not only musicians, but music fans and the music business in general.”

Go to WFUV's website for more info and the webcast.

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

"Dear Charlie,                                                 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I highly doubt it.

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

The response?

I get this awful thing in my inbox...

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

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

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

Yes, I play kickball.   ZogSports, the same league we all play dodgeball in, has a kickball league as well.  We won our first game 16-3, but that may have led to a little bit of overconfidence, because we didn't do as well last night.   We lost to the Ligers 14-7.   Plus, it didn't help that our ump what a very loose interpretation of where the foul lines were.  That puts "Those Punks Stole Our Name" at 1-1 for the season. (That's our team name, for obvious reasons.)  Still, we had a lot of fun and got pics and video thanks to my  hobbled buddy Marina, who sprained her ankle in the first game.

So, now that the co-op thing is going smoothly, I've started thinking about the car.  I really want an '05 Mustang GT Convertable.  Its a V-8, and since I can't drive a stick, it needs to be automatic.  I'm flexible on the color, but would prefer black or grey. 

The problem is that there don't seem to be any V-8 Convertibles in stock....  and the inventory search tool on Ford's website sucks.  It forces me to search by zip code first, instead of just telling me where the damn car is.  If there was V-8 Convertable in Boston with an auto trans, I'd be there this weekend.  Florida?  Done... I'd make a little trip out of it.  I wanted the car for the summer, but now it looks like I either wait three months or settle for a V-6 with less horsepower than the Grand Prix I used to have.  That's garbage.  Oh, and I searched on eBay, but I couldn't find any automatics.  Nice job, Ford.  Create a buzz around a car that you can't find anywhere on the lot. 

Somehow I doubt that Ford subscribes to a Pubsub feed and will find this blog post.  Does it really take 3 months to build a car?