Links I've recently tagged on del.icio.us:

The Rays have home-field advantage because the AL won the All-Star Game this season. That game was won by Rays pitcher Scott Kazmir and lost by Phillies pitcher Brad Lidge. Evan Longoria drove in the tying run with an eighth-inning hit off former Phillies closer Billy Wagner.

The Baseball Analysts: World Serious Predictions

The most recent tracks I've been listening to on last.fm:

Last Monday night, we had a board call and Hunter (Walk....Our 3rd board member) said to us, "If you need me to be the asshole, I will. Here's the plan I want to see and the questions I want to see answered by the next time we talk."

The next day, Alex and I had one of the best product discussions we've had since we first started building. We agreed upon a clear set of priorities and next steps. It touched off a week of great product planning and iteration. Having a bit of pressure from a demanding outsider asking tough questions--the right questions--really kicked us into gear. With the distraction of fundraising, we hadn't reengaged on our product thinking and the roadmap clearly needed a bit of repaving.

It's not surprising, either--because it's often the role I play when startups come to me seeking product feedback. With a singular focus on user value and a disregard for maintaining the pleasentries of day to day coworker repore, I can play the asshole role for a company clearly needing focus and product direction. It's just a matter of being direct, being constructively critical, and leaving nothing as too sacred to question.

It's difficult for the person driving the product vision to be its most demanding critic, so having a dedicated outsider can be more than good housekeeping. It can be a mission critical discipline.

more music charts

I can't wait for election, because, no matter who wins, that will be one less thing for us to be uncertain about. When you see the markets bounce around a few hundred points everyday, you know it's because they're in the dark--just not enough real information about the future so they're going on gut and emotion.

I think you'll see a runup right after the election, especially if there's a clear and decisive victory that gets called before we all head to bed. Then, it will be up to whoever wins to follow through in the next year+ on the hope for a better tomorrow that has been entrusted to them.

Powell cites McCain's inability to provide clear answers on the economy, his campaign campaign tactics, and the Palin nomination.   He said that Obama displays an intellectual curiousity and vigor, and brings the kind of approach we need.

"Because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilties... as well as his substance...he has met the standard... he is a transformational figure... and for that reason I'll be voting for Senator Barack Obama."

Links I've recently tagged on del.icio.us:

You just need to do some keyword research, and then make a blog post that is optimized for the keywords that your ideal women are looking for.

Homethinking is a NYC based startup in the real estate sector whose DNA lies in data--turning vast amounts of public data on housing sales, real estate agents and demographics on its head to empower buyers and sellers.  For example, you can lookup the sales record of that agent who keeps pestering you to keep them in mind when you're ready to sell.

Recently, they released their Compare Neighborhoods feature--actually, I think of it like a translator.  Moving from San Fran to New York?  Check out what Big Apple neighborhoods are demographically and socioeconomically similar to the Misson or Noe Valley.

Here's a comparison for someone moving from Russian Hill into Brooklyn.  Apparently, they should move to Carroll Gardens.

Here's what I like about it:

They took their existing dataset and thought about the real life problems that people need to solve.  Interestingly enough, we're working on the same thing now at Path 101--trying to figure out how you could get into a particular job, industry, or company, given your current resume.  Just getting a user from Point A to Point B is fantastic feature that more people need to think about because:

1) It simplifies the value proposition by making it goal oriented.

2) It informs you about the user--where are they now and where do they want to go is a lot more information than most people get out of a registration process.

3) It's functionality that could live outside of the registration-only part of the site, so you're proving your value before you ask for anything.

Here's what I think could be better... or at least improve the effectiveness.

Building something like this as a black box is really hard--and if you don't get it 100% right, you really don't give someone a lot of degrees of freedom or ways to improve it themselves.  Maybe they want to emphasize a certain criteria more than others.  Not only is that interesting data for you to record, but it keeps the user engaged and puts the ability to get their questions answered at the tips of their fingers.

So, I'd want to see this in a much more open format--where I could actually see the stats that are being compared.

The other thing I might do, and this could really get into some heavy, ugly, natural language/semantic analysis, is to pair up with Outside.in to parse out what people are talking about in each neighborhood.  I have a feeling you'd come up with a lot of interesting keywords around restaurant types, ethnicities, and all sorts of interesting descriptions like "quaint", "hipster", "young", "families", etc...   Either way, pulling Outside.in newsfeeds should be a must for any site that has anything to do with Neighborhoods.

A survey might also be interesting...   like, "Do you have a family?" "Are there a lot of places to take your kids?"   I'll bet you that you could do 20 questions that could tell a lot about a neighborhood that would improve the quality of these matches or give users more detail.

So check this out...  what did you think?  Does it make anyone want to move to Bay Ridge in Brooklyn?

Note: While I had totally meant to get around to writing about this feature release, I didn't really focus on it until Niki answered the call to participate in my Donor's Challenge.  For a $200 donation, I agreed to review the Neighborhoods feature.  Want in?  E-mail me!  charlie at path101 dot com

That's what we're doing isn't it? When we blog, we tweet, we take photos...the minute we set something to "public" (or don't change it) we secretly hope that someone gets our message... that one hundred million bottles wash up on our shore.

Do you know what your hundred million bottles look like? Is it a person? Is it a job? Is it money?

Is it anything as long as its different than what you have?

Think about what it is... Don't tell me. Just think about it, and pass this on...

Why are markets for people horrifically bad?

Finding the right hire? Extremely difficult.

Finding someone reasonable to date? Darn near impossible.

The market makers--job sites, dating sites, extract a lot of value in the middle and never really seem to come through.

I think part of the reason is the lack of data and how to understand it. I want to throw my blog at a dating site and have it understand the semantics: The food I eat, the sports teams I follow, the career I'm in, and the places I frequent. But why stop at my blog? Throw in Twitter, last.fm, del.icio.us, and Flickr, too.

Sites like Spoke, Naymz, and Rapleaf will just point to people and their digital footprints, but no one really takes the time to understand them across various services.

It's pretty obvious that I'm a Met fan, regardless of what I list in any prepopulated field on a social networking site. I've talked about the Mets on my blog and I have Flickr pics of Shea Stadium.

Careerwise, it's also pretty obvious that I know something about social media from my digital presence...but the search that people really want is who in NYC has 4-8 years experience and just talks about "users" the most.

Its not just more data, but also understanding the data in its context.

The most recent tracks I've been listening to on last.fm:

In his "Getting the UnParty Started" post, Arrington announced that Seesmic, a company that raised $12 million with no business plan whatsoever, is laying off seven people--more than a third of the company.

And I'm not being unfair when I say they have no business model...  that comes straight from the founder, Loic LeMuir, who commented on Mark Evans' blog by saying that even though his traffic is growing, "It does not mean I have a business model."

Are we supposed to believe this is environmental? 

It's not.  This is the specific case of a company that lacks a business model, isn't a new idea, and one that got overfunded.  It got funded by Valley VCs?  Really... you're kidding me? 

Let's compare Seesmic with New York City-based Paltalk to show why we shouldn't act like Seesmic's layoffs are the End of Days...   Sure, there's definite trouble in the economy, but the extent to which people are telling that the sky is falling and the fact that "Silicon Valley woke up to the fact that something had changed," as John Borthwick put it, "...is a distraction."

Innovative new idea?

Hardly.  If you narrow the definition of your space to microscopic levels, anything can seem new, but rather than think of Seesmic as the first embedded video comment platform (how big is that industry?), let's just say that it's generally in the business of creating video communities.  That would make it about three and a half years late to the party, as Paltalk got its first round of funding back in 2004, comparied to late 2007 with Seesmic. 

Business Model and Financing

Like Loic said, Seesmic has no business model, and yet they raised $12 million in less than a year.  You can't even say, unlike what Hulu seems to be doing, that you could slap advertising in there to generate revenue, because these are conversations.  Who wants an ad for Chili's right before a blog comment? 

Paltalk, on the other hand, has been profitable for a couple of years on just a single round of $6 million in financing.  Their users pay for advanced functionality--the freemium model. 

Built for a Mass Audience

Paltalk took something that people have been doing on the web for years--talking on IM and in chat rooms, and made it more interesting with video technology.  It was clear that this was something that mainstream users were already interested in doing. 

Seesmic on the other hand, built around asynchronous video commenting, doesn't seem to be gaining traction at all--not surprising because commenting in general wasn't something that was really that prevalent on most blogs.  Plus, the audience of bloggers and blog commenters is much smaller than people who IM or chat.

Most posts get one or two comments, but you wouldn't know that if the only blogs you read are A-listers.   Disqus bucked that trend by making commenting easier and more responsive to the user--engaging listserv style discussions by e-mail to power blog comment conversation, but Seesmic makes leaving a comment more cumbersome  

Business Development

Most people encounter Seesmic on the blogs of A-listers--so it's not surprising that A-lister Valley types are the ones who funded it.  Paltalk, however, makes deals and works with media partners and groups that cater to the mainstream--like Opie and Anthony's morning talk radio show.  Have you ever sat in a random Paltalk chatroom?  You hear people from all across the country and the world--not Web 2.0 blog pundits, but just regular "Joe Six Packs" talking about their lives.  It's really fascinating, actually. 

I'm tired of the pundits and the VCs telling companies that the end of days is near, after those very same folks talked up and funded... over funded, rather, all of these companies that they're now shaking their fingers at telling to cut out unnecessary spending and work on getting to profitability.  Wasn't that what they were supposed to be doing in the first place??   Why do any of these companies have extra money to spend anyway?

My company is talking about a $2 million round that takes us from 4 people to 8 people and our marketing plan takes us pounding the pavement to professional societies, alumni associations--i.e. the mainstream--solving a mainstream painpoint by helping people with their careers.  It kind of makes me sick, actually, to see that so much of the capital in these overfunded, underfocused deals will go up in smoke, and unfortunately will lessen enthusiasm for solid ideas from conservative entrepreneurs with them in the cloud of uncertainty and fear that has now been cast. 

Seems like everytime I turn around, PBS is asked for cash and trying to give away some kind of totebag or DVD or something.  Well, they've been around forever and people seem to enjoy the totebags, so why don't I try giving something away to really kick up the fundraising for my Donor's Choose campaign?

Here's an idea.  I've been thinking lately that I haven't had much of an opportunity to try out new web services and could use the inspiration of other people's product ideas flowing through this blog.  One of my favorite things to do is give feedback and take the product side of my brain for a spin around a new web app.   At the same time, I get pinged by lots of PR people to link to their clients.

I also feel like all I've been doing lately is reblogging anti-Sarah Palin videos and writing fuzzy introspective posts, when the TIGTBB you all used to know was more full of "Web 2.0 with a grain of salt".

So here's what I'm going to do...

For any web service that contributes $200 to my Donor's Choose campaign, I'll review and link to your idea/service/company, etc on my blog, and if it's in NYC, I'll cc it to the nextNY blog.  If I get too many requests, next week I'll just up the req'd donation.

That doesn't mean you get a positive review, and it's going to be limited to one per day. (I figure I blog once a day anyway, so it's not going to take me any more time than usual...)   So, if I don't like what you're up to, I'll try to be super constructive, and I'll definitely take into consideration what stage you're at, but either way, you'll get feedback and hopefully some users.

So e-mail me at charlie dot odonnell at gmail dot com with a one pager and a link, I'll respond back with a "Sounds good" and then you toss your cash in.  I'll get to it within a day or two.

Here's an example...  I did this one for a friend the other day at no cost:

This is about MyJambi, which is a marketplace for services--good idea, big market, definite need...  but certainly not an easy execution problem.  This is what I sent over:

"Finally getting around to spending some time here... 

First impressions...

First thing it asks me to join.  People don't want to "join" anything... they want to get things done--either to get or give services...  joining is a distraction and kind of a played out task on the web.

The tougher person to sign up is the person who needs the service, I think.  If I offer resume help, and I want to promote myself, I'll go the extra mile b/c I'm trying to promote my business and ultimately I think I'll make money.  As the person requiring the service, though, I'm the one who needs to be impressed, so I think the site should be all about me.  myjambi.com should be offering services, while myjambi.com/vendors or something like that should be all about getting more people offering, and that's a separate marketing effort.

In terms of the profile pages, I think your titles and URL structure need more info...

When I Google "introduction to microfinance", I get teachstreet, but not your page.   Partly, I think that's because teachstreet also puts geo information in the URL, making it more likely to come up in various types of searches.  You should additionally have this guy's name in the URL, because that's another key term people will search on.   They also have the location in the title.

http://www.teachstreet.com/seattle-wa/finance/introduction-to-microfinance/cl-zu54lo6sg

http://www.myjambi.com/users/11549/economics-tutors/6620-introduction-to-microfinance

If I were you, I'd go strike biz deals with teachstreet and any other niche place that offers tutoring or other types of services.  If there's a social network for masseuses, it should be a one click effort to create a myjambi page to market yourself.... and you just strike some kind of affiliate deal with them.
In terms of how to get people on board to offer services, how about helping me out with how much to charge?  If you have enough data on hourly rates, both from service people and customers, you'd be able to tell me what the going rate for resume writers in NYC is.

One other idea...  build out pages for various services in different cities that are empty...  like Meetup does.  If you search pugs in Wasilla, Meetup won't come up empty... they'll allow you to setup a holding page of some sort that says you've indicated an interest in this... and it allows you to get notified if there's a critical mass of other people what want to meet up and talk about pugs. If I search for resume writers in NYC... and you don't have any yet...  you should create a page detailing how many people have been asking for this service.    Perhaps you should let me automatically create a craigslist ad or job post on various free job boards that takes me back to this page, so I can market the fact that I need this service.

One other thing I might consider is bundling these services.   For example, put together a character of a mom, and bundle all the services that a mom might need...  It makes it really easy for moms to know where to go on the site.  They may know they need a baby sitter, but then they might discover that other moms are also getting at home "mommy and me" workouts, which they didn't even know existed.
With bundle packages like this... groups of service people could work together to market, and you can better target your marketing.... otherwise you'll get an imbalance of different types of services.  Plus, that would be a differentiator for your site.   People really love those character types... they've been used a lot on Answerology and they're fun.

Logins...  pull back the logins!  When I click on a service provider's, I shouldn't have to login, because 1) They don't want anyone being prevented from seeing more info about them and 2) You haven't convinced me there's a reason for me to login yet.

Plus, what's weird is that I can google them and I get a public profile page that I don't need to login for.

Also, their name needs to be in that URL, like this:  http://www.myjambi.com//writers/first_last/6257-i-ll-help-you-write-your-essay

I'd even expose their availability, too...   but require a login to request a time...   and maybe not even a login... maybe just an e-mail address.... and then she can write back using a double blind match.com style listserv thingy to  talk to the person. "

Amazing. In the blink of an eye we've come from Web 2.0 mania to Limited Partner commitment defaults in VC funds. Wow... who turned on the lights in the club? Party's over, I guess.

"You don't have to go home, but ya can't stay here."

Anyway, Doomsday aside, the way venture capital works is that high net worth individuals and institutions (pension funds, endowments, insurance companies) make commitments to VC funds. Unlike hedge funds, however, they don't hand the money over day one--it gets drawn down as VCs find and fund deals. Some funds, like Accel, draw down chunks of their fund 5% at a time, just in case a deal needs some quick cash. Otherwise, Limited Partners generally have 10 business days from the day VCs request their money to pay up. If they don't, they can be in default, and lose their stake in the fund. If you really don't have the money, though, I guess that's not such a bad scenario.

From '00-'03, many dot com entrepreneurs and even some institutions (like banks) realized that, as a % of their shrinking wealth, they had overcommited to VC funds and either couldn't keep up with the capital calls or just didn't want half their savings tied up in VC funds.

Some of them had pieces of VC funds that had already been fully invested, others had relatively new commitments. Eiither way, they wanted out and that's where the VC secondaries market came into play.

How do I know this? When I was on the VC investment team at the GM Pension Fund (now PEQM), we were a major investor in secondaries. Not only did we back secondary funds, like Lexington Parters, who bought these commitments from others, but we did a number of transactions on our own, buying direct. One of our major purchases was a portfolio of VC funds sold after the crash, when VC funds seemed to b devaluing their portfolio and shutting down companies every quarter. It was a bloodbath and those who were newbie investors went running--right into the arms of long term institutional investors like ourselves that had been doing venture since 1979.

The most interesting portfolios we saw were the mostly unfunded ones, where investors had made big commitments to newly raised VC funds only to realize that they'd never be able to follow through.

So what's the going rate for an empty VC fund that has yet to draw down any capital? More than you think!

Some funds, like Kleiner, Sequioa, August, Accel, were seen as so attractive to investors and so difficult to get into, that people were paying money for completely unfunded commitments--just to get into the fund. The idea is that if you target a 15% return and you think a given fun will return 25%, then risks being equal, you'd actually pay up to put your money into it if you were limited in your access to other similar funds.

That was the exception, though. Most funds were sold at heavy discounts for the existing assets. The point is, there was never a shortage of investors looking for access to these funds. The idea was that if you bought in, made nice with the VC firm, and proved to be a stable source of capital, you could hopefully get into their next fund as well, plus make some money with your "value" bet on the existing assets.

Therefore, good firms with good LPs will always have someone waiting in the wings to take over their commitment. Also, some existing LPs have "ROFRs", which stands for right of first refusal. That means that before you think you're going to pick up a few pieces of the next Sequoia fund on the cheap, the existing investors will get a shot at it before you do.

If you do have a commitment to a top tier fund and you're looking to get out, drop me a line and I'll put you in touch with some folks who would be willing to take it off your hands. Just remember, when I say top tier, I don't mean Joe's Auto Body Shop and VC Fund.

I dusted off my analyst skills and crunched some data...

Since October 1, 1928, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has hit a 5 year low 28 times, including today.  Those days all clustered around three previous periods:

April 1942

May 1970

October of 1974

Even the crash of '87 didn't put us anywhere near historical 5 year lows for that period--investors were still way ahead.

If you went back put money into the market right at the close of any day that the market hit a 5 year low, here's what your returns would look like over the next year:

Average 1 year return: 36.1%

Average 3 year return: 13.3%

Even the worst cases didn't look so bad:

Minimum 1 year return: 16.5%

Minimum 3 year return: 9.1%

If I had any extra cash right now, I'd be a buyer.

Ten minutes that should effectively end the McCain-Palin campaign...