links for 2007-10-05
-
Nice publicity for nextNY - Photo credit should go to Oberkirch on that one from a past podcast interview at USV.
The Dvorak Theory of Nonsensical Prognostication and Its Relationship to Calcanisisms and Dave Wining
Let me paraphrase Dave Winer for a moment:
"The Techmeme leaderboard sucks because, now that we have transparency, undeserving others who didn't close to inventing RSS or the question mark are unfairly stealing my web influence. People are saying stupid things about Web 3.0 just to get attention. (PS... Did I tell you what I think Web 3.0 is? Its when mainstream media acknowledges us little guys... and clearly that's a more well thought out vision of Web 3.0 than Jason's and clearly I'm not annoyed that more people noticed a tree falling in the forest than my seminal Web 3.0 post.) There's more important stuff to be blogging about, like Iran. Now, back to blogging about the blogosphere."
So, that's not an exact quote, but it's close.
Don't you just love it when the big name pundits confuse their popularity for indications of the quality of their writing and support for their thinking?
Knock Jason if you will, but I think he's incredibly self aware and so is Guy Kawasaki. They seem to understand their role as pot stirrers, and that's why they're so damned good at it. Truemors? Maybe the worst startup ever, but it was one of the best PR moves ever. For 14k or whatever he spent on it, Guy bought himself even more incredible PR and self-marketing, and not for a moment did anyone confuse him with an actual entrepreneur, nor did he. In the same way, I'm pretty sure Jason knew exactly what he was doing when he proclaimed Web 3.0 to be pretty much exactly what Mahalo was doing. He's not an idiot, Dave, he's incredibly smart, actually. Jason being Jason is exactly why Mahalo is as much of a conversation topic as it is.
All these "big guys"... the Guys, the Winers, the Techcrunches, the Scobles, and the ultimate, the Dvoraks, they serve a function. They are the conversation leaders. They give us something to talk about (or in Dvorak's case, someone to send our hate posts to). In the absence of real news, they suggest topics... and they often do it in a way that inspires others to write a lot more inspiring literature about it. Does anyone out there think that Scoble's post on anything is going to be the best post on it? That's not his job. He points to things... not unlike a Paris Hilton, who we don't actually watch for what she says, but more for the things she "points to" around her... the cult of personality, the flow of news, the lifestyle, etc. The most thoughtful posts are on the blogs only a handful of people read, because they're too long or not controversial enough or they have too much integrity than to shamelessly linkbait by writing "Why Web 2.0 sucks..." posts.
They are the water coolers. We gather around them and talk about their topics because we like to be able to connect to lots of other people talking about the same thing. The tail isn't as long as we think it is, because, at the end of the day, how much fun is it to be the only person actually blogging about cats? That's my theory on why mainstream TV never goes away... because people want to go in the next day to work to be able to talk about what happened on Lost or Grey's or whatever.
The problem is when those folks don't realize that they are just water coolers... when the water cooler starts going "blub, blub, blub" so loud that it tries to drown out other people's conversation, thinking that people are actually at the water cooler for the water and only the water.
I was talking to Nate last night about how the nextNY listserv has been getting a little boring of late. That's because people only seem to be using it for useful things. No one posts the kind of idiocy that Dave despises, and while on one hand I'm glad my inbox isn't full of 300 post listserv threads with namecalling, it does sort of wake people up and gather them and get them talking and that's an incredibly valuable function.
Custom Kitchens at Googies
Emily from Photoshelter does vocals, plays a mean guitar, and writes a helluva product spec from what I hear. She's at the mic on the right with the guitar.
links for 2007-10-04
-
Turning point in the Zune vs. iPod war? Funny how MSFT is suddenly doing right by its customers whereas Apple is now the bad guy.
Business Plan: Throttling, Scheduling and Posting My Feeds
Despite the fact that I used to work for a "widget" company, I've long been a believer that you need to find a way to get in the feed. Feeds change. They're live, full of activity, and people notice them. They're the backbone of the blogopshere, Facebook, and even MySpace has gotten into the action with its own feed of status updates when you login.
FriendFeed just came out and it aims to help me aggregate all the various feeds of my friends into one place... essentially creating an open, portable version of the Facebook newsfeed.
I see two issues with that. One, by number most of my friends who aren't necessarily 2.0Heads don't really have a lot of feeds, or even any. It seems to me that this isn't nearly as much of a consumer problem as it is a publisher problem. There are more people consuming content than producing it... and certainly A LOT more people consuming content than the number of people producing it in multiple places. Perhaps that's why most people don't use aggregation tools. RSS consumption is still very low and if you think for a second that the average blog is only read by less than a dozen or so people, that makes sense. I hate to break it to you gurus, but the great majority is absolutely content living inside closed data silos like Facebook and MySpace and doesn't think anything of it. Hell, people are still using Snapfish for photos, believe it or not.
The other thing FriendFeed fails to address is the atmosphere of social places. MySpace has a different atmosphere than Facebook. As danah pointed out, people don't pick one or the other because they are "better", they choose them because the atmosphere matches who they are.
That's why, despite its overwhelming database of information on people, Plaxo's Pulse is never going to turn into an interesting space where people want to hangout, and why I highly doubt that FriendFeed is ever going to be more than just a commoditized utility.
Ok, back to my idea. As one of relatively few publishers who does produce a lot of feeds, I'd like a better way to get them into my blog than widgets. No one regularly consumes my widgets or even notices that they've changed. I want a way to aggregate my own world, but more importantly, I want very specific controls over how it gets published. Think the del.icio.us autopost, only way smarter.
Basic premise: Hosted "[insert feed] of the day" posting mechanism. You throw any RSS or XML feed into it and you can tell it to pull data and post it to your blog on a regular basis. Most importantly, you control what it pulls, how often, and the format.
So, it needs to do the following:
Accept any RSS or XML feed and pull either the last X entries or be smart enough to pull all the entries since the last time it got the feed. Or... post every time it hit x entries.
Then it needs to do scheduled blog posting via XML-RPC... work with Wordpress, Typepad, Blogger, etc. I'd have the ability to create custom titles for these posts as well. "My last.fm listening this week..."
Plus, the platform should be social in that if I create a really great algorithm for how/when I want to post my last.fm data, other people should be able to use that same template.
I'd also like to be able to insert advertising into each post.
Here's what I'd use on my site:
2 days of New York Startup Jobs of the Day posts from Indeed RSS feeds, Tuesday and Thursday.
Friday, I'd post "Music I Listened to this week" from last.fm.
1 day of the last few days of Brooklyn news from Outside.in.
Move my del.icio.us autoposting over to this to post anytime I hit 10 del.icio.us links... so no more onesies.
1 day of thumbnails of my last week's Flickr photos if there are any.
Service will be located at iminurfeedz.com. :)
If anyone would like to go out and build this, I will happily promote it and donate the domain name.
Piercing the Blog
When you get up to a critical mass of blog readership, you start getting a different kind of conversation from the crowd. Most of it is fantastic and I'm lucky to have it, but some of it, not so much. You get form letters from people marketing their new services to bloggers, LinkedIn and Facebook friend requests from people you've never heard from before, solicitations for link exchanges, blog network invitations and a whole host of Starbucks invites. These aren't necessarily bad things, but a lot of them are just, well, out of the blue. It's the blog equivalent of asking for sex on the first date... or even before the first date. Call me old fashioned.
Since most of these people have never read my past blog posts about these types of things, I'm going to summarize my stance on all of them here.
First off, this is my personal blog. I do not, as a matter of intention, "review" products the way Techcrunch does, so please don't ask me to review anything. I'm happy to check something out and give quick feedback, but I'm lot actively looking for review submissions.
I am always, however, searching for products that will answer my own selfish needs, and so I'll sometimes write about a product's ability or inability to provide a useful service. This does not occur as the result of a review request. It does happen as the result of notes that begin, "Hey, remember when you were looking for "x", well I found (or "we have", if you're a marketer) a product that solves your problem." This shows you're showing me something because you think your service applies to me specifically, not just because I have a lot of blog readers.
If you still insist on pitching me something with an actual pitch letter, then please please do not blow smoke in my face and tell me that you read my blog all the time. Its ok if you don't. A lot of people don't. Most people don't. (My mom does, though...) I know who many of my blog readers are because they show up in MyBlogLog or they comment or I read theirs and see my link on their blogrolls. People who emerge from the abyss to pitch something are not easily believed to be
"long time, first times."
As for all of these social networks, I basically use two... Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook is a place for my friends. By friends, I mean people who I've met, hung out with, or would actually hang out with if they were in the same city. Just because we met professionally does not mean we're besties, but rest assured, I value you immensely either way--as a reader, as a professional, as a colleague, etc. If we are professional and reciprocal contacts in real life, please do feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. Reciprocal is key here, though. Reading my blog or just being in nextNY but never having met or spoken to me is one way, not reciprocal. Just because I have a lot of LinkedIn contacts doesn't mean I just add everyone. I need to be able to at least know you enough to recommend you on some basis, even if we just had a few side words over a specific blog post. The first time I hear from you should not be without an introduction on LinkedIn. That's like showing up to my office out of the blue and saying "Do you want to have a meeting?"
And then there's this odd little Plugoo box that gives you a direct means of IMing me. It connects straight to AIM, which I'm usually on, and, I hate to admit it, I generally answer even when I'm working. So, if you're ok with continuous partial attention, because you probably caught be doing something else, I'm usually up for a little Plugoo chat write through that little box. Try it.. .it works! It is quickly becoming my favorite widget.
As for in person meetings, you should know that I do not drink alcohol or coffee (I will go for a SBUX skim chat, though...). The alcohol thing is just a personal preference...there are no problems with me that you need to worry about in that area, but it does provide an interesting social dilemma when people ask to meet up for a drink. I do frequent lots of bars (you can't play on as many sports teams as I do without doing so), and don't mind them at all...it's just that when I do go, Sprite is my drink of choice, as my friends know. If you're cool with that, then sure, by all means, ask me out for a drink. I'm all for it.
Lunches work great for me, although I try to spend them with contacts I already have and friends, too. I try not to take blind lunches too often, but they're not so bad, because at worst I get fed.
That's always a good thing.
If you really want to meet up, connect, network, etc...just hangout where I hangout...simple as that. You can usually find me on weekends at the Downtown Boathouse Pier 40 location where I kayak and volunteer for our public kayaking program on the Hudson. That season goes from mid-May to mid-October. Other than that, I try to make as many nextNY and NY Tech Meetup events as I can. It's always easier to catch up in person when I'm already planning to be out somewhere with other tech folks, as opposed to finding other times and taking time away from other things, which I'm happy to do, but we have to start somewhere.
Ok, is that fair?
Aren't networks made of people? What's The Action Network and who are they?
I just got an invite to a "Meet and Greet" hosted by The Action Network. The Eventbrite invitation gives invitees plenty of opportunity to donate--citing a "suggested" donation--but you can go for free if you want.
There's only one problem with the invite. I have no idea who The Action Network is, what they do exactly or how I got on their e-mail list. I checked out their site and it says their mission is to "encourage, sustain, and develop volunteerism among young people in New York City." When you click on "Program" to find out how, you get a "This page is under construction" message. There are no names and no pictures of any actual people on the site.
I'm going to assume that there are well intentioned people behind this endeavor (hopefully) but there's absolutely no way I'm going to show up to an event that asks for money before I even know who's asking that is run by people who won't publicly associate their names with the program.
Does anyone know who is running this and whether or not this is real?
More Path 101 Uber Anti-Stealth
Two bits of anti-stealth today... now that we're out of our apartments for the first full week and living within the friendly confines of Return Path, we're feeling pretty psyched about our ideas. We'd love to share them with you, and so we're holding an open product feedback and brainstorming session this Thursday night at CRESA's offices in midtown. It will take place at 6:30 and probably run until 8:30. Details and link to RSVP here.
Also, we diced to open up our Monday morning meeting notes to the public, so you can further track our profess. You can see how we're diving up the work, our progress, etc.
links for 2007-10-01
-
Def need to post on this via the Path 101 blog
-
I heard I was nominated... that's really cool.
This is what being a Met fan is...
1985, 1987, Ojeda and the hedge clipper, Orel Hershiser, they can't hit for El Sid, trading Randall K for no Johnny no, Ojeda for Hubie Brooks, Wally Whitehurst, Trading Coney away, Pete Schourek and Eric Hillman, Anthony Young keeps losing and losing and losing, the worst team money can buy, Bret Saberhagan, Vince Coleman, Bobby Bo, Gooden's demons, I don't think McReynold's saw it right away, The Future: Pulsipher, Isringhausen, and Wilson, Butch Huskey, Bernard "I'll never hit like this" Gilkey, Kent for Baerga, Carlos Baerga, Rey Ordonez, Hideous Nomo, the Todd Hundley in leftfield experiment, Mel Rojas, Piazza driving in 100 meaningless runs a year and grounding out into 100 double plays a year, Armando Benetiz... Armando friggin' Benetiz, Kenny Rogers can't throw a strike, Izzy for Billy Taylor, Todd Zeile, Subway Series, Piazza plunked, Roger Clemens tossing wood, Mo Vaughn, Roger Cedeno, Jeromy Burnitz, Shawn Estes, Roberto Alomar, Tom Glavine, the Mike Piazza at first experiment, Kaz "I am under contract for $7 million to play short, even though I can't field the position" Matsui, Anna Benson, Victor "This is the guy we got for Kazmir?" Zambrano, Doug Mientkiewicz, Kaz Ishii, Duaner Sanchez's cab ride, Mota juiced, Lima Time, Wright's second half slump, Shawn Green, Pedro hurt, The Catch... and they still lose, Yadier Molina, losing Bradford, Oliver, Bell and Bannister, Carlos Delgado, Reyes's second half slump, Mike Pelfrey, The Poison Pen, The Collapse.
They'll break your heart, these Mutts.
You can't win if you don't run, Mayor Bloomberg
I haven't decided who I want to vote for yet next year. I don't like Hilary. Barak is ok, but I'm a registered independent, so if he doesn't win his own primary, I can't support him anyway. On the Republican side, I always liked Rudy as mayor, but I don't think he's the least bit qualified to be President. As for the rest... I dunno, just too many to keep track of at this point.
And I keep holding out hope that Mike Bloomberg will run... that he'll go all in and spend a billion on making it to the White House... and make the tough choices that need to be made. When he was Mayor, he made tough, but smart decisions about closing firehouses and raising property taxes because the city was in a in a tough financial spot after 9/11. His approval rating sunk to the lowest approval rating any mayor has ever seen since they started taking polls of mayoral approval ratings. The way he spoke at Cooper Union the other night, he made me believe that he was a guy willing to make tough decisions in Iraq where, as he put it, "there were no good choices."
There's only one problem with Mike Bloomberg...
...he's not running.
And, until he says he's in, his "campaign" tactic of being an outsider who just talks on the sidelines isn't going to pick up any traction. Why?
Being the President of this country requires a ton of passion and dedication. When I hear that the Mayor is "considering" running, that troubles me. That would be like someone "considering" a marriage proposal. When I ask someone to marry me, they better say yes right off the bat, because I don't think I really want to marry someone who has to think about it. More so than anything else, I imagine that the one serious prerequisite of the Presidency is that you absolutely know you want to be President.
I think that's part of the reason people couldn't get behind Al Gore the first time around. I think for a lot of people, it just didn't really seem like he wanted to be President that badly... like he was running because he felt like he had to.... like that's what sitting VP's do.
I've heard that there are a lot of things Bloomberg needs to do first before to prepare to run, like selling the major media and business information company he built from the ground up. Fine, but, at some point, this becomes like that like from Spaceballs:
"What are you preparing. You're always preparing. Just go! "
I've heard that Bloomberg doesn't want to join a race that he doesn't think he can win. Well, sorry Mike, but that's the minimum risk that is required of you to run--to face the fact that you might lose. This isn't going to get handed to you... especially not as a third party candidate. You need to go out and grab it for yourself, and frankly, its surprising to hear that a successful entrepreneur would hesitate to enter a race because he doubts he could win.
You have to give people something to hang their hat on...a parade to get out in front of. I'm not going to go join a campaign to coax you into the race. I want you to run, but if you don't want it enough to say it, every day that passes gets me closer and closer to figuring out who else I can support that actually wants this. Without actionable items, without something specific to ask people to do, its going to be difficult to get people to care at all. There are plenty of people who want to support you, but even more people who don't know anything about you. That takes time, not just money, and I'm afraid that if you wait until Super Tuesday, you're not going to have enough time to convince people that you actually want to be President. A lot of people just aren't going to wait around that long.
So, for now, I'll support the person of Mike Bloomberg, who has done an amazing job for this city, but I can't support the campaign of Mike Bloomberg if it doesn't exist.
Risk is a Function of Perception and Approach
A lot of people think starting your own company is a risky proposition. Sounds like it, right? Oooh... could "blow up". Sounds dangerous. Images of shrapnel.
Maybe I'm naive and oblivious... but I'm really not that worried, like, at all.
I'm working on Path 101 fulltime and the only income I get now is from my adjunct teaching at Fordham, which is sort of like my checking account's equivalent of flapping its arms as it falls off a cliff. Yet, somehow, I know it's all going to work out. I'm confident we'll get our angel round raised... people are lining up now... but on the chance we don't get all of it, we'll make do with what we have. We'll take on some consulting if we have to. It's not ideal, but there's a fallback plan, and frankly, the fallback plans aren't so bad.
Maybe I'll need to start liquidating to fund this. I already know... first it's the 401k, than the apartment, and then the car. Yes, the car is the last to go. Not ideal, but at least I've faced the reality of the situation. I can deal with it.
And if this whole thing doesn't work out... if we can't get something compelling built or can't grow the user base or can't monetize, and we have to close up shop. Then what? I'll be upset, no doubt, and disappointed, but... I'll survive to die another day. I'll just get a job somewhere. I believe I'm employable and have no fear that I'll wind up homeless on the street.
So what's really the big risk? I mean, even in the worst case scenario, I'll learn something... I'll learn a lot, actually. It will build character and I'll meet a lot of great people along the way... and build a great relationship with Alex, too (or kill each other... either way).
Frankly, if you think about what I could gain or lose by taking this on vs. not taking it on, I think I've got a hell of a lot more to lose by not doing it.
links for 2007-09-26
-
Another point solution that will most likely be a feature of Path 101.
LiveBlogging The Cooper Union Brokaw Talk with Mike Bloomberg
Mario Cuomo is such a likable guy... He's giving a great intro for Bloomberg.
Ok, Mario, a little over the top intro for Brokaw...
Brokaw starts off pointing out his change of parties and changing baseball team affiliations.... obviously, this isn't word for word.
Should Lee Bolinger have allowed the President of Iran to speak of Columbia? Bloomberg gives a supportive free speech answer.
Should President Bush speak with the President Iran? We shouldn't be talking to him directly at a high level, but should be talking to every country on the face of the earth at some level. Inappropriate and incendiary to allow him to leave a wreath at Ground Zero.
Are we safer now than we were in '02 or '03?
Is Rudy Giuliani exploiting his role in 9/11, particularly during the last anniversary ceremonies?
He was invited, as were lots of other political figures. He was the Mayor at the time and the face of New York at the time... important to have him there.
How are the Democrats shaping up for '08?
I find both parties... rather... blame ourselves for instant, soundbite answers, allowing candidates to duck tough questions, because the public doesn't demand answers to tough questions. For both parties, we don't really grill the parties enough. The press should help us look at qualifications, information. This country is in big trouble... we've lost relationships. We've got trade issues. We're hurting our environment. We have very few friends in this world. We have a lot to be proud of and shouldn't be ashamed about what we bring to the party, but we have an arrogance and a go in alone approach. I don't know what the solution is for Iraq any more than anyone else does, but none of the choices are good... but the real problem is rebuilding relationships around the world and not go in alone. Why we tried before isn't important, but we can't do it anymore.
We have domestic problems, like healthcare. Western Europe spends less money than we do and has a higher life expectancy. What are we getting for our money? Current plans offered by candidates aren't realistic. At least they're trying. Mitt Romney at least instituted a plan. Socialized medicine doesn't seem to be working so bad in Europe. If I was a candidate, which I'm not, but you can keep a secret, right... well, because of the partisanship, there are things that you can't address and if you're running... if you're a democrat you just can't demand troops out fast enough, if you're a Republican, you can't say you want to raise taxes... the result is that we as voters don't get straight answers during the primaries.
Would you order a pullout of troops by April 15, 2008?
If you pull them out quickly, you lead to a massacre and destabilization... Look we want them out as soon as possible, but picking a date... there are no easy answers here. We need to find a way to get these people to live together, all the various groups... Jordan is a lynchpin in that region as well.
Does the President have a Plan B for Iraq?
You have to ask the President. You have to be willing to ask people, try things, but have courage to stick to your instinct. I wasn't party to the intelligence. I don't want to talk about how we got there. I don't know what I would have done. Congress certainly voted to go to war. Most congresspeople voted to go to war in the first place.
Has the President failed to ask this country enough?
One of the worst things we've ever done is treat returning soldiers the way we did in Vietnam. We have an all volunteer army and they still show up even though they know what they're going to face. You're right that the rest of us don't really feel the pain of this war, other than the families of those troops. Bush should find better ways to talk to the public about why we're there, not a partisan thing the way it is now. We don't trust the military leadership anymore. In many cases, we're not even supplying our troops with the right weapons systems because even creation of arms is a political activity. Back in Lexington many years ago, we're now like the British were there...fighting an insurgency... a trained military.
Shift gears... NYC has the most improved public school system in the country...
Don't thank me... thank the taxpayers, teachers, principals... the public has invested... teachers have gotten a 43% raise. We have a long ways to go. For decades, people said black and latino kids can't learn, so we created a two class education system. I'm very proud of the fact that the gap, even though its intolerable that it exists, is closing. Its easy to blame the unions for everything. Generally, the teachers are hardworking, flexible, honest.... I'm glad we have them. Generally, they're interested in improving the lot of their members. Truth of the matter is that Randi Weingarten has been able to deliver a lot. Joel Klein has been able to deliver a lot. It's been a good balance. It's an example of the fundamental thing you need to do is having accountability. We're a lot closer to having accountability than we've ever had. We're going to deliver report cards on the schools to the parents and sure people are going to scream, but we need to be able to talk honestly about the problems. Teachers want to work here. People want to work with an organization that is successful. We're even giving incentives for the really good people. Our teachers are working very hard and you can see the results. The results are there. Its a big school system.
Should there be a mix of charter schools and vouchers?
Competition in the public school system is good... even the UFT runs a charter school. Charter schools are places where you can innovate. There are things that have worked elsewhere that we're trying... we're trying things, not with public money, where we don't know if they are going to work... its worth trying. You take a 2000 person school and break it up into 4 and you get double, triple the graduation rates. With vouchers, there are just some fights you just can't win. Plus, I'm not really sure that vouchers really work.
Why wouldn't you run for President of the United States?
There are lots of candidates out there. There are other ways to make a contribution. I've been very lucky and modestly successful in business. I'd like to able to say that this administration really advanced the ball. My next career will probably be in philanthropy. I've got the best job... its a job where you have to deliver results. If I were to say that I want fifth avenue to run northbound tomorrow, you'd see signs changed and a cop on every corner, it might be a dumb idea, but you'd say it.
Just don't try it on the West Side, please...
Well, you know, we can be a model for everyone else here in this city. There are only 14 cities in this country with populations of more than 100k that are safer and you've probably never heard of most of them. We're going to drop the crime rate by a large amount... a record amount.
After Super Tuesday, if you're not happy the choices, are you absolutely ruling it out?
My first priority is a Subway Series... I'm not a candidate for President. The right question is what are the qualifications. We took great pains to have a scorecard of things that I promised... and its never a big story. People just focus on the things you haven't done. The public focuses on what does work. If you want to have a smile on your face, walk out with the belief that things are better than you think and things can get better. People are coming here and staying here. Even when countries hate us, people still come here. Its American freedoms, American science, but people still vote with their feet and they come here. One year, I closed six firehouses, raised property taxes and put a smoking ban in and if you can do that you can do anything.
I just made my own Facebook app in 5 minutes using Widgetbox
Widgetbox has just made public their new "roll your own Facebook app" app called Application Accelerator... I took my blog and made an app out of it in 5 minutes.
It doesn't do much of anything, but it's pretty friggin' cool that I was able to make an application that anyone can download right now. Go ahead... let's see how many users the "This is going to be BIG" app can get.
So now I guess I'm a Facebook developer, too.
Go here and create your own Facebook app...