Here's where the "offer inbox", opt-in advertising, comparison shopping, and recommendations all need to converge:

I am an in-market Media PC buyer.  I want to buy a computer that is fast enough to do video cutting, splicing, etc.... plug into my TV, VCR, DVD, etc...   power my wifi music system, etc.  I probably want to spend around $2000.  Storage is very important to me, but I don't think I need a whole terrabyte.

I will not be gaming...screen res has to be good, but doesn't have to be ridiculously cutting edge. 
I want to burn DVDs and CDs...speed not that important as long as it doesn't take 4 days to burn my home videos to DVD.

So...  here's the question.  Where do I go to put the HP, Dell, Gateway, Sony, etc. etc. offerings all next to each other and compare them side by side, feature for feature, and also get user feedback as well?

Is there a good tool out there for this?  I'd literally just like to see columns and rows of features that I can sort and add/subtract from to get updated pricing.

Seems like this should be out there, but I don't think it is.

If it isn't, user feedback is much appreciated on this post.

So there's been a flood of interest in nextNY, which is great.

People are excited about connecting with others both socially and professionally in the local NYC tech and new media community who are early on in their career path.

However, most of these people so far are, not surprisingly, male.

That wouldn't be surprising if this were just about getting engineers together, because that's, unfortunately, the makeup of that area.

But the future of NYC's digital workforce includes a wider group--marketers, people in sales, design and creative folks, and I'm pretty sure there are a few women in those areas working with, for, or trying to get into tech companies.  And, if this is going to be a social group, we need a balace--a diversity of interests, backgrounds, and gender, too--because we want this to be fun.

So where are they? 

If you are an ambitious young woman looking to help shape the NYC digital community, or you just want to drink with the NYC digital community and attend the occasional presentation (we don't know what the presentations will be yet... taking ideas), join us on February 22nd at our first bar outing.  RVSP with me at charlie@unionsquareventures.com.

Great panel on advertising at MediaSummit, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Particularly great comments from Scott Witt, who manages the Coke brand for MediaVest and Rob Norman, CEO of MEC Interaction. They talked about user created advertising, innovating around how advertising is presentent and the relationship between content and advertising. Good stuff.

I've been blogging for two years now. 

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

What a long strange trip its been.

Where will I be in two years?

I had the benefit of getting to hear J. Michael Kelly speak at a conference on Monday.  It was clear from his talk that AOL's announcement that it was going to try to build out a social network around AIM instant messenger was a priority for the company.  They definitely recognize that, regardless of their ability to monetize the system in the past, when you have 7 million simultaneous users on your product, it should be a core focus for product development.  While I've picked on AOL before,  I can't shake the feeling that this effort has a serious chance of success.  I like the idea that this is a social network based on some other activity--communication--whereas some of the other networks, like Friendster, are social networks for the sake of social networking.  Building connections as a byproduct of some other activity is always going to be more authentic.  AIM, through its buddy lists, was always a loose connection of micro networks and just a little duct tape is going to go a long way here if Umairanomics has anything to say for it. 

Of course, I have a few suggestions for the folks at AOL, but when do I ever not have something to say?

1) Solve spam.
AOL gets in trouble with spam too often for a company advertising itself as the safe place to play on the internet.  Its too easy for spammers to get fake IM accounts and send out notices about sexy singles in my neightborhood. This is especially confusing when real sexy singles are already IMing you on a regular basis.  (Ben Barren's got the same problem.)  Part of the problem, as I mention later, is that the platform is closed.  They should let someone develop an IM spam blocking network on top of it if they can't figure it out themselves.

2) Bring back the profile.
When I was in college, back before the bubble, AOL profiles were MySpace and the Facebook.  (Kind of like the way that Netscape's Netcenter could have been Yahoo! had they realized that was the valuable asset and not the browser.) You used them to find people in your school , your neighborhood, or other people who liked Green Day.  That's how I met Beth.  Ah, Beth.  Of course, Beth doesn't talk to me anymore, and it seems fitting, because when AIM went standalone, they forgot to take AOL profiles with them.  In a way, leaving those profiles to whither is probably the biggest reason why AOL got so far behind in social networking.  Profiles moved to the web eventually, but on other social networks.  People liked updating their profiles and AOL should have realized there was something more to that.  The thing that could make an AOL profile so much more ubiquitous is that, unlike MySpace or LinkedIn, the brand is pretty universal, and a good product would pretty much appeal to anyone with a screename.  Plus, the penetration of AIM and its buddy lists gives it a terrific natural advantage in building out a social networking app.  Start small with AIM profiles that have a URL and are just as customizable as MySpace and people will come back.      

3) Build a presence platform.
I get my instant messages forwarded to my phone as texts when my desktop is idle. So, basicially, I'm reachable through AIM nearly 100% of the time. I can't say that for any other web service. That's a very valuable relationship to have with consumers.  Presence preferences could power a lot of other web services. If you add in email and phone information, your screename could be used as a personal ruleset for routing stock quotes, meeting updates, RSS, etc. Maybe apartment listings should hit me wherever I'm active, and if I'm not active anywhere, go to my email. But "hi" pings from friends should go somewhere else.  Letting the user calibrate all of those alerts from one place, their side, versus all of the sites they get alerts from, would make them a lot more manageable. This way, telling any service how and when you want to be reached, and by who, could be as easy as entering your AOL screename.

4. Open the platform.
Why doesn't AOL get aggressive and add a Yahoo and MSN plugin to their client, like Trillian?  Let everyone talk to each other.  They are by far the biggest network.  What's the worst that could happen?  Even if they got blocked, they could spin it as if they're trying to be user centric and the other two aren't.  If they were the only client out of the big three to open up, they would probably see a nice bump in users.
In further embracing the open mantra, they should make it easier to program bots and add-ins to the platform.  Let the community enhance the richness of the software, just like Firefox has done.  My add-in wishlist: IM spam blocker, CRM notetaking, and filesharing.

5. Pimp My AIM.
Every now and then, AIM tries to sneak one past the goalie on us.  Sometimes its a popup "Today" screen and other times its a bot or two.  Instead of treating the AIM client like a Trojan horse, AOL should build more opt-in functionality into the friendly confines of that little rectangle.  The combination of its ubiquity and the social buddy list data should enable a wide variety of services that we might want to add on from a menu, not get tricked into.  For example, they should partner with Pandora and turn AIM into a social music player.  Make it really easy for friends of mine to see the Rammstein+Depeche Mode+Orgy stream that I created on Pandora.  In fact, why stop there?  Turn AIM into a social rich media player, enabling me to share SNL clips and chat with people about the State of the Union address.  And, while we're at it, why not partner with Apple to make Quicktime the standard for the player, because almost everyone has either Quicktime or AIM. 

6. Remember my conversations.
Gtalk has a neat feature that archives my old conversations and puts me right back where I left off, even if I close the box.  This would be great for remembering things about new people, and great for AOL if they want to better contextually target users.  Google just announced that all your Gtalk conversations could be archived in your Gmail.  I think its a smart move if you're the leader in a space to be doing some of what Google is trying to do to make sure you don't get leapfrogged....  or at least carefully pay attention to it.

7. AIM everywhere
The whole web could easily get tied together in a social network by AIM.  Imagine how powerful a cookie on your computer would be combined an AIM status icon on my blog.  You could come to my blog and know instantly whether or not we knew each other through friends of friends on our buddy list.  No signing in, no inviting friends...just come to my page to see if we're connecte because your computer knows we're just one buddy list away from each other.  Extending AIM out of the desktop client onto the web is just the start.  It needs to get mobile, too.  I had a tough time figuring out how to get AIM on my phone and so I resort to just answering IMs forwarded as texts.  AOL should throw whatever resources it needs to get AIM on every phone, not just to ensure its position as a communications medium but as a platform as well.  At some point, people will want to text all their buddies within a mile radius to meet out at a bar...  And AOL needs to leave no mobile user sober in this scenario.

8. AIM Exchange/tag talk
Chat rooms, in my opinion, are clunky for conversation.  I chat on AIM and while I wouldn't mind getting into a few chatroom like discussions, I don't want to have to go anywhere else but my buddylist to do it.  Nor do I want to have to invite friends or wait to get invited.  Joining a chat should be as easy as IMing to a keyword.  So, I could have a NYC restaurants buddy that is just an ongoing conversation among anyone interested in the topic.  That's also why you need archived conversations.

9. Peer to peer
When you have as many desktop clients as AIM does, and you want to build something social, P2P seems like the infrastructure you should be building on.  Its only natural that people are going to want to share files and chat and, right now, a lot of people have both AIM and Skype on their desktop.  Is Skype a threat or an opportunity?  Should AOL partner with Skype to plug into AIM for VOIP?  One thing's for sure... If I were Yahoo or MSN I would be doing that.  I'm not as clear on the scenarios, but I think the time will come when the idea of having a piece of communications software on your desktop that isn't P2P will seem very quaint.

Thoughts?  Comments?  What should #10 be? 

Thanks for reading this far down. 

I run a mentoring program for college students interested in finance.  We're looking for two more speakers to round out our breakfast program... one for 7/20 and one for 7/27.  If you work for/own your own hedge fund or if you work with futures, options, or derivatives, please contact me right away.  CFA charterholders highly preferred.

Sometimes, it seems like if you're on the west coast, everybody knows somebody at a startup.  The perception is that, every night, there's a blogger dinner, tech BBQ, geek swap or launch party (Oddly enough, I did the math and there have been more launch parties than actual startups.  Alright...fess up!  Who launched twice?).

But yet, as I see more of the TV creep onto the internet and vice versa, the growth of mobile media and services, and this whole new web revolution being underwritten by online advertising, I realize that New York, maybe more so than any other place in the world, is positioned to be right in the center of this new batch of innovation.  We've got big media, small media, WeMedia, telecoms, tags, culture, Madison Avenue, music publishers, and schools well positioned to fuel the fire with programs like NYU's ITP and the Parsons Design and Tech program, not to mention Columbia engineering and even the highly underrated CUNY system.

That being said, I thought that it was about time to get some of my own peer group together to help ensure that, going forward, New York City is as much the Capital of Tech as it is the Capital of the World.

That's a lofty goal, so we're ok if we just wind up having a good time and meeting cool people involved in the tech and new media space in New York City.  No harm in that. We have some awesome people involved that have provided a lot of great feedback and support, like Jakob, Greg, Carla, these mobile guys, these sticky folks, Maryhope from ATTAP, and a bunch of other cool NYC area movers and shakers.

Is there an age cutoff?  An experience level I can clearly define?  No.  I'm just conscious of the fact that is just as important to learn from those who aren't sure what their great accomplishments will be or who are still working on them, than it is to learn from those who have already done them.  I learn from other analysts in a different, but of course non mutually exclusive way than I do from Brad and Fred.  You need both to be successful and this is more about sharing ideas and good times with those people climbing quickly up the ladder, but still on the first couple of rungs.

So join us!

What:   1st nextNY Gathering – Please RSVP

nextNY is a fun way to connect both socially and professionally with young people who have a stake in future of tech and new media in New York City.  Participants generally have less than ten years experience and we especially welcome recent graduates who are just starting their careers.  We’ll be doing some bar outings, idea exchanges, and we’re open to creative ideas on what kind of events we should have. 

We’re seeking:

• Young entrepreneurs
• Analysts and Principals
  
• Programmers
• Marketers
• Designers
• Undecideds
• A balanced mix of background, gender, perspective (just like NYC!)
  

When:  February 22, 2006, 7PM

Where:

Antarctica
287 Hudson St
New York, NY 10013 

Cross Street: Spring Street

Directions: 1, 2, 3, 9; A, C, E at Canal St


RSVP:  Please RSVP to Charlie O'Donnell at charlie@unionsquareventures.com.  Please give us a one or two sentence bio and tell us how you heard about NextNY.

Brad on a panel, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Kind of poorly lit, but our logo is nice and big. :)

Never gonna stop me

Never gonna stop.

Scream if you want in, 'cause I want more.

Rob Zombie - Never Gonna Stop

So Fred doesn't want to live forever.  He finds a life span to be comforting and natural end to the story.  As for me, as long as I'm not feebly old and propped up in a chair or hooked up to anything helping me breathe/eat/use the bathroom, I'd be perfectly happy with it.  I love the life I've constructed for myself and I find death to be a completely inconvenient interruption of that.  Now, of course, if no one ever died, we'd have population overcrowding and disproportionate accumulation of wealth, but besides the societal problems it presents, I think living forever would give you fantastic perspective.  I'll bet you'd be less likely to get caught up in hysterias and fads, because you've seen so much of it before.  You'd also have a higher bar for the people around you, because, while most of us can probably only say we know of two or three really great people, if that many, we'd be able to say that the path of our lives has brought us encounters with dozens of great people, all of whom raise your expectation of the next person you'd meet.

Perhaps you'd also take some more time to do not so much of anything, because you wouldn't feel so rushed.  I think 80 or 85 years isn't really enough, considering you pretty much wasted the first 10-15 of them, and the last 5 probably isn't too productive either.  You sleep a third of it away and then you probably spend a good year of your life brushing your teeth or something ridiculous like that, which is important, but isn't terribly productive in the grand scheme of things.  Given all that, that doesn't leave you much time to get everything done you'd like to... you probably need at least twice that much... at least I do.

I wasn't born with the idea that dying is natural...  and I don't think that many of us think that the current lifespan is acceptable, because we never accept when people just make it.  I mean, how long does a person have to live before most people go, "Oh, well, he lived a full life."   At least 85, if not 90.  Who says someone had a full life when someone makes it to 78?  My Deathclock puts me almost making 86, but I'm going to try and stretch it to at least 90 if I can.  In fact, given that I don't smoke, don't drink, have a positive attitude and eat healthy, I'm going to be pretty pissed if I don't make it to 90. 

PS... I didn't know that Mariska Hargitay from Law and Order:SVU was Jayne Mansfield's daughter.  I was wondering who she was referring to during the Golden Globes and Sam brought it up on her new blog.  You learn something new everyday.

Kind of a yawner.

I'm glad Pittsburgh won, but you really only had to watch two plays...  the 75 yard run and the reverse.  Their biggest runs were by their quarterback and their best throw came from a wide receiver--and they don't even have Kordell Stewart anymore.

All of Seattle's big plays got called back on penalties.

And, not only did most of the commercials really suck, but didn't it seam like have of them were house ads?  I don't think all the spots sold.  Suckiness exceptions were for the streaking lamb during horse football and for the girl tackling.   

PLEASE READ WHY I POSTED THIS VIDEO

On January 14th, I went down to New Orleans with a bunch of other Fordham alumni as part of the school's Global Outreach Program.

We stayed and did most of our work at Project Lazarus. Project Lazarus is a home for people with AIDS in New Orleans.  It was the first residential home in New Orleans to address the need for homeless people living with AIDS.  Unfortunately, none of the residents are back yet, for several reasons:

• Project Lazarus usually puts on one of the most popular Halloween parties in New Orleans as an annual fundraiser.  Typically, they raise about $400,000.  This past year, they obviously couldn't have it.  That money is lost.
• Like many other buildings, they need a new roof.  Total cost: $96,000.  Plus, even if they had the money, its nearly impossible to get a roofer in New Orleans right now.
• 27 of the 30 personal care workers, the mostly minority women who attend to the residents day to day needs like feeding, changing, etc. had their homes completely destroyed. 

Over the next week or so, I'm going to be putting up some more posts about our trip and some videos that I took as well, but first I'd like to share a video about the devastation that still remains there.  While Project Lazarus was lucky enough not to be in an area heavily damaged by the flood, the areas in this video are where many of the homes of the healthcare attendents that worked there were.  I've really never seen anything like it.  Someone said during our trip, "I can't believe this is the United States."  Plus, its really eyeopening to see that its still like that, months later.

As I write these posts, should you be so inclined to help out Project Lazarus, I've added a little tip jar on the sidebar of my blog.  One thing I realized there was that the only way that NOLA gets rebuilt is one house at a time.  Most of the people I spoke to down there didn't see where all of the donations were going from these larger charities, and while I'm sure they will eventually do some good, sometimes, when you can identify an immediate need in a specific area, you can do a lot of good.

All donations will be sent to Project Lazarus to help get the house back in order and get enough funding to open their doors to the AIDS patients that either temporarily or permanently call it home.  This is especially important as at least one of the other similar residences in New Orleans will not be reopening after the hurricane.

If you'd like to give on your own, that's fine, too.  It doesn't need to go through me, of course, but I will be updating the totals each day.  I guess the nice thing about blogging is that a lot of you have been reading long enough, know me, or know enough people who know me that you have  reasonable trust that this isn't a scam.  In addition, they could use gift cards to such places as Home Depot.  They also need refrigerators, kitchenware, bedding, and furniture to replace those items destroyed by water from the roofs.   

Here's their site again.

Ok, so its not really about the Spiritual Exercises, but doing this kind of introspection is certainly very Jesuit-y.  I'm quite sure that's not a word, but then again, neither is truthiness.

I think I'm going to start doing this.  Writing works for me in the same way.

Link: Fabrice Grinda: Musings of an Entrepreneur � The Power of Introspection and Detached Analysis.

"To help me make those decisions – whether in my business life or my personal life - I write myself long, detailed e-mails analyzing where I am, where I want to be, my options and the pros and cons of them.

The very act of writing down the options helps me think through them. I rarely reach the right conclusion while writing the e-mail to myself, but usually find it a few weeks later – sometimes after using the e-mail as a discussion tool with my close friends and trusted advisors."

Virus or hard disk crash?  Die in a hurricane or a terrorist attack?

Does it matter?

I was having a conversation today about the irrationality of fear and how it applies to both the IT world and to the geopolitical scene.

First, the IT side.

How many of you have virus protection versus how many of you have online backup?

Ok, now here's the kicker.  How many of you have actually had a hard disk crash on you versus being the victim of an actual virus?

Many more people have virus protection than have any kind of online backup, but the reality is, you're probably just as, if not more likely to suffer a hard disk crash at some point.  Hard drives fail... they aren't built to last.  Yet, we keep pictures of our family on them, thesis papers, music... all sorts of important stuff.  No backup.  What if it crashes?  I dunno.

So why are we much more afraid of viruses than we are of bad hard drives?  I think its the malicious intention that prey on our fears most.  Bad guys are trying to get at your computer and steal or erase your files. 

Its an easier marketing sell.  Just ask the Bush administration.  (Here's the political part.)  While I may be a fan of fighting terrorism and into the idea of a stable Middle East, I'm not so blind that I can't see a little imbalance in how we spend our money.  Going down to New Orleans opened my eyes to the fact that Hurricane Katrina has killed at least half as many people as 9/11 did, possibly even more (still 3,200 people unaccounted for, many of whom probably got swept into Lake Ponchetrain or are still under the rubble), but we're not spending not nearly the amount of money nor the time and attention we are to preventing hurricane related deaths as we are fighting terrorism. 

That's because there's no enemy to fight.  Hurricanes are an act of God and you can't exactly try to blow up God.  (You can, however, mail him a letter.)  Without any easy answer to point to, to find some other problem to deal with and hope it never quite happens to us.  (That goes for both terrorist attacks and hard drive crashes.)

Its just an interesting paralell, that's all.

So does this make Symantec the Halliburton of the internet?  You might think that's far fetched, but has anyone seen the ThreatCon system on their homepage?

Perhaps my time is better spent backing up my levees...  errr... um...  my hard drive. 

I got scammed.  These puppies aren't real...  here's the scoop. 

At least they're cute, though.

A friend of Kerri's just send her a note about some puppies.  If you're interested, or if you know anyone who would like a free Golden Retriever puppy, contact Mrs. Gaëlle Wenger at gaellewenger (at) hotmail.com.  We really don't want to say what will happen to these little guys if no one takes them...  so just take one, give it a good home, and we don't have to worry about that.

Please use the "e-mail this post to a friend" post and help spread the word.

First came spyware:  programs that hid on your computer recording the things you did without your knowledge to try and spam you with advertising.  We've largely eliminated the spyware problem.

Now, we have "theirware."  Theirware is the sotware that drives the blackbox algorythyms of recommendation engines.  Amazon is probably the best example.  They keep records of what you bought, what you rate, and undoubtedly what you are clicking on and suggest products for you.  Not only do they not allow you to see that data, but you certainly can't take that data to another service.  You can't take the record of all of the Italian cookbooks you bought and use it to hint AdSense that they should be showing you ads about travelling to Tuscany.  That's theirware.  It mostly benefits Amazon alone and leaves you far short of reaching the potential benefit you could gain if you had access to the metadata you created.

Now people are starting to talk about spying on yourself...  Downloading little applications that follow everything you do and create a vault of data that you control.  The philosophy behind it is the right one--that users should be in control of their own data--but there aren't really good applications of having all that data yet.  It might be interesting to see where I click and how I search, but so what?  If I can't use that data somewhere, its a little bit wasted.  Plus, its going to be hard to convince a critical mass of users to start capturing that data, especially if it means downloading something, unless they can do something useful with it.

Here's one potential solution.  We're well underway on the client side app, but there needs to be a web site complement to enable a data for personalization "trade".  Its like a lock and key system.  The key side has all your captured browsing, any demographic data that you want to share, and is tweakable.  You can add and subtract keywords and change your interests depending on the time of day, your IP location, etc. 

The lock side should be offered on any site that could benefit from this kind of data...  Amazon, news portals, even ads.  When you first go into Amazon, there should be a little button to click that says "Unlock MyAmazon".  Clicking it exposes as much or as little of your personal data as you see fit and renders a page that is uniquely taliored to your interests.  So, maybe you're willing to give your news browsing habits to other news sites, but not to eCommerce sites.  Unlike the blackboxes, however, when you take the key out, Amazon loses the data and the page goes back the way it was.

This is good for Amazon because now they get the benefit of data gathered on you from lots of other places, and helps them target you better.  So if you're at Travelocity looking at trips to Italy, they can try to feature books on Tuscany on the front page.  This is like what Tacoda does for advertising, but now we're talking about rerendering the whole site based on your own data.

The consumer benefits because not only do they get a more relevent browsing experience, but they keep your own data.  I'd like to think that this will put an end to having to hand over your email address anytime you want to personalize anything.  Single signon and you can decide which advertisers you want email from and which ones you don't.  For an advertisier, they're  trading off the ability to mass mail you with something irrelevant for the data to give you want you want wheb you're actually on the site.  So, eBay, you can't have my email address, but show me bikes everytime I'm on the site.

Hopefully, each day we're getting closer and closer to balancing tipping the scales of the new media deal.

This doesn't happen enough to make me want to switch phones, but just enough to be annoying.  When I put it back on the cradle a lot of times, it turns the phone off.  Sometimes, if its clipped on to my belt, I'll look down and see that the phone is off, but I'll have no idea why.

Is there a "turn the phone off randomly" setting I'm not aware of?