links for 2006-10-27
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If this is real, I love this... I've wanted this service for a while.
Business plan - Work around here?
I love the lunch date... always have. It's casual, it's public, and it has a clear beginning and an end. No matter how bad it is, it will end in an hour and you're going to get fed either way. In dating, downside protection goes a long way.
So, it's really struck me that no one has ever built a dating/social networking service around lunch or other work location centric stuff. I've had a lot of wacky ideas in the past, but this is one that has been bouncing around my head for a while that I might seriously consider putting some time and effort into. So if this is interesting to you, please do not just go off and steal it...I may want to help.
Searching people by where they live really doesn't capture where they spend their time, particularly in a metropolitan area. For most people, five days a week, they spent at least eight hours a day in one spot...more time then they probably spend at home.
Lunch dating also connects people along a different line...food. Finding a great place for lunch by your office is a big win, not to mention finding someone else close by who also likes Pakistani vegan organic pizza.
You could branch out from lunch to include coffeeshops, the gym, happy hours. This taps into what the keeps the Facebook strong...offline connections. When you friend someone on Facebook, you see them in your English class. Here, you could bump into someone at your local Starbucks.
The business model taps into the highly soughtafter local advertising model. Not only could restaurants make offers to local customers for specials and discounts, but think of all of the other things you could advertise to single people when you know where they work, what they do, and know a lot about their preferences. It's a goldmine of metadata.
So here are some of the rules and features I think the service needs to have:
First, I think you roll this out city by city, starting with New York.
Profile creation should be easy. You should be able to pull photos in from URLs, or automatically from Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket, etc. You should also be able to suck in your music, movies, and personal interest data from these sites as well.
The professional information should be pretty comprehensive as well...maybe a LinkedIn integration. You should be able to put in that you are a trader versus a portfolio manager versus a broker...not just "Finance".
Outlook/calendar integration... Remember, these are office people. Plus, we'd need people to be able to say that they'd rather eat at 12 versus 2. Scheduling, and the limits people have on lunch, are important criteria.
Privacy...people should be able to tell the system exactly where they work and be searchable, but not have all that info show up. So, if I find someone "two blocks away" I don't really need to know exactly where that is.
Let the venue owners own their networks. Each restaurant should have a page which becomes its own social network. Maybe you work with a Seemless Web or someone who has channel penetration there to allow people who favorite or friend a restaurant to get special deals or vote for specials, etc. Starbucks, Jamba Juice, and New York Sports Club could be major contributors to the site here in NYC.
What do you like to talk about at lunch? Work? Work off limits? Politics off limits? A few cues about what makes for a good lunch topic might go a long way.
So, is this a completely ridiculous idea? Think it will fly? What else does it need? I'd love your feedback.
UPDATE: Itsjustlunch.com is not a competitor here. This is a website that you join for free that is advertising supported. Its Just Lunch costs you hundreds of dollars for an expert to match you up with someone... very different service.
links for 2006-10-26
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Night before TechCrunch NYC... quite a week for NYC tech. We'd love to have you join if you were in. Trade invites? :)
Yahoo is a pain in the tag
Wait... so Yahoo! is still developing its bookmarks offering? WTF? Seriously... WTF?! They're even going to integrate the y! bookmarks into its search. Do you really want search results mixed in with the bookmarks of Yahoo! bookmarks users or would you rather it be del.icio.us users? That's like asking someone who has a BetaMax machine to record this week's episode of Lost.
A lot of people think that Yahoo! is such a great place for startups to wind up, but it seems to me that Google, more so than Yahoo!, actually integrates its acquisitions. Urchin became Google Analytics. Keyhole became Google Earth. Flickr and del.icio.us became... Flickr and del.icio.us, in-house competitors to Yahoo! Photos and Yahoo! Bookmarks.
It's really unfortunate that we haven't seen more integration. Hopefully, NewsCorp will do more with Digg. Kinda sucks that Digg is going to fetch between $100-150 million... del.icio.us is so much more fundamental of a platform for search. Eh... hindsight is 20/20. Sometimes you hold on and you wind up with a YouTube, and sometimes you wind up with a Friendster.
Avatar Crazy... Playing with the competition
So, you'll notice, if you're on my page, four new additions to my sidebar... a Yahoo! Avatar, a WeeMee, a Meez, and a Zwinky.
We have competition, and if I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist, Voki will pretty much suck... so instead, I'm embracing them. Welcome to my blog. What's that you say, guys? Oh.. you didn't. Nevermind. ;)
So here's my quick take on them... My Yahoo! Avatar is doing Tae Kwan Do at a school gym. You might not know this, but I am, in fact, a blackbelt in TKD, and I practiced at Fordham so that's what's going on there. He's cool... looks nice. I wasn't a fan of the creation interface there... lots of options for everything... not a great way to sort through them, so admittedly, I just picked some of the first stuff I saw.
In general, I guess my big issue with all of these pictures is that I'd like to do something more with them. Pictures on my blog don't do a lot for me... almost everything else in my blog is interactive in some way.
So my WeeMee is feeling sort of Bond-like... so I've got him in London with a martini and a suit. Cute. The WeeMee interface is really easy... very quick to create.
My Meez looks very slick... When I was creating him, he was awesome... he swung the bat and I could even put him in a flying car if I wanted. I'm not sure why he's not moving now. I thought he exported in an animated GIF. Either way, he's not up to much now and that's kind of disappointing, even though he looks really cool. UPDATE... I missed the animated export... now he moves.
Now, my Zwinky is built in Flash, so I expect him to do more than blink, but again, not much going on there. Plus, apparently, they have a thing against bald guys... bald was not an option, so I might just take him off on principle. Not only that, you need to install a search toolbar to get him... He's been built by IAC to generate search traffic and I hear he does a good job of that, making him very profitable for them. Good for him, but that's not really what I want him for. I don't think you'll see too many updates from him, because I don't really want the toolbar.
So there you have it... now there are five Charlies staring back at you on my blog.
Being ceonyc...
I use a lot of web services, and I sign up for even more...pretty much always with the same username...ceonyc. It's even on my car. For anyone who doesn't know by now, "ceo" happens to be my initials and "nyc" is where I live. It doesn't mean I want to be the head of the city. Anyway, this usage has had the amusing, but unintended effect of plastering the web with my screename. The only thing I don't have related to it is the actual domain, which is taken by a New York City strip club. Funny thing is, the Google search doesn't even put them on the front page. They might as well give me the domain, because it doesn't really seem to be working for them. :)
There was also one other thing I didn't use ceonyc for, and that was my AOL screename, which has been stuck on ceo21 since 1998, when I first started using AOL. 21 is my number in baseball and softball and just about anything else that needs a number. This week, I finally took the plunge and started asking people to IM me at ceonyc. I had the name, but I wasn't using it because it was a pain to port over, one by one. Unfortunately, I just got new business cards, so they'll have my old screename on them until I run out. Eventually, though, I'll be on the web, unified under one identity....
ceonyc, ceonyc, ceonyc, ceonyc, ceonyc, ceonyc, ceonyc, ceonyc, ceonyc, ceonyc, ceonyc
There are lots of other places where I use this, too, but I don't think I really use any of them regularly...
Getting into this online stuff: Part I - Blogging as the Industry Cocktail Party
I find myself talking to a lot of people about why I blog, why they should blog, what a blog is, what it isn't, etc... I'll be doing that a lot more this spring as I'm teaching an undergraduate class at Fordham on the professional uses of blogging, social networks, and using discovery tools. So, I decided to write a series of posts outlining the basics of participating in what's going on online right now... from the why to the how.
Most of the regular readers here already get this stuff, but this is the kind of post you give to your friend who doesn't blog, or to your boss who doesn't understand why your company should be blogging, or people who still have 1 LinkedIn contact or who don't use RSS. This first post is for all the people I encounter who don't get blogging. In future posts, I'll cover other important tools, like RSS, del.icio.us, and LinkedIn.
The word blog has been so overused that people are sort of immune to it now, thinking they know what blogging is all about and whether or not it is for them. Here's the best way I can describe blogging "slightly professionally" to someone who doesn't get it. When I say that, I mean that I blog about what I do because I'm passionate about it and want to connect with others in my field. I don't do it as part of my job or specifically to pitch and sell products.
It's like a big industry cocktail party with an open bar.
1) So, first off, no matter what industry you're in, you can always fill a cocktail party given an open bar. There are millions of blogs out there, so chances are, even if you're a clam shucker, there's a clam shucking blog out there for you.
2) Everyone is a little buzzed...a little loose. That means they're feeling comfortable enough not to put on a front and willing to say something provocative every once in a while. Plus, bloggers are usually open to chatting it up with just about anyone. No wallflowers here.
3) You can try to talk to everyone, but you won't remember any of the conversations or the people...best to find a handful of people you actually like connecting with and give them a little more time. Start out reading a handful of blogs, giving thought to what they have to say, and commenting before you drink from the firehose.
4) Listen, don't wait to talk. People focus too much about what they're going to say in their blog, but if everyone went into this party itching to get something said, it would probably be a pretty obnoxious, self centered crowd. Try actually being interested in what the other person has to say first.
5) The conversation will stray. Just because you're at an industry party doesn't mean that all you talk about is your job. These are all people with interests, hobbies, passions...making for a unusually well rounded crowd. So, if you're going to chat internet marketing with someone, you'll probably enjoy it more with the guy who also rockclimbs like you do. And, chances are, in a crowd of web marketers, that person exists.
6) Why would all these people be interested in what you have to say? Well, they wouldn't, but that's not really the way you approach a cocktail party is it? I hope not. You don't stick your head up and shout over the crowd...you try to circulate among the crowd and sometimes the conversation sticks and sometimes it doesn't. That's a good thing, though. You only want the people sticking around who share interests. You don't want bunch of people who feel obligated to read your blog but never have any useful response because they have no idea what you're writing about. You don't need to talk to, and its almost impossible to talk to, 100 people at once at a cocktail party, and the best conversations are usually between two or three people. Don't worry about your traffic.
7) If you don't like sharing your personal life, I'm sure that's not going to be a problem. If you want to write about all your bad first dates, that's fine, but that's not the kind of blogging we're talking about. Similarly, that's more the kind of conversation you might have at the after party, not in front of this industry party with your boss, your best client, and potential next client.
8) Meet people that are going to help you enjoy the party, not people who you think you need to meet. First off, the industry notables are going to get mobbed at a party like this, and they definitely do in the blog world. Second, they're often not the most interesting people to talk to. Don't you just get kind of sick of the way people fawn over the who's who? Treat everyone like a who.
9) Like a cocktail party, what you do outside of the blogging is a lot more meaningful than within the blog. Some people are a lot better at working a party than they are at their actual job. At the same time, though, I think you're a little bit limited in how well you can work a party if you aren't passionate about what you do, work hard to stay on top of your industry, etc. That's going to show through at a cocktail party, and a blog. People who "mail in" their jobs also tend to be boring bloggers and worse party guests.
10) And finally, following up after the cocktail party is how true networking comes to fruition. Being a blogger who doesn't respond and interact with their audience is like a person who takes a lot of business cards and never gets in touch with people afterward... it is sort of a waste of everyone's time.
Scrobbling Brainteaster
Here's a problem:
I listen to my iPod on the way into work and at the gym.
I listen to Last.fm at work.
The iTunes that is connected to my iPod is the one at home, where all my music is.
Last.fm will not accept submissions earlier than the last submitted song.
So, what happens is that I listen at the gym, listen at work, but when I sync my iPod at home, none of my gym songs, which occurred before my work listening, get added to Last.fm.
But, I can't link the iPod to two computers and sync when I get into work and get my recently played data into the system before I start listening at work.
Very frustrating.
Any ideas?
We IM for this...
cuth23b: Goes back to my point, hitters are stupid. It's why we should have both made the majors
links for 2006-10-20
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Getting to be my favorite tag on Last.fm
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Looks like we're all getting trounced by Stardoll
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Another iPod/Last.fm solution
Don't Say a Prayer for Me Now... Save it 'Til the Morning After
I just don't understand how you could go down looking in Game 7 with the bases loaded and a chance to tie or win the game. That just hurts.
Gotta give it to Perez for holding his own this series... Maine, too. Much to look forward to next year, but, man, this stings. I lack the words.
Game 7
I didn't think it would come to this.
I didn't want it to.
I think I'm going to hole myself up in my apartment and not come out until its over. My whole entire season depends on Oliver Perez. They better score 12 runs.
I don't understand why we're not starting Darren Oliver.
The guy pitched 6 scoreless the other day... AND... and this I didn't realize today... he's got a great postseason start under his belt. In 1996, with the Rangers, he left the 9th inning of Game 3 with a 2-1 lead and two on and none out. The Rangers bullpen couldn't hold it, so he got the loss, but still... that makes him a lot more qualifed to start than Perez, who honestly got battered the other night. He just had a lot of run support.
I don't really understand what goes on in Willie's head. Maine bats in the bottom of the 5th, only to get taken out after the leadoff guy reaches base in the 6th... that was after he fanned Pujos to end the 5th. The guy was cruising and he goes to the pen in the 6th inning. Why strain the pen when your starter is cruising and you know you're going to need at least four innings out of them the next night? He could have gotten one more inning out of Maine.
So now we get to watch Wild Thing fall off the mound because he can't figure out a windup that works.
They better score 12. Please, let them score 12... in the first.
links for 2006-10-19
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Yeah... because these users would otherwise pay for these videos. :/ I thought video was for marketing anyway. Isn't distribution good?
Referrals for Money and Your Chics for Free
Recruiting is a big industry. People pay a lot of money to get the right people because the right people are key to your business. That's why a number of attempts have been made to leverage the power of social networking and recommendations to disrupt the hiring model in the job space.
I've never passed on a job any more or any less because of monetary incentives... I do it for social capital. If I actually know the right person for the job, I pass that job on to create social capital with both sides, and for some reason that resonates with me more than the money. Actually, I think it is because I'm guaranteed social capital, whereas the money always seems like a crapshoot. If I pass you on a job, even if you don't get hired, but you're good... and the job was right for you.. .you think of me as a resource and so does the person doing the hiring. I make social capital that way.
Anyone building one of these systems should take that into consideration. What good does passing the job on through your system do me if I don't get paid? Can it help build my reputation as a connector? How do you enable me to store social capital?