Colorful Day at the Boathouse Today
I had a really great day at Pier 40 today... volunteered from 9 until 3:30. There were just all sorts of little things going on that I as able to snap timely pics of, which made for an interesting photoset.
The dock has become a breeding ground for little minnows (we think, we're not sure). There are thousands of these suckers in the water.
Rock, paper, scissors to figure out who goes on the last remaining single and who has to wait.
Kevin bringing me a sandwich from the free food being given out at the end of the pier by the high school kids' photography club.
These have seen better days.
Robert Sexton of Star Positions is a Spammer and I'm filing a complaint with the LA Better Business Bureau
I just received an unsolicited e-mail from Robert Sexton of Star Positions.
I've posted the text of the e-mail below.
Basically, Mr. Sexton and his company are offering search engine optimization. Of course, the problem is that he's offering his services unsolicited by spamming e-mail addresses, bulletin boards, and forums, and what's worse, threatening anyone who attempts to out him.
Want proof? Google ""star position" "robert sexton" spam". You'll get this link which contains a really interesting thread.
"You know,
I also received this email from a Robert Saxton""Robert Sexton and his Star Position company are notorious spammmers. He tries to play high and mighty but a few of our company email alias are bombed with UCE from him on a regular basis."
"This outfit sends from comprimised open-relays such as the current one 66.174.76.167
I was once getting over 10 spams from this guy everyday until firewalling the blocking all the sending IP's"
Other people have gotten similar spam from Star Positions, like this woman.
Apparently, Mr. Sexton doesn't know about the CAN SPAM Act, which has the following requirement:
It requires that commercial email be identified as an advertisement and include the sender's valid physical postal address.
Yeah, um, Bob, I don't see a valid physical postal address with this e-mail.
I wonder what the penalty for that is.
"Each violation of the above provisions is subject to fines of up to $11,000."
Hmm... that's going to cost them a pretty penny.
Now about that valid posital address?
Google says it is:
Just in case anyone wanted to know. :)
The law that Mr. Sexton IS however familiar with is the one he uses to threaten people who try to out him. Using Google's index cache, I found a site that is no longer up that posted an e-mail from our spammy friend:
Seems that Star Position employees make these kinds of "errors" all the time. Good thing there is absolutely no reason why this company would have any reason to fear their safety if I posted the same phone number that they not only e-mail out to thousands of people, but is also available on Google.One of my people emailed you in error. You've seen fit to put her phone number on it. In case it has not dawned on you, you are actually by doing this in violation of certain Penal Codes for the State of California -> look up 'cyberterrorism' 'cyberstalking' specifically California Penal Code 646.9 'actions which would be designed to put an individual in fear for their safety'
I'm going to look at your site again in 24 hours. You are going to be a good chap and remove any phone numbers from any postings relating to my company, Star Position. And before you blow this off, or do something truly even more stupid than what you have done, I suggest you do a google search for California Penal Code 646.9 and related topics. We are based in California.
Best Regards,
Robert Sexton
Director of Business Development, Star Position US and Star Position UK
That number again? 949.215.0022
I did find a really useful posting to a thread related to Star Positions:
But what about the actual service? Is this a legit business just using illegitimate marketing techniques?"This loser SPAMs everyone. Forward his crap to spam@uce.gov (the FTC). If enough people do it, they'll finally investigate his a**"
From the same forum above...
So the full text of that note?"Star Position does not deliver.
I know because I paid for their service almost a year ago.
I received at most, 200 visitors.
Many of the visitors were from outside of the US,
Many of the visitors were the same person repeatedy.
(I know because I dropped cookies on them)"
Check it out below, while I go file a complaint with the LA Better Business Bureau.
"Without being seen
first on the major search engines, your website can be little
more than a glorified business card." "If your site is seen
first on the search engines, chances are you're the one people will tend to contact. It's
that simple." What do a Realtor, a major bank, an
attorney, and a natural health clinic have in common? They are
among the over 13,000 companies who have discovered a better way to
be seen first on YAHOO, MSN, GOOGLE and thirteen other
search engines. A way in which their sites are always seen first, 100% of
the time, across the major search engines, even above the sponsored
links, but WITHOUT having to pay the sometimes exorbitant charges
associated with the 'pay per click' sponsored links. This is possible due to search
toolbar technology, with over 26 million downloads, which are predominantly US-based. This
allows us to place you first 100% of the time across the major search
engines,
exclusively, across our whole Network! For everyone who has the
toolbar installed on their PCs, you are about to
see what they see on the major search engines! This is the placement we do
for Chase Bank. What you see above
even
the names of the search engines is
Chase Bank's actual website! The search term 'BANKING' always points to
their site on the Network, across
the top sixteen search engines,
including GOOGLE, YAHOO and
MSN!
This is the placement we do for a Los Angeles Realtor, Kathryn Bishop.
What you see above even the names of the search engines is her actual
website! The search terms 'LOS ANGELES REAL ESTATE' and several others
always points to her site on the Network, across the top sixteen search
engines, including GOOGLE, YAHOO and MSN!
And lastly, this is the placement we do for Stone Canyon Mortgage, What you
see above the names of the search engines is Stone Canyon's actual website!
Stone Canyon has the generic search term 'MORTGAGE' pointing to their
website on our Network, across the top sixteen search engines, including
GOOGLE, YAHOO and MSN! What we've done for Stone Canyon on a nationwide
level, we can do for other mortgage companies on a more localized level.
You too can have this guaranteed type of exposure. Our normal run on the
Network goes for one year, but for those who register with us, by the end
of this week , you will only pay for the first six months. As for the cost, you'll
probably spend more over the next year for your morning coffee than you
would spend for this.
We do make specific guarantees,
including a money back guarantee. Call for details.
I can be reached at my office, from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Pacific time.
Please feel free to call me if you have any questions.
Best regards,
Robert Sexton
Director of Business Development, Star Position
Phone: 800.481.2979, ext 2001
Direct Line: 949.215.0022
links for 2007-08-10
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Pretty ridiculous...
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Here's what I'm working on now... Your feedback would be greatly appreciated!
Path 101: Saving deer from headlights at graduation time through online career discovery and preparation
So here's what I'm up to...
First off, I've decided to be uber anti-stealth with this project. Since I'm only at the idea stage, could someone completely rip this off and go off and do it?
Sure.
Could they do it better than I could? I wouldn't bet against me, because I highly doubt anyone interested in innovating around this space is as passionate about this as I am.
Even when I was in college, I was running a non-credit seminar introducing freshmen to business concepts--mostly because I was trying to train new writers for the business newspaper I had started. When I graduated, I worked for two years to help get Fordham's Young Alumni mentoring program off the ground, and it is now their most successful career education program. Each year, the program matches students in their first two years with recent alumni who can give them some much needed insight into various career paths, but also sensible advice about how finding your passion is a journey that takes time, patience, and much preparation.
I ran NYSSA's SEMI Mentoring program for NYC-area Finance undergraduates for two years and mentored students in the program for five years. I also ran the internship program at the GM pension fund for two summers, even though I was younger than half of our interns.
Anyone who knows me knows that I've been really passionate about helping people find the same kind of career fulfillment that I've had the good fortune to find and now, I believe I've figured out how to tie together all the necessary ingredients--self assessment, professional insight, consistent networking skills, and early preparation--at scale.
Path 101 will be the place where you can send a student who hasn't the slightest clue about where they want to be when they finish school, but knows that wherever it is, they want it to be challenging and exciting as well. It will help them make a habit out of keeping up with industries, building and learning from their network, and perhaps even publishing what they're learning on a regular basis. It will be the digital extension of the career office that is available at 3AM when a student gets a sudden urge to be ambitious.
Right before I left for my trip, two people asked me in consecutive meetings what I really wanted to do. The answer that kept bubbling up was working with students on helping them find a career, but it was something that only recently I thought about being able to do at scale.
Path 101 is the shot I need to take at this--the culmination of a lot of experience with students over the last six or seven years. I'm incredibly excited about it and want to get started on finding the right technical partner who can help me see this through to fruition. That's my next step--connecting with someone who can do significant development and who sees enough value in this to want to be a significant equity partner.
I have two versions of a 5 minute presentation I put together using Jing. The first is just the presentation itself. The second is narrated using Jing's microphone integration. Frankly, I'd go with the mute one, because I have so much to say about this concept, I found it incredibly difficult to run through the same presentation with comments in the same amount of time. Either way, thanks for the five minutes of your time.
On Niche Celeb Status and Being Uber Anti-Stealth...
Last night I twittered that I'd sent out my startup overview presentation (saved it on Jing, which is awesome, btw... posting soon) to anyone who was interested.
It got picked up by Henry Blodget's Silicon Alley Insider. It was the second time this week I got mentioned... Tuesday night he wrote about how I was noticeably absent from Tuesday's Tech Meetup, because I went to the Mets-Braves game with Fred.
The last two and a half years have been an amazing ride for me... bursting out of obscurity to local digital "celeb" status--all while having accomplished relatively little compared to some of the other folks in this space, in my opinion.
Frankly, I shy away from it. I don't ever want to be known as a self-promoter or someone whose reputation and prominence in the spotlight is ill-deserved. I'm not the guru of anything. I'm just "an ordinary guy with nothing to lose."
I wrote this note to Henry just now and thought I'd share it. The bottom line is that it is great that we've finally got a post-Calcanis voice covering NYC and we need more... but that voice needs to talk about people we don't know about. I'm the last guy anyone needs to hear about twice in a week on SAI... and so is Fred...
Henry,
I appreciate the links and all, but with all due respect, I really shy away from "celeb" status.
I don't run nextNY and compared to lots of other great area entrepreneurs, I really haven't accomplished anything yet.
I have no partner, no code, no nothing but a presentation at this point...
There are so many people don't really interesting and great things around here that are so much more worthy of coverage. I don't want to become known as the Guy Kawasaki of the East Coast... a great self-promoter who people know, even though he really hasn't actually accomplished anything of substance.
The NYC tech scene is so much more than "USV and friends" and I'd encourage anyone covering the scene to do their best to reflect that.
And no, I have not approached anyone for funding. The folks at USV are great friends because I worked with them. If anything, I'm less likely to approach them because I'd never want this to appear like any kind of an "insider" deal. I need to make my own way on this. I'm proud of the fact that, for example, my subscribers have grown much more after I left USV than when I joined and during the time I was there... so that I know I don't have a Fred-fed blog...
I'm glad you're covering the space, because more people need to, but if you could point the camera at all of the other really great things going on here and maybe wait until I actually accomplish something useful, I think that's the right away to go.
I'm being anti-stealth on this not to start up the hype machine, but because its really how I want to build this business... to get as much feedback from everyone who cares about the space... to be a lightning rod for anyone thinking about this... to get the word out to colleges and a potential partner.
I hope this makes sense and I def don't want to come across as snarky and unappreciative because I appreciate every link and every mention... I just want it to be deserved.
I don't celebrate birthdays for the same reason... not dying is not a thing to celebrate... until you're like 85... then its an accomplishment. :)
Charlie
Bay Ridge Tornado was six blocks from my apartment
It's been confirmed: A tornado touched down in Bay Ridge on 68th Street between 3rd and 4th avenues.
Not only is this six blocks from my house, but that's the block I always park my car on when there's Thursday/Friday alternate side parking in effect on my street, because that's a Monday/Tuesday block.
The storm was so strong that it woke me up out of bed (I'm a very heavy sleeper) at about 5:45AM. That's when I sent this twit:
"Crackle crackle KA-BOOM... Wow, that one was close...and loud. Now that's some thunder and lightning! Woke me up."
Little did I know that a goddamn tornado would touch down about a half hour later just a few blocks away.
One doesn't usually expect this kind of behavior from the sky in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.
A Little Top 50 Facebook App Analysis
Facebook analysis:
I grouped the Top 50 apps into various categories, and recorded the total combined users of those applications, as well as how many of those types of apps showed up in the top 50.
| Type | Reach | Top 50 | Avg. |
| Friend Display | 17,453,819 | 5 | 3,490,764 |
| Things I like | 16,832,162 | 7 | 2,404,595 |
| Walls | 16,327,688 | 5 | 3,265,538 |
| Quizzing | 16,243,945 | 6 | 2,707,324 |
| Poking | 15,001,896 | 5 | 3,000,379 |
| Of the day | 11,716,182 | 5 | 2,343,236 |
| Gifting | 9,279,042 | 3 | 3,093,014 |
| Videos | 5,965,382 | 1 | 5,965,382 |
| Viral Stupidity | 5,629,616 | 4 | 1,407,404 |
| Status | 4,985,725 | 2 | 2,492,863 |
| Pets | 2,217,398 | 1 | 1,108,699 |
| Mobile | 2,046,160 | 1 | 2,046,160 |
| Photo/Video | 1,456,734 | 1 | 1,456,734 |
| Dating | 1,326,272 | 1 | 1,326,272 |
| Games | 782,021 | 1 | 782,021 |
| Other | 734,156 | 1 | 734,156 |
Friend display apps allow you to categorize friends in various ways. Thinks I like allow you to maintain lists, like music you like or places you've visted, and compare with others. Wall apps improve functionality of the Facebook wall. Quizzes... self explanatory. Poking improves upon the poking functionality on Facebook, allowing you to throw sheep or do other short form actions. "Of the day" is basically a piece of media bling that shows others quotes, scenes, etc. from your favorite shows, books, authors, etc. Gifting is all about giving virtual items to others. Videos is the Facebook Video app. Viral stupidity is where I put Zombies and such. I really hate those apps. Status is a display of your current emotion or some other element of the moment. Pets can be anything from actual pets to gardens to virtual things you keep. And so on and so forth.
What can be learned from this?
Well, for one, much of the reach in the top 50 is related to what I call, "Facebook Infrastructure" ... walls, pokes, friends. How many more apps like this are there going to be. How many ways can you ______ your friends or leave them a bulletin board post? Or rather, how many various bulletin boards are people going to want?
I think you'll start to see a shift... now that we've advanced the poke and the wall to the umpteenth iteration, we should start seeing apps further up the stack. Communication tools, like Marc Pincus' SocialChat, are sure to move up in popularity. I think the key is building on top of some of what's already there, which is what players like SocialMedia and RockYou are hoping for. They're trying to create networks or platforms out of their apps.
Another interesting phenomenon is that hardly any of the top apps come from pre-existing web applications. Possible reasons?
- Popular off-Facebook apps have yet to make a big push into Facebook. (see eBay, AIM, Skype)
- Popular off-Facebook apps have no clue how to make a big push into Facebook.
- Popular off-Facebook apps have such crappy APIs that you're better off using them outside of Facebook.
- There are no popular off-Facebook apps... because you're nobody until you're a Facebook app.
Remember back when we used to talk about MySpace? Oh, those were the days...
Mr. Devitt Goes to Washington: What Congress Needs to Hear
Jason gives it to the man in DC... worth a watch if you're into the mobile space or if you have a cellphone.
755
Barry Bonds hit his 755th home run last night...
...off a pitcher who had previously been suspended 15 games for using steriods back in 2005.
How's that for ironic?
When Mark McGwire hit number 62, we were all pretty much excited for him... at least if you go by the ratings and the fannies in the seats. That's because he was a likeable guy. A likeable, acne scarred guy whose body was freakishly bigger that it had been ten years prior. His head didn't seem to swell in proportion to the way Bonds had (literally and figuratively), but we knew what the deal was, and frankly we didn't care.
Last night, Barry Bonds was that nice guy. He carried his son, dodged any questions about the controversy, and even pointed the spotlight on A-Rod and Tom Glavine during his press conference. He was even gracious about the Bud Selig hubbub.
As a fan, I'll tell you right now, I could seriously care less whether or not Selig's ugly mug is at the 756 game and I don't think Bonds cares either.
We all know what the deal is with Barry and not only would he have been a first ballot Hall of Famer regardless of the steroids, but A-Rod will likely break his record. So, in the grand scheme of things, Barry is going to be a blip, and hopefully, so will Selig. I don't know how someone gets to be elected commisioner or if they can be fired, but Selig has acted like a first class jerk this whole time. Baseball never had drug testing before very recently, and benefitted greatly from the juicy home run chases of the late 90's. Now we're "clean", but lets not pretend that Buddy boy wasn't looking the other way to protect the bottom line.
So, now that we're on the verge of history--a history like all other history, clouded by human fallibility--the least Bud can do for baseball is to sit back and watch another ball fly like the rest of us and allow us to move on. Smile and clap or stay home, Bud. I don't like Barry Bonds... I almost did last night... ok, I sorta did... but this is my game and I'm behind it, and looking forward to the future. Unless you were bashing McGwire out of the side of your mouth nine years ago, you have no right to muddy this moment now.
One day, we will live in a world without...
John C. Dvorak.
"Today everything from YouTube to the local church has a
social-networking angle. And this doesn't even consider the actual
social-networking sites, from MySpace to LinkedIn to Facebook to even
Second Life. This scene is totally out of control and will contribute
to the collapse for sure."
Yeah, that's some iron clad logic there, Johnny.
"Excuse Me" APIs: Why most Facebook apps disappoint
Alright... most of 'em just downright suck. But why? Is the Facebook platform not all it is cracked up to be?
Many people are giving the excuse that the really robust versions of our favorite web apps just haven't had time to get built, but doesn't that violate everything we learned in BizDev 2.0? If every time you need to syndicate your service to another place, you need to rebuild, your infrastructure is not optimized for a world of small pieces loosely joined, aggregated, remixed, mashed up, etc. Aren't all these applications supposed to be able to live and function anywhere?
There are two main reasons why the current group of Facebook apps have been generally unappealing:
1) Like many websites, many of them were not meant to be any more than amusing wastes of time. We went from catblogging to sheep tossing, which is fine.
2) Many web services develop their own APIs as an afterthought--a narrow bottleneck through which Facebook users are struggling to squeeze utility, since most of the FB apps use the original app's API.
For applications that are essentially powered by data (i.e. Most of Web 2.0), you essentially have a database, input mechanisms and output - a way to call, manipulate and present the data. Ideally, they're built in such a way that they're largely agnostic as to where the input and the output occurs. Even the business models should be such so that any user, any piece of data, anything can be monetized or contribute to monetization even if it occurs off of your main site.
In fact, the very idea of "conversions" should have no meaning here. You shouldn't be trying to pull users off Facebook... you should be shoving the full functionality and business model of your app IN Facebook. If your Facebook app has no business model, then your service has no business model. If you're building a service and designing it in such a way that the ultimate goal is land at your destination, that kind of territoriality is going to be a major stumbling block with partners.
Take Voki, for example. The Voki avatars are powered by the Oddcast avatar engine and audio database--neither of which actually live at Voki.com. They live on some wacky internal Oddcast domain and unless we wanted to clone that engine and database, which we didn't, Voki.com had to be built in such a way that it actually used our own APIs. So, the site is essentially the first partner implementation of itself. The core features of Voki.com--launching an editor, saving an avatar creation to a database, publishing it to a page, calling previously made scenes--are all fully functional within our API. Therefore, you could recreate an implementation of Voki just about anywhere you wanted--which is essentially what we did on Facebook. There's a link to create your avatar, a button thta publishes it back to our system, and ways to call previous scenes. We rely on the Facebook side of the API to distribute those scenes to the Newsfeed, specific friends or your profile.
Actually, one could argue that the Voki app that is on Facebook is better and more useful than the one on Voki.com. That was our idea for the partner program--that partners bring with them a context and a purpose unique to that environment. Voki in an instant messenger chat box would be more compelling than the Voki on Voki.com and so would Voki on event invitations, fantasy sports bulletin boards, etc.
Your destination site should actually be the least compelling implementation of your product, because it has to serve mass appeal and has no context for participation and use.
Developers and entrepreneurs need to stop thinking about Facebook as s different way to build or even a different place to build.. its a partnership deal plain and simple... and your app needs to be easily "partnerable" without a ton of custom work. Databases need to flow across your platform and users should be able to encounter it at multiple touch points, but it shouldn't require a major rebuild.
Old business models working against college students
All of the major job sites have career content on them... Monster, Careerbuilder, Hotjobs...
...but they're not really there to actually help you. They're probably just on there to keep you on the site longer or act as linkbait. At the end of the day, we all know that their cash is coming in from perpetuating the old business model of paying for job posts and selling resumes to recruiters--essentially playing both sides. They're never really going to help you find a job the way every career expert says you should be looking--networking your way to opportunities and putting yourself out there. When I work with college students, I always tell them that the goal is that, when they graduate, they never ever have to submit their resume to any traditional job post--that someone who knows them seeks them out for an opportunity. When I ran the GM pension fund's internship program, we had 3000 resumes come in through Monster for 12 positions. Half of those jobs got filled through networking. That's a dirty little secret that Monster & Co. doesn't want college students to know.
Well, it seems the word is getting out. Monster reported disappointing earnings and announced a restructuring recently. In a 2.0 world where services like Indeed can aggregate jobs from company web sites, professional association boards, smaller niche boards, as well as the big sites, there's just not a strong value proposition for being a big player who charges employers hundreds of dollars per post. Of course, that doesn't even cover the fact that they then go and charge schools to be on the system.
That's not the only business model that works against student interests. Some sites, like Vault.com, have premium subscription areas. That's great for students who can afford it, but a lot of students are just barely scraping by as it is. Holding back your best info for the students who can pay for it isn't just an old business model, I sort of think its morally questionable as well, but I digress.
If students themselves make up the shallowest pockets you ever want to build your business model on, then certainly the career offices aren't far behind. Most of them are understaffed and underbudgeted and simply cannot afford to pay for expensive subscriptions. To be honest, I highly doubt most of these subscriptions are worth it anyway. Do you think the content could be better or more timely than what the best industry bloggers are writing about?
For the most part, if you're in the content business, and you don't think you can generate more money from advertising than you can from subscriptions, you're basically telling me that your content isn't useful enough that people would actually want to use it. A lot of career counselors question whether or not they're getting their money's worth when it comes to all of these subscription services, or rather if the students are using it enough to find it useful, but they have little alternative. The way I'm tapped into my career--through blogs, social networks, unconferences, listservs, etc... all for free... no one's really packaging that up for the college crowd. Instead, a lot of people are gauging them with old business models and propriety content.