Final Four and Cupcakes, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

This is why its good to watch sports with girls...

Here's more fodder for Jeff Jarvis:

Fabrice pointed out Phanfare's new video support feature and I'm sold.   It took me about 10 minutes of use to decide I was going to become a paying customer and that this is where I'm going to store all my videos from now on.

Basically, you drop your videos into a downloaded client, and then phanfare uploads them in the backround, and then after another little while, converts them to Flash on the fly.  Its so mildlessly simple.  I can then play them on my blog... and they come out so much nicer than YouTube, that butchers my video quality.

I'm going to get all my videos up there as soon as I can.  The only issue is that it does not have Mpeg-4 support fully worked out yet, but I've been promised that its coming in the next few weeks.

I don't care if it takes an hour to get them all setup, because, that hour isn't spent waiting around, crashing, etc...  I just drag and drop and poof, they show up on the web.  In fact, the client works so well as a file management tool, which preview images of my videos, that there's really no reason to keep any of my videos on my computer.  The $6.95 is a no brainer!!

Can't wait until Mpeg-4 support is done...  so I can just go straight from my flash memory card to dragging and dropping, to the web in Flash.   

Thanks Phanfare, you just saved me like 8 steps and a lot of headache.

The interesting thing is that Phanfare isn't built to create an entertainment site, like YouTube.  Its not about having the most popular video... its about a better way to store your own videos.  I've said before that I think this is a much bigger market, especially once people start converting their old VHS tapes to digital via a Media Center PC. 

Its not often there's anything work related on our "reply all" e-mail chatter that is bloggable, but I'm pretty sure this is ok.

So Fred was responding to a comment someone left on his post about Second Life.

>>  From: Fred Wilson
>>  Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 12:48 PM
>>  To: Charles O'Donnell; Brad Burnham
>>  Subject: Fw: [A VC] Greg Deocampo submitted a comment to 'Avatars'
>>
>>  Mindblowing stuff
>>
>>  Hard to tell if this goes mainstream

_____________

> On Wed, 29 Mar 2006 1:52 pm, Charles O'Donnell wrote:
>>  Second Life is like NASA to me.
>>
>>  Not everyone will go into space anytime in the near future, but we
>> all  know what Velcro is.
>>
>>  The key is seeing where the Velcro is there and not winding up with 
>> astronaut ice cream.

_________________

> From: Fred Wilson
> Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 2:49 PM
> To: Charles O'Donnell; Brad Burnham
> Subject: Re: [A VC] Greg Deocampo submitted a comment to 'Avatars'
>
> What about tang?
_____________________

On Wed, 29 Mar 2006 3:13 pm, Charles O'Donnell wrote:
> I thought about Tang, but I don't know if Tang was really successful
> or not.
>
> I was going for two extremes...
_______________________

I drank it religiously for several years in the late 60s/early 70s

Then I realized that it sucked

Fred

_________________

In case you're curious, there's a Wikipedia entry on Tang.

SANY0057, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Darren Herman is like 3 years younger than me and 8 startups ahead of me. He's an active member of nextNY and he and his colleague Christina (who is quite familiar with all of Darren's dietary requirements should you ever try to schedule lunch with him) got me into a little office poll about favorite cookies. Christina is a fan of the black and white cookie, so they sent some over today. Sweet!! Thanks guys!

nextNY: Building the digital community, one bag of cookies at a time.

Look to the cookie!

Anyone who feels like "There's too much going on...." should come to NYC.  Think of is like the Momma Bear.  We're not too big, not too small...  not too hot, not too cold...   we're just right.  It doesn't feel like a bubble in NYC, but it also feels like there's a lot going on. 

Caterina writes:

"There's too much going on. Every night there's a Mashup get together, or a TechCrunch party, or it's Tag Tuesday, or SuperHappyDevHouse or SXSW or this conference or that conference. And this stuff is fun. It's a real community. But all of these things are great by themselves, but terrible in combination. I see some entrepreneurs in photos from *every single event*. Who's talking to the users, writing the code, tweaking and retweaking the UI? It ain't the Chief Party Officer."

BusinessWeek says the founders of the Facebook are asking $2 Billion.

Now, my first reaction was "UFR", which is a term I've used a few times here before, so you should get to know it.  (First word utterly, last word ridiculous).

But that's what I thought about MySpace at $580 million.  Now, I kind of think MySpace might be a bargain.

Here's one way you could look at it.  If Facebook really does have the 90% penetration in the college market I've heard, and it is the "go to" place for communicating with friends on the web, then perhaps you could evaluate it like a sum of the potential parts.

What would you pay for the dominent college version of Monster, Evite, Typepad, Match.com, etc, etc. [name your service here]?

Facebook has the potential to be all those things.

HOWEVER, it faces the Craigslist issue.  If it becomes all those things or becomes full of ads, will it still be the Facebook?  That's just like when people say that Craiglist is leaving money on the table.  It might be, but it also wouldn't be Craigslist if it did charge for everything and felt too commercial. 

Secondly, they've got a major mobile challenge ahead of them.  I've talked to a lot of people doing mobile content and the question is always, "But will you be able to get Facebook on there" as if that's really hot content that will make your mobile service.

But frankly, a really kick ass mobile service (maybe Rave?) could be the Facebook killer.  If someone could tell me when my classes where, when my friends were at the bar, and help me poke/wink/nudge people via mobile that I see in the cafeteria, I think that would be the college category killer.

So, I'm not going to say that someone couldn't make a $2 billion dollar investment worth it, but its not a slam dunk by a long shot.

First off, there are four new all-fruit flavors at Jamba.  I had the grape one...  it was grapetacular.  Even better was that *finally* they have a loyalty card program...  so I only need three more all-fruit smoothies to get the next one free.

But the most important thing is that my favorite Jamba employee Carmen is back at the Jamba Juice on 5th and 22nd.  I think she's probably everyone's favorite, because when I started talking to her, some lady on line said, "See, everybody missed you!"

Why was she gone?

She had a baby!  Congrats Carmen!

Got this question by e-mail...

Does the sustainability of the edge outweigh the opportunity in the mainstream audience? (e.g. IMO there is an enormous opportunity for AJAX desktops—especially if the web is the platform, but the existing ones don’t currently have a sustainable model; Edgeio has a very sustainable model-- decentralization, but I’m not sure there is a lot of opportunity seeing that they are cutting out the majority of internet users). The bigger payout is clearly with the mainstream audience (MySpace, search, etc), but there have been far more exits and successful businesses on the edge. Ideally there should be an equal emphasis on both—but which is more important?

My answer:

I disagree with your assertion that there has been far more success on the edge...    Just look at the big companies... they're the things that everyone uses...  Google, AOL, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon.. etc...     I don't really consider Writely flipping to Google a [huge] success.

I think we're looking at edge/mainstream the wrong way...

its about influencers and non-influencers...  and those groups happen to correspond to edge/mainstream.

So, if you're building a startup, if all users have equal value, then its all about cost and ease of acquisition.  Acquiring me means acquiring 5% of my friends and 2% of their friends and so on and so forth... getting you closer and closer to mainstream, b/c I'm an influencer. You acquire me by finding me where I am... and I tend to live more on the edge than I do in the middle.... which means I'm actually easier to find b/c I'm more flexible in my habits, more willing to try new things, and appreciate that you've found me on the edge and you're trying to make my life more efficient.

Acquiring my dad means acquiring my dad and probably nobody else, because he's not an influencer, and that's if you acquire him because he's in the mainstream in his service usage, and not really looking to change.

The problem is that there's many more of my dad then there are of me... and every incremental customer, while easier to lock in b/c of network effects, may naturally be harder to acquire because they're closer to the mainstream and less of an early adopter.

Its like cell phones.  When everyone has them, you'd think it would be that much easier to acquire the next customer, but now you have to wonder... if someone still doesn't have a cellphone, perhaps they're that much more resistant to change than the next person.

Blogging... same way..   I can't imagine not blogging now that I'm jacked into the community now by doing it... but how do you then get anyone who isn't blogging now to start blogging... its certainly a lot harder than it was to get everyone who has been blogging already up and running. You'd think there be more network effects or momentum there, but there's also more friction the more you get towards the mainstream.

I got a really great comment on my "Understanding the User" post from Mike McGraw.
Thanks Mike!

Mike writes:

"Charlie, your SitePal is not what I expected (a gimmick), but rather very cool ... a nice touch of personalization. I'm a regular reader (subscribed) and although many of your posts are irrelevant to my interests (I'm not from Brooklyn, I don't love the Mets, and I've never been in a kayak (yet)) ... the few that are relevant are like jewels. Thought it was about time I sent you a comment/prop.

We are now in the middle of our wireframing / experience design efforts for a very cool rich media aggregation/discovery service ... we are breaking from many conventions and are targeting the youth demographic with a Flex deployed RIA, so your observation about trying to understand the user really hits home. I have a suggestion for anyone who is deploying a consumer facing service and understands as little as we think we do: find and appoint a sharp/ savvy consumer to your advisory board who has the necessary influence and reach within your targeted demographic ... and listen to what they have to say...On that note, I can't wait to send her your way and see what she thinks about your SitePal and your post! Thanks Charlie ..."

There are a lot of things I don't know much about...    clothing, NASCAR, reality television.   Add art to that list.

But unlike the other three, I wouldn't mind knowing a little more.  Its interesting to me, even though I don't understand a lot of it.

So I pass on this link just because there's really cool stuff in this gallery run by a girl who had a small cup of coffee with our Zog softball team last year.  I can't vauch for its value, style, snob appeal or cultural significance, but nonetheless, here's Raandesk.

What really fascinates me to no end is how much time any web service needs to spend understanding the user.

Case in point...  that little digital me on the sidebar.  Some people didn't like that it auto-played... saying that blog readers are not used to having to deal with any kind of audio whatsoever.

That may be true, unless you're ever checking out MySpace pages, which barrage you with audio and video, sometimes two videos at a time, all as soon as you load a page.  In that community, jarring as some of us may find it, that's the norm. 

Why is it ok to present an audio experience on MySpace but not on my blog?  Is that because you're reading in the office?  Is it just a generational thing where most people under 25 watch TV, listen to the radio, instant message and do work all at the same time?

Of course, there's no right answer, but if you're a web service, it certainly presents a difficult challenge.  Avatars aside, anyone who wants to get penetration throughout the web  has to decide how they make their platform flexible, but not confusing and certainly not so flexible that it fails to establish a uniformity of a brand experience. 

I don't know about you, but I've been getting a lot of messages from foreign bankers wanting to share the misplaced fortunes of dead military generals and millionaires from Africa.

Is the Gmail team too busy integrating GCal to notice the spam uptick?

I thought it was a little fishy that there was a news helicopter hovering above my subway stop this morning.

Turns out that some lady was late for her train and tried to pull up right up to the train by parking on the platform...underground. 

They just don't make city streets like they used to, eh?

Its slightly unsettling to me that, no matter how big that watermain is or how long it was spewing water into the subway station, that all it takes is a little H2O to make the whole damn street collapse.

What happens when it rains hard?  Should I not be driving the 'Stang on 4th avenue?

Last Wednesday, I went to the Nokia Theatre in Times Square to see Prodigy.  They've been around quite a while, but gave a really powerful, exciting show.

At one point, Keith Flint went into the crowd about 10 feet away from me...  which makes for some great video.

The first video is Keith...  it gets really scary when they turn the lights on by him.  The next two videos are Firestarter and my favorite Prodigy song, Breathe.

I'm really getting into DigiCharlie over on my sidebar...     There's a new message...more bald, twice the funny.

I had never actually seen them change this sign...., originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Cool.