What's the bigger problem?

Not all having all the professional contacts you know on LinkedIn or LinkedIn not providing enough utility?

Not having all you friends on Facebook or Facebook apps in general being pretty lame?

Do you wish all 150 of your Facebook friends or 800 of your MySpace friends used Twitter?  I don't.

How much time in a day to you spend actively managing, syncing, adding to your online friend networks?  Not much?  Yeah, me either.  I spent more time trying to get two calendars to sync to my phone... porting the contacts themselves around has been pretty painless.

What I'm getting at is that Brad Fitzpatrick's call for innovation around the social graph is a solution for something that isn't really a problem. 

I have disconnected, partially overlapping social networks both online and off.  Some of my friends use Twitter, some don't.  Most of them are on Facebook, but some aren't... and a lot of people I connect with professionally are at least on LinkedIn, regardless of whether or not they actually use it.

Here's the thing... I can't really think of any application whose main barrier to being incredibly useful is the lack of connectedness of my social networks or people on the web.  Typical barriers include people's issues with privacy, or the ease of use of the app, etc.  Would I like to be able to see where my friends are actually eating via their credit card data?  Sure... but that's not a social connectivity issue... its a business issue/risk for the credit card issuer and a privacy issue for my friends.  Solve both of those problems in a really compelling way and that problem will definitely go away.

And frankly, the gaps in connection serve purposes.  I like the fact that there's some barrier to discovery and usage for services like Twitter.  It allows communities to develop norms of behavior--atmospheres.  Frankly, it bothers me that all of these people are just barging right into Facebook--my Facebook world--and expecting me to connect with them. 

100% seemless connection to everyone...  and the ability to see how everyone is connected to everyone else...  that's a wall I'm not sure should come down.  I like the fact that the barrier to finding me means that you have to be aware of the blog world or nextNY or be on LinkedIn or whatever... its a nice filter.  On top of that, its the gaps and hurdles that allow me to be successful--it gives my network an advantage because not everyone is tapped into the same people that I am.

And, no, I don't particularly care that Facebook is a walled garden... because it's open enough.  They built enough of the right hooks in such a way that was far beyond what anyone else had put out there.  Would a completely "open" world be better?  I dunno... what would it give me that Facebook isn't giving me now?  Am I worried that they'll steal all my data?  What data?  I'm not banking through it, or paying my taxes.  And frankly, my friends are my friends regardless if Facebook knows about them or maintains that data or not.  I'm not worried about losing them.

I guess I just don't see what the big glitch is.  Social is not the bottleneck.  It's utility.  Build something easy and useful that plugs into what's out there and people will use it... and if the masses demand that it work with some other app, it will happen.   The world is too competitive for it not to.

DSCN2663, originally uploaded by ptrain.

...which, according to our screwy rules (2nd person back wins), means I lost. I was going to slow down and try to push Tim into the dock, but then I realized I'd have to make next year's trophy. So, after two consecutive 3rd place finishes, I was happy to take bragging rights instead of the title.

Tweety's Revenge, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

I tawt I put a cap in da puddy tat's dome.. I did I did put a cap in da puddy tat's dome.

Wallstripped!, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

I just totally randomly bumped into Lindsay from Wallstrip outside the Met. (I was looking to see if there was wifi in the park, because I have a softball game on the Upper East Side later.) She asked me about Blue Nile and so we talked wedding rings. :)

• This is going to be BIG! - Fuck Facebook Conversion: Be platform agnostic and use your own APIs.
  (tags: facebook api bizdev2.0)

Mere's birthday is over, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

...and yes, number candles are disproportionate to cupcake.  When you're not as smart, you go for cute.

Sorry for the foul language, but I don't think the message I tried to convey in my other post about building Facebook apps really came through strong enough.

I just heard an entrepreneur tell me that his problem with Facebook is that it would give him zero conversion to his main site.

So what?

The whole idea that you have a "main site" is dead.  Stick a fork in it.

And while you're at it, stick a fork in the widgets, too--at least the way we're been creating them.  Right now, most of the widgets that are out there are an attempt to squeeze the elements of a service into a neat little sidebar rectangle--a bottleneck created by one-way APIs, limited space, and underwhelming goals.

What you need is a site that is completely agnostic as to where it lives--at your branded dot com address, in Facebook, on the iPhone, or as a "powered by" section of the biggest media site you could possibly ever think of partnering with.

And you shouldn't have to spend 50 man-months customizing your site to fit in all these random places, reworking the architecture to get your square pegs in your business partner's round holes.  (That sounded dirty, didn't it?  So this is a PG-13 post.  So what?)

True "BizDev 2.0" only comes when you start eating your own dog food--when you develop your site's infrastructure so that you actually use all of your own APIs and portable modules to construct your site.  So, if you're a video sharing site, you have the upload widget that could be embedded anywhere and the API calls to display videos, links, ratings, plays, etc. in as many sort orders as you can imagine.  It should be a matter of cutting and pasting, with perhaps an additional PHP page generation scripts as the glue, to completely recreate your service in another place on another platform.  The iphone.yourstartup.com should do all of the same things as yourstartup.com and the Yourstartup Facebook app, not to mention the version of yourstartup that is going to appear as a channel in AOL's site.  And they should all have self-contained revenue models... Facebook ad networks in Facebook, appropriate banners for the iPhone, and whatever networks net you the most cash on the dot com. 

And you shouldn't need to "convert" any user of one place to a user of another place.  Sure there are issues of universal sign-ins, unique identifiers, etc...  but your account management system should be smart enough to handle registered users, partially registered users, unique Facebook IDs, phone numbers off the WAP site and allow you to tie as much or as little of them together and expose that user's history and unique data to them across all the instances of their site.

So, at the end of the day, you shouldn't care where the user winds up... everyone can access your content or your service in a form native to the platform that its on, but will the full functionality of whatever you're up to. 

Until that happens, we're going to have dinky widgets and namby pamby Facebook apps.

• Betahouse -- a haven for Web entrepreneurs - The Boston Globe
  (tags: nextNY groups community technology startup)

• Amazon.com: Recruit or Die: How Any Business Can Beat the Big Guys in the War for Young Talent: Books: Chris Resto,Ian Ybarra,Ramit Sethi
  (tags: books careers)

Can you handle a glove as well as you can handle code?

What's more lightweight?  Your Web 2.0 app or your bat?

Show up at Central Park (RSVP here, please) and play softball with the folks from nextNY.

Details:

What: nextNY Exhibition Softball (6-12ft soft toss, co-ed)

Two teams of 15.

10 in the field, 15 in the lineup subbing in defensively each inning.

When:  Friday, August 24, 2007 @ 6:15PM  (First pitch: 6:30PM)

Where: Hecksher Field #2, Central Park (by W63rd, use this to locate: http://urltea.com/16l5

I've recently been asked to seek out two people for two really interesting jobs.

One is a very interesting position with a company developing mobile apps that already has a solid base of users... they're looking for someone to be a thought leader for developing and detailing new ideas for what kind of applications they should be developing.  I call it a Mashup Manager, because you'll need to be able to read a lot of APIs and figure out what interesting data sources you can tie into, how to work with what the carriers give you, etc.   A couple of years experience in a product related position (not necessarily mobile) and a good perspective on the youth market would be helpful.

The other job is an interactive strategy position for a company in the cable space...  helping dumb pipes get smart, create value for customers using new technology.  The great thing about this position is what whatever you implement/recommend could find its way into millions of homes!  Let's call this position Cable 2.0.

If you want to send over a resume and various links to your digital spaces, send them to my gmail account.  charlie (dot) odonnell (at) gmail (dot) com

Ok, so I'm lying about the oatmeal cookie.  However, oatmeal cookies are good, aren't they?  I think I like them more now than I ever have.

You know what else has grown on me?  Icky Thump by the White Stripes.

Still, 2000 readers, that's a lot.  Who are all you people?

Ok, here's my reader survey.... RSS readers, please click through and contribute 3 minutes of your time in the name of data mining.  Thank you!

Thanks to all of the folks who have given early feedback on Path101.

Here's what people are saying so far:

First off, no one has bashed the name yet.  Personally, I don't like it at all, but I'll admit, it's not awful.  It seems like that's what a name has to be these days: not awful and at a dot com.  Then, you can focus on having the product create the brand image, not the nomenclature.

The response most often given was, "Why limit this to just college students?"  People pointed out the huge opportunity for career changers, moms reentering the workforce, and adults later in life.  I absolutely agree that such a platform has more legs than just in the college market.  I just think it's good to start somewhere and the college market certainly isn't a small one by far.  Plus, that's the market I know.  I don't know what it's like to get laid off at 50 or reenter the workforce after having kids, but certainly that's an opportunity for growth.

Others said that I was building something for students just like me, and that most students didnt know what they wanted to do even when they graduated.  Because I agree with the second point is exactly why the first isn't true at all.  Particularly because most students don't know where to start and haven't done much career prep is exactly why this platform is valuable.  Just because they're not doing the work now doesn't mean they don't want to get into an exciting career.  Most students don't realize that they can take their passions and make a greate career out of them.  Take my friend Christina.  She must send out a party evite every week and most of them aren't even for her-she's the consummate organizer and she's been stuck working with kids in a job she's not a big fan of for the past three years.  Finally, she came to me the other day and told me she was switching careers and becoming an event planner.  DUH!  In college, she probably never realized how huge the conference and event planning sector was.  That's the opportunity...to take her pre-existing interest in organizing people socially and give her an opportunity to connect with the people, content, groups and events necessarily to fuel and focus that interest.  If you do it socially, you don't even need to be particullarly introspective.  Your friends will tell you something on the order of, "You're so great at party planning...you should do THAT for a living."

The big knock on students in their first two years of college is that they're not thinking about this stuff.  That's not true at all--they're thinking about it all the time and scared stiff by it.  Their parents and families keep them thinking about it, and they definitely think about it when it comes down to deciding what you're going to do with your summer.  Most students would love to pursue interest over the summer, but they just don't know where to start.  It's not like there are a lot of job ads out there for "freshmen with no experience."

The other piece of feedback I got, before I added the biz model page to the deck, was on how college students won't pay for this, and that's right, they won't.  That's why we're going after the deepest pockets in the ecosphere on this one... the recruiters, companies, advertisers, etc.  We will not charge colleges or students to use the service, unless of course that a college wants to advertise themselves... like for grad or continuing education programs.

Keep it rolling it... I'm off to setup our (my) Basecamp account.

• For Women, a Recipe to Create a Successful Business - New York Times
  (tags: entrepreneurship)
• Top 10 Reasons to Hire Me for the Internship — Page 2
  (tags: path101 internships career)
• Bootstrapper » Startup Required Reading: Top 100 VC Bloggers
  (tags: entrepreneurship VC path101)

I just got this note from Mere...

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.

• Hiring a VP of Engineering or CTO For Non-Techie (First Time) Founders | Union Square Ventures: A New York Venture Capital Fund Focused on Early Stage & Startup Investing
  Oh hai! This iz purfect. k thx bye.
  (tags: nextcharlie careers startups entrepreneurship)
• Why We Twitter: Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities
  (tags: twitter communication community)

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:

"Without being seen first on the major search engines, your

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.

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