Venture Capital & Technology, nextNY Charlie O'Donnell Venture Capital & Technology, nextNY Charlie O'Donnell

BDI Convergence Conference - Discount to nextNY members

nextNY is helping BDI get the word out about its Convergence 2007 conference this Monday, and in return, all nextNY members are getting a discounted rate to the conference.  Check it out!



Present

Convergence 2007

The Future of Advertising, Communications & Media

About The Event

This full day conference will gather the best and brightest minds to explore how the communications industry is converging. The internet's impact on advertising, pr, and media continue to create major changes in the way organizations and individuals interact. Businesses and consumers are embracing social media, web video, and environmentalism. Communications professionals are challenged more than ever to measure ROI on their initiatives while embracing new and sometimes immature cutting edge tactics. We will explore case studies and provide a platform for highly regarded thought leaders to share their successes, failures and lessons learned. We will also invite the best of breed product and solution providers to share their perspectives on the changing face of communications.

Case Study: Harnessing the Power of User Generated Media at Toyota Motor Company
Bruce Ertmann, Corporate Manager, Consumer Generated Media, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. Inc.
As a global leader, Toyota is on the forefront of innovative ways to support its brand and deepen relationships with consumers and dealers. Bruce Ertmann will share his case studies and lessons learned about how one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world embraces consumer generated media as an important part of its overall branding and communications strategy.

Case Study: Results through Convergence: McDonald's Use of New Communication Vehicles to Engage Consumers
Heather Oldani, Director of Communications, McDonald's
As an industry leader, McDonald's continues to seek new ways to reach consumers in order to meaningfully engage them with the brand and to drive awareness and trial for new products and promotions. With the media landscape continually changing, as well as consumers' preferred channels for receiving information, the Communications Team at McDonald's USA has gone beyond traditional media relations to new communication vehicles to help launch new products and to help build brand trust, often times in close collaboration with marketing. The case study presentation will focus on the results delivered from this close collaboration combined with the use of vehicles for two product launches and the company's efforts to reach Moms with brand trust messaging.

Case Study: Casio's Partnership with YouTube To Launch The "YouTube Camera"
Melissa Keklak, PR Director, Casio
Casio has teamed up with YouTube to help establish itself as an innovative company among younger consumers by equipping some of its newest digital cameras with a YouTube Capture mode. The electronics company secured an exclusive agreement with YouTube to provide software on four of its cameras. "We've always been a youthful-type, trendy company," Melissa Keklak, PR director, Casio told PR Week. However, some of Casio's innovations have been overlooked in the competitive digital camera market, she explained. But with this effort, Casio's PR goal is to be known as "the YouTube camera" and the first in the market to offer this technology, Keklak added.Outreach efforts include promoting the agreement to print, broadcast, online, and new-media outlets. The second phase of the campaign involves giving cameras to editors to review the YouTube mode. Later this year, Casio will launch a contest to raise awareness about the YouTube-enabled cameras.

Case Study: Social Networking Meets Madison Avenue - Future Opportunities & Lessons Learned from myYearBook.com, the fastest growing social networking site on the internet
Geoff Cook, CEO, myYearBook.com

style="COLOR: black; FONT-FAMILY: 'Arial','sans-serif'"

>www.myYearbook.com is the fastest growing social network on the Internet for 13 to 21 year olds and the only one started by 2 high school students.  They recently announced that the site logged a phenomenal 70 percent increase in traffic over the course of just one month from 2.8 million unique visitors to an astounding 4.6 million.   Geoff Cook will share the inside scoop on how to create and execute successful marketing partnerships between online social networks and brands.  He will focus on how to best work with social networking sites from both pr and advertising perspectives. 


Blogged with Flock

Read More
Random Stuff Charlie O'Donnell Random Stuff Charlie O'Donnell

2000+ dudes subscribing via RSS... one of you has got to be decent...

Please dig/tag/twit/reblog, etc: 

This just came in from my friend Grace...   feel free to leave a comment with a link to yourself and Grace will pick the best ones to forward to her friend:

All,

If you are on this list, it is because I have dated you and/or I think very highly of you. I believe that good people surround themselves with good people, and in truth, it is your friends that I am really after. Before I get ahead of myself, let me explain...

I have a very good friend who is single at the moment.  After a sting of pseudo relationships that haven't amounted to anything substantial, I've decided to intervene and scatter some seeds on her behalf.  (Call it naive, but I believe we are all connected and that the happiness of one person can, in some small way, benefit us all.  Plus it's just fun!)  Ok, back to my friend! I can't for the life of me figure out why this girl is single- she's funny, sharp, she's 31, she's hot and she has substance. She comes from a great family and has great teeth. She is endlessly entertaining and endearing.  She has fantastic fashion sense.  At the end of the day, I adore her and want to help her find "the one".

So this is where you come in. Do you have any friends who could potentially be "the one" for this fantastic woman? Now, some of you might be wondering, "Why not me?".  I don't want to set her up with you for one of the following reasons (it varies from person to person, but I'm sure you can figure out which category you fall into).

Reasons Why You Might not Qualify
1. I know you, and I don't think she would like you :)
2. We've dated and I'm not that generous
3. You already have a girlfriend or are married

Ok, but seriously, think about your friends, co-workers, and family members. Do you know any stand-up guys with good character who have their lives in order and are in a place (emotionally, logistically -she's in NY, and financially) to meet someone really great? If so, please let me know and I will send along her contact info. or something along those lines.  Tis the season folks, let's make this work!

Hope to hear from you!
<3,
Grace

PS-I'm not attaching a photo because I think it's unnecessary. She's hot. All my friends are hot. Get over it.
PPS-It's not me! Really...swear!
*Also, feel free to forward!*

Blogged with Flock

Read More
Charlie O'Donnell Charlie O'Donnell

Balducci's on 14th and 8th...


Balducci's on 14th and 8th..., originally uploaded by ceonyc.

....hanging out until my meeting at the Googleplex.

Read More
Charlie O'Donnell Charlie O'Donnell

Commute to Gotham City


Commute to Gotham City, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Read More
Charlie O'Donnell Charlie O'Donnell

Me, Nana, and My Cousin Dave


Charlie and cousin Dave with Nana, originally uploaded by ptrain.

She swears she's 5'2'', but last time I checked, I was 5'11''...

Read More
Charlie O'Donnell Charlie O'Donnell

Breakfast at the Vegas


Breakfast at the Vegas, originally uploaded by ceonyc.

Read More
Random Stuff Charlie O'Donnell Random Stuff Charlie O'Donnell

Put this in your pipe and smoke it

This is my website. If you don’t want to hire me for this transparency, maybe I don’t want to work for you. If you don’t want to date me for this exposure, maybe I don’t want to date you. And if you can’t handle this, there are millions of other sites you should probably be reading. Because anonymous just isn’t for me - I want you to know me and accept me and to support me. If not, find something else to read.
PeterWKnox.com

Blogged with Flock

Read More
Venture Capital & Technology Charlie O'Donnell Venture Capital & Technology Charlie O'Donnell

Social aggregation and interoperability: Leave Humpty Dumpty in pieces and I'll pick him up as I please

Even though I don't use it myself, I've been recommending Tumblr to everyone I know who is just starting to blog.  It's an easy way to share yourself on the web. However, it's making quite a mess out of my social data consumer habits.

A year ago, this is how I consumed social data:    

When someone blogged, I consumed the feed on Newsgator, occasionally clicking through.  Now and then, I'd get someone that would post a Flickr photo or a daily post of links from del.icio.us, but that wasn't so bad.  The Flickr photos were curated and the del.icio.us posts aggregated all the links of the day in one daily post.  Other than that, I was socially connected to particular groups of people on each service, which allowed me to customize my own consuming habits.  I could decide who I wanted to be connected to on Twitter, Flickr, etc... and how I wanted their data.  I could follow you on Twitter, but keep you off my phone.  Each service had its own relevent set of controls.  I could completely opt-out from some services entirely...  I don't use Hype Machine at all, for example.

Now, we've got a lot more interoperability among these various services and a new social aggregation/curation tool in Tumblr.  It's made posting and publishing very easy, but consuming a total nightmare.

Here's what my consuming habits look like now:

It's like someone let John Madden lose on my feeds.

So now, for one, I've got two feeds for one person in my Newgator.  Which Fred do I follow?  Social Fred or business Fred?   If I follow both, I've got overlap, because Fred is not Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde.. he's the same guy...  and you can't completely pull him apart, so he sometimes posts the same thing in both places.  On top of that, God forbid your connected to someone on multiple interoperable services.  They can take a picture, upload it to Flickr, which automatically sends it to Flickr, which also passes it on to their blog.  By the time I get back to my desk, I've seen or heard about the same goddamn Flickr photo three or four times across multiple services.  Not only did I get the Twitter of that photo on my phone, but then all your Twitters go into your Tumblr and I get to see the Twitter of the Flickr photo which was also in your blog and in my Flickr contacts page!!  Argh!

And I didn't even add Facebook, where I also saw that photo and the Twitter about the photo in my newsfeed.  Luckily for me, few of my Facebook friends are Newsgator friends.

Wait.. do I have Newgator friends? Or was that E-mail friends I was thinking of? My friends are everywhere now... I just want to get some fuckin' work done! 

I've even got them in the sidebar of my browser, where I got to see the Twitter of the photo and the photo itself as well in Flock.  And must we see every single del.icio.us bookmark as a separate entry in your Tumblr feed?  Do you know what its like to try and consume a Tumblr feed in a mobile RSS reader?   

Everytime I go to Galpert's RSS feed, there's like 86 unread posts in there, and his Tumblr feed isn't the only one.  I've already unsubscribed from some others.  It's not that I don't want your daily minutia...  I want them on a system with controls that make sense.  I want them drifting by me as SMS messages on the phone through Twitter, not clogging up my RSS reader. I want to be the aggregator.  We keep telling mainstream publishers to microchunk, but now the digerati is putting Humpty Dumpty back together again, and stripping out all the useful levers I used to be able to pull to filter my experience.   There's no way for me to subscribe to Fred without a bunch of overlap, or risk missing out on stuff.  I could leave him on Twitter, because his Twits go to Tumblr, but then I could never direct message him and then I'd also lose the realtime factor. Thunderdome for feeds sucks....   All feeds enter, one feed leaves, because its never really just one feed, and then your audience loses control over their consumption habits. 

Blogged with Flock

Tags: , , , , ,

Read More
Charlie O'Donnell Charlie O'Donnell

links for 2007-11-23

Read More
It's My Life Charlie O'Donnell It's My Life Charlie O'Donnell

Thanks, Again

I'm just going to update last year's Thanksgiving post, because, thankfully, a lot of the same things I was grateful for last year are still around, but I do have some notable new additions, of course.

In my family, Thanksgiving is pretty much about eating...    but we're Italian, so that's to be expected.  Still, it's nice to actually stop stuffing your face for a second and think about what you're thankful for.   Here's my list.   If you blog a list of what you're thankful for, tag it "thanksgivinglist" on del.icio.us...    I'd love to see what everyone else appreciates...  and when you write the list, don't forget to tell others to tag it as well.

  1. Most importantly, I'm thankful for my family...  My parents, my grandmothers (both 90 in February), and my brothers and nieces.  It hasn't been an easy year for everyone, but we're all still here and getting by.
  2. SANY0023SANY0064 SANY0030SANY0042

  3. I'm thankful that Shri introduced me to Mere (@ptrain)--the needle in the proverbial haystack.  I wish she was closer, but what can ya' do?  I look forward to her entry into the blog world come winter break and her entry into my world at some undetermined point in the future.  :)
  4. I'm thankful to be working on Path 101-- a project I am incredibly passionate about.  I had no idea this was what I'd be doing a year ago, which shows you how unpredictable life can be, but I'm very fortunate to have the support of enough people who believe in me to help me and Alex get this off the ground.  I'm also very thankful for having convinced found Alex and convinced him to join in the first place--we make a great team.
  5. I'm thankful for great friends--some really special people in my life.  My schedule is always crazy, but a handful of people have managed to hold on for the ride...   some are new and some are old, and some are old friends that have become new in a way... coming back from college or grad school to continue and strengthen friendships from the past...     To Brian, Suzie, Allison, Deirdre, Pastore, Ryan, Tommy, MaryAnn... thanks for sticking around.  I'm also thankful for my friend Amy and her new little girl.

  6. SANY0020 SANY0045
    SANY0079Picture 040 
    Picture 392

  7. I'm thankful for my health...  no major softball, kayaking, dodgeball, football, biking, skiing, or driving injuries quite yet...    *knocks on wood*.  Speaking of which, I'm thankful for my various dodgeball and softball teams...  Dodge This! is moving on to its seventh or eight season, I lost count, and although we had a Mets-like slide this year, Four of Us Had Lyme Disease is still together after five seasons of its own.
  8. I'm thankful for the Downtown Boathouse... not just the buildings
    or the activities, but for the community.  It's my second home five
    months out of the year and I've made some terriffic friends through
    it.  More importantly, it's given me a new appreciation for the
    conservation of nature in this city and a new perspective on New York.

  9. Picture 066

  10. I'm thankful for this city...   the only place I've ever really wanted to live and ever have.  There's no place like it anywhere else, and I couldn't ask for anything more than to always be able to put a roof over my head here and to be happy with my life here.

  11. Photo 038

  12. I'm thankful for the success of nextNY....  or rather...  I'm thankful that it's success has enabled me to meet so many fantastic people that I can relate to and who have a vested interested in developing the NYC technology community.  That's really what has been the most fun for me...    the people are great and my new geek friends are too many to name.
  13. And lastly...  I'm thankful for this blog.  Seriously.  Blogging has led me to three jobs (because I'm pretty sure I'd still be looking for a tech partner if I wasn't a blogger), two relationships (directly or indirectly), an adjunct gig, countless connections with really interesting people, on time furniture delivery and an elementary school reunion.  It's been a great sounding board for my ideas and a lightning rod for people with similar interests.  Thanks for reading... thanks for commenting, thanks for sharing on your own blogs and linking over...    Your attention is much appreciated.

Blogged with Flock

Read More
Venture Capital & Technology Charlie O'Donnell Venture Capital & Technology Charlie O'Donnell

Poking the Bear: Ok, that's it... I've had enough. Vote for Scott and Fred in the Alley 100 People's Choice

So, first it was Richie Hecker self-marketing his way up to the top spot in Nate's Silicon Alley 100 People's Choice "Most Influential" Award Powered by BricaBox.

Now we can add Hilary Rowland, fashion model and owner of Hilary.com, the current leader with 40+ votes.

It really bothers me when people try to co-opt what could otherwise be a really interesting exercise and conversation for their own purposes.

To counter, I'm actively marketing for who I really think really deserves it, Fred Wilson and Scott Heiferman.  Please do me a favor and vote for them so we knock the self-marketers off the top of the list.

You want to talk influence?  I gotta believe that running the New York Tech Meetup, and actually Meetup.com itself, should count for a lot more than half the votes that Hilary got.  Sure, Scott's no Ford fashion model, but this ain't no beauty contest.  (And if it's just about pure traffic, MY BLOG has more traffic according to Alexa than Hilary.com, and a ton more inbound links according to Technorati... but don't vote for me, b/c others have accomplished a lot more than me.)  You want to talk influential women in the NYC Tech Scene?  How about Ester Dyson or Nancy Peretsman?  Laurel Touby anyone?   Are $23 million exits now chump change?

And Fred Wilson?  This is an influence contest, right?  And he's 11th??  In NYC??  Are we serious?  Ok, anyone who has ever tried to get Fred to link to their blog, use their widget, or invest in their startup, go over there, sign up for BricaBox, and vote for Fred.

I know it doesn't mean anything who wins, but there are just too many self interested people trying to grab the community spotlight lately.  We need to recognize the achievements of people who have long track records of real impact.  One thing that I think the younger folks in NYC need to realize is that there was a New York tech community way before Web 2.0, nextNY, Founder's Club, or any of this other stuff.  Part of me feels like campaigning to run yourself up past the likes of Fred, Scott, Ester, Nancy, David Rose, Kevin Ryan, etc. is a real disrespect to the groundwork that lots of other people laid while we were still in junior high school.

Go to BricaBox and turn in an informed vote!

Blogged with Flock

Read More
Venture Capital & Technology Charlie O'Donnell Venture Capital & Technology Charlie O'Donnell

Does every site need search?

We're working with a UI/Design expert for Path 101 and we've been having an interesting little debate about putting a search box on the front page.

Here are some reasons you'd typically want a search box on the front page:

- People understand what to do with a search box.  You see a box, you type something in it, you get back what you asked for. 
- Cuts down clicks--gets people right to what they want.
- It has a high chance of engaging users.  Like moths to a light, users will type something in a search box if you put one on the page.
- It gives you data on what people are looking for.
- It is neat and uncluttered, versus trying to put up links to every possible thing the user could have asked for.

However, there are some things you need to think about before following conventional wisdom.

First, what are your chances of getting the user what they want as a result of that search?

Search relevance isn't easy.  You have a lot working against you.  First, no matter what you ask for in that search box, people will undoubtedly type in all sorts of random, irrelevant crap--i.e. stuff you don't have results for on your site.  Search is chaos. 

If your site is about selling a specific product, like a 3/4'' inch bolt, no other size bolt will do.  However, if you're searcher is just looking for "stuff that holds something in place" and wouldn't mind browsing bolts, clamps, glue and other various fasteners, your search is going to have to be pretty intelligent to understand the relationships between those items.  No open source free text search is going to figure that out.  Search promises to answer your question, but don't underestimate how complicated (or simple) the question may be.

So, if you can't provide relevant search results to your users, what's the point of having it?  Let's say 50% of the time you find something relevant for a user.  What do you think happens the other 50% of the time?  I'll bet you that you lose most of those people, because they're assuming that search is pretty comprehensive and that a search that comes up empty means you can't help them.  However, if you had something closer to a site map or directory on the front page, a la Craigslist, not finding something relevant there, in all likelihood, does mean that you just don't have what they're looking for.  However, at least then you have a chance at guiding that user to something else--a higher chance than you would after you get a "Your search turned up 0 results" message.

Does search=a quickie?

What do you want users doing on your site?  Coming in and taking out just what they want with surgical precision or do you want them to sit and stay a while?  What kind of behavior does search encourage?  Sure, you don't want to make it difficult to get people want they want, but I also think you want more than just a millisecond to show someone what else they can do on the site. 

The well informed click

The power of search is that it gives you information about what the user is looking for.  What it doesn't give you is any idea about who the user is--the context for the search.  That would give you significantly more relevant results.  Consider this example...  You go to a healthcare site and the first thing it asks you is if you are a doctor or a patient.  One click later, you have an enormous about of context and information about what kinds of results you should be showing your users.  Imagine if you had typed in "flu" in just a plain old search box, because you had it, but
all the results you got where "What to prescribe your patients when they have the flu?" and "What to charge for a flu shot?"  You'd think the site was just for doctors and probably move on.  I've been thinking a lot about the "well informed click"--the idea that you can setup your UI in such a way that each click tells you something about your user and what they're looking for. 

The real searchers go to Google: SEO as a replacement for your own search box

Particularly at the beginning of your site's existence, most people looking for something specific on your site won't start out at your home page--they'll start out at Google.  Even when I know that IMDB is the most likely destination when I type in the name of a movie, I still don't go to IMDB first, I start at Google.  So that begs the question...  who winds up at your front door.  My theory is that it's two types of users--people who came in via a recommendation and people who typed something general about what your site does. 

People who came in on a recommendation often come through a well informed click.  Path101.com visitors will come from a link in TechCrunch telling them that Path 101 is the site to go to if you're not sure what you want to do with your life.  When those people click, they're raising their hand and saying, "Yes, that general concept sounds good.. take me to that."  They know a little something about what's being offered and are willing to have you tell them what the site is all about.  They're not "on a mission" to get in and out as quickly as possible with a specific nugget of info or a price or song, etc. 

Similarly, anyone who winds up at Path 101's front door will most likely be typing things into Google like, "How do I figure out what I want to do?" and "Picking a career".  Hopefully, if our SEO is worth a damn, anything more specific like, "Picking a career in finance" would take them to a more specific page within the site.   It will be a while before someone goes to their computer and says, "I want to find a career in finance" , automatically thinks to go to the homepage of Path 101 first, and THEN looks to do a specific search for finance careers.  Basically, we're saying that people either search for specific things at Google or go to your site's homepage because the general concept of what you have interests them, and they're willing to put you in the driver's seat.

 

Blogged with Flock

Tags: , , ,

Read More
Venture Capital & Technology Charlie O'Donnell Venture Capital & Technology Charlie O'Donnell

Poking the bear on TechCrunch 11 -- What did the sponsors get for their money?

I went to TechCrunch 11 last night in Boston.  It was great to catch up with some people I didn't expect to see there as well as some east coast scene regulars. 

However, the one thing that struck me about it was how little value sponsors seemed to really be getting out of this thing.  A few weeks ago, Phillip from Snooth, the wine recommendation service, told me that he doesn't go to tech events... he goes to wine events.  That just made so much sense to me and it really put all these big splashy launches and attempts to get on the big tech blogs just seem kind of a waste of time from a marketing perspective.

Take IDG for example.  I met those guys a few years ago when they pitched their fund to GM and I think they're smart.  But, I couldn't help but think that, if they just held this party on their own, just as many people would have come.  Do VCs really need more inbound traffic?  Isn't the promise that a VC is going to be somewhere enough to make a startup want to show up to an event?  What did they really need TechCrunch for?  If anything, I think the TechCrunch association brings with it a lot of fanboy traffic and noise.  I think they would have been better off throwing some kind of "open house" or some kind of innovative session showing a live VC pitch, their reaction, etc., with follow up drinks.  That seems like a much better place to get the word out that you're an entrepreneur-friendly, approachable, value-adding VC, versus just paying for everyone's drinks.

Even if it did bring in a bunch of entrepreneurs, the crowded bar scene wasn't exactly that conducive to conversation, nor would it have been particularly easy to find the right people you want to talk to anyway.  Maybe it helps elevate their name in the community to associate themselves with TechCrunch, but I gotta figure they shouldn't have any trouble doing that on their own by sponsoring a BarCamp or something.

For the sponsor companies, it seemed even less valuable.  Mzinga "launched" last night, right in the middle of the little demo mosh pit they had going at this place.  It looks like they've build some kind of Web 2.0 intranet--certainly not a direct to consumer product.  Who could they have possibly met in this crowd that would have made the money they spent to be there worth it?  Wouldn't they have been better off going to some Enterprise 2.0 conference, or, even better, hosting a thoughtful discussion on Web 2.0 in the Enterprise with a number of companies in that space, along with some high profile CEO's.

That's one seriously underused method of publicity as far as I'm concerned--smaller, focused public conversations with and for your customers.  I'm going to be working with some people in the NYC area community to do something in January around Web 2.0 and the education market and I'm sure make some great Path 101 connections through it.  That would be a lot more efficient use of our time (and more cost efficient) than to spend a lot of money sponsoring some big party. 

I almost kinda felt bad for some of the companies there last night.  It felt like they spent a lot of money to be there, and the ROI of randomly handing out buttons and flyers and stickers to an audience that probably wasn't even relevant to what they were doing seemed sort of desperate. 

Buzz doesn't make a company...not in the long term.  Putting good products in front of a relevant audience does--and the Web 2.0 blogger/TechCrunch fanboy world just isn't a relevant audience for so many of these startups.  More so than not, it just feels like a good place to get knocked for not using enough AJAX or not being as technologically sophisticated as your competitor, even if that's not what that market is asking for at all.  If Path 101 gets ripped apart or praised by TechCrunch, it's really not going to make a difference in the long term viability of the company, but burning all our cash on splashy event sponsorships definitely would, and not in a good way.

I could be wrong, of course, and I'd love to hear about all the really valuable connections people made last night to justify the expense--there were some good people and good companies there and I'd love to hear that their efforts were successful.

Blogged with Flock

Read More
Baseball and Other Sports Charlie O'Donnell Baseball and Other Sports Charlie O'Donnell

Did you know this was a rule? You can't pay for performance in baseball?

Major League Rule 3 (b) (5), which states no contract shall be approved "if it contains a bonus for playing, pitching or batting skill or if it provides for the payment of a bonus contingent on the standing of the signing club at the end of the championship season."
ESPN - A-Rod, Yankees agree on outline of contract - MLB

Blogged with Flock

Read More