Earlier this month, two of the smartest people I know (and smart because they actually do their homework--like... you know... real research), danah boyd and Fred Stutzman did a good job casting a lot of doubt on the numbers used to support the "teens don't tweet" meme.  That didn't stop Claire Cain Miller from digging it up again. 

If you work for the New York Times (and you expect that paper to be a viable entity in the future), your content, it's quality, insight, analysis, etc. has to be better than everything else that's out there.  So when a NY Times tech story comes out, and it's at least three weeks behind where everyone else's head is at, full of inaccurate assumptions passed over as common knowledge, it really needs to get called out.  It's nothing personal against Ms. Miller.  I'm sure she's a lovely person, but she missed the mark here with this article.

So badly, in fact, that while I don't drink myself, I think it might be a fun game to do a shot every time there's a ridiculous assertion made about social media or just overall poor analysis of tech trends in her recent article "Who’s Driving Twitter’s Popularity? Not Teens". 

Ready... go:

"Kristen Nagy, an 18-year-old from Sparta, N.J., sends and receives 500 text messages a day. But she never uses Twitter, even though it publishes similar snippets of conversations and observations.

“I just think it’s weird and I don’t feel like everyone needs to know what I’m doing every second of my life,” she said.

DRINK!  So she doesn't feel like everyone needs to know what she's doing every second of her life, but according to a recent Nielsen study, Ms. Nagy exchanges more than 6 times as many text messages as the average teen--a report covered in the NY Times itself this year.  The average teen only texts back and forth 80 times--so while she many not feel like *everyone* needs to know what she's doing every second, it seems like *almost everyone* might be a better answer.  So, not only is she not the "average" teen, but she's also a bit hypocritical for saying that people don't need to know what she's doing all the time when she's texting like that.

"Her reluctance to use Twitter, a feeling shared by others in her age group..."

DRINK! This is so typical of MSM's reporting of tech trends.  Let's take one user and a nice lead quote and generalize a whole trend out of them.  So one Jersey Girl is reluctant to use twitter, and that's a "feeling shared by others in her age group. 

Here's a different example, for illustrative purposes:  "Bob is a teen and doesn't like black people, a feeling shared by others in his age group."  Are there other teens who have an issue with black people?  Sure... and funny enough a few of them are actually black--but by no means would I position that as representative of the entire teenage population. 

"Just 11 percent of its users are aged 12 to 17, according to comScore..."

DRINK! "Just..."  And what's that number supposed to be?  Well, let's start with the fact that teens make up less than 10% of the overall population of the United States.  Now throw in that, according to Nielen, somewhere around 60% of teens send text messages to friends or send messages through social networking sites.  So, as danah pointed out in her article, that means that if around 11 percent of Twitter users are 12-17, teens are actually way overrepresented on Twitter.  Comparatively, according to Quantcast, only 1% of the users on the NYTimes are teens. 

"That success has shattered a widely held belief that young people lead the way to popularizing innovations. "

DRINK!  Innovations are driven by the markets they're intended for.  At price points in the hundreds of dollars, many innovations are driven by non-teens...  like the Kindle or smartphones.  Teens didn't drive the growth in getting e-mail on your phone because they're not as focused on e-mail as business professionals are, nor are they as finacially capable of buying smartphones.  Blogging didn't become mainstream because of teens either.  The 2004 election is when the blogging tipping point came, and clearly that wasn't a bunch of political teens getting into the fray. 

Do teens drive fashion trends?  Perhaps.  Music?  Perhaps...  but I don't think there's anyone out there with a tech innovation thinking, "This is a tech product... we need to get teens using this right away!"  Imagine if the Garmin folks thought that.

“The traditional early-adopter model would say that teenagers or college students are really important to adoption,” said Andrew Lipsman, director of industry analysis at comScore. Teenagers, after all, drove the early growth of the social networks Facebook, MySpace and Friendster.

DRINK!  The early growth of Facebook among teens and college students came from the fact that YOU COULD ONLY GET ON IT WITH A .EDU E-MAIL ADDRESS!!  It wasn't as if teens just disproportionately flocked to it--they were the only people allowed in!  To position teens as critical to the growth of Facebook is like saying that people with drivers licenses are responsible for most car accidents--it's by definition, not a trend derived from any kind of intelligent analysis of the data.  Note that this wasn't part of Andrew's quote--it was the reporter's attempt to pass off factually incorrect "common knowledge" as a trend. 

Ms. Miller is wrong about Friendster, too.  Friendster's early adopters weren't teens--they were 20 somethings, as danah boyd points out:

"When Friendster launched, it was quickly inhabited by populations who had good reasons to connect with each other. By and large, the early adopters were living in a region different from their hometown (or living in their hometown post-college and cranky about it). Finding "lost" friends was a fun game - people wanted to connect... Friendster's early adopters were 20-somethings....   Friendster launched at a time when the economy was slow and many web-minded 20-somethings were slacking at menial jobs that they didn't care about (particularly in the SF region where people were only coming out of post-bust depression); many web-minded folks were happy to spend hours futzing online."

That makes sense to anyone who had a Friendster account.  I got my invite to it sometime in 2003, when I was 24.  Few of the students that have taught over the last few years, who average 8-10 years younger than me, ever had an account on Friendster.  It was clearly not populated by many teens when it first came out. 

"Twitter’s success represents a new model for Internet success."

DRINK!  Again, Twitter didn't prove this.  See AOL (bought by families looking to get online), any e-commerce site, like Amazon, eBay, casual gaming sites (whose usage is driven by stay at home moms), LinkedIn, HuffingtonPost, Flickr...   In fact, other than MySpace, what top sites were actually driven by early adopter teens that aren't otherwise specifically targeted to teens?  While I'm thinking about it, was Google itself a hot new trend driven by teens that eventually bubbled up to the mainstream?  I'm pretty sure it wasn't.

Then, Ms. Miller goes on to write for a couple of paragraphs about how, "The notion that children are essential to a new technology’s success has proved to be largely a myth."  She goes on to list LinkedIn, GPS devices, Youtube...

Wait...  all these counterexamples...  the same ones I wrote about...  Then... if it isn't a big deal whether or not teens use Twitter, than what the heck is this story even about??

"Its growth has instead come from adults who might not have used other social sites before Twitter, said Jeremiah Owyang, an industry analyst studying social media."

DRINK!  Seriously?  How much does Owyang get for speaking gigs these days?  He can't seriously believe this.  If he does, I have a bridge to sell him.  With over 250 million Facebook users, it's really hard to believe that the majority of Twitter's growth is coming from people who haven't used any social sites before. 

Everyone who has never used MySpace or Facebook or Friendster who just starting using Twitter as their first social network please raise their hand. 

[crickets]

"Wendy Grazier, a mother in Arkansas, said her two teenaged daughters thought Twitter was “lame,” yet they asked her to follow teenage pop stars like Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift on Twitter so she could report back on what the celebrities wrote. Why won’t they deign to do it themselves? “It seems more, like, professional, and not something that a teenager would do,” said 16-year-old Miranda Grazier. “I think I might join when I’m older.”"

DRINK! Yeah, because it's really just a bunch of professionals who are twitter about their Sweet Sixteens.  One mom in Arkansas has two daughters who think Twitter is lame and too professional, and now that's what the New York Times puts forth as the generalized opinion of all teens.  Maybe Claire should have interviewed 14 year old Melik Yuksel, who has 34,397 more followers than she does.  His last tweet?

"I can't legally drive yet. :o"

"Perhaps Twitter’s experience will encourage Web start-ups to take a more realistic view of who uses the Web and go after a broader audience, Ms. Forte said. “Older populations are a smart thing to be thinking about, as opposed to eternally going after the 15- through 19-year-olds,” she said."

DRINK! I'm sorry, but what startup is mistakenly going after 15-19 year olds on the web that doesn't have a teen site?  Having worked in VC, you never hear investors going, "Well, you know how it goes... they tried to crack the teen market first and when that didn't work, it was all over--same old story." 

Next time, don't ask an expert on teens and social networks for advice on startup marketing.  If anything, most websites are mistakenly going after geek crowds on Techcrunch when it might actually be teens or other mainstream users that could benefit. 

So what did we learn here? 

Teens are supposedly not using Twitter, even though they actually are, in disproportionate numbers, and it doesn't matter if they are or aren't because mainstream websites aren't usually driven by teens--except with sites like Friendster, which wasn't true anyway.  Riiiight. 

DRINK!

I have a friend that doesn't blog, doesn't tweet, doesn't update FB all that often--doesn't even get text messages.  Yes, there are people out there like this.  :)

I was thinking about what my habits must seem like to her, and the reasons why she doesn't share more about her activities.  One argument that often comes up with nonstreamers is "Why would anyone care what I'm up to?"  I thought about that a lot and realized that when I share, I never make any implicit assumption that anyone does care.  In fact, the reason why I choose to tweet something is actually because I probably don't think of it as important enough to go e-mailing or texting individual people.

So when I'm sharing that I'm going to Staten Island to visit my Nana, I don't actually think anyone cares, but a few things could happen around that:

1. People may respond with relevant  info about traveling to Staten Island today--like Verrazzano Bridge construction or a street fair on Midland Beach.
2. My friends or family will know where I am *if* they need me for something and want to check back on my whereabouts. 
3. You might share some tidbit about your nana...  which is always nice.  
4. It might remind you to call your nana... even nicer.
5. ...or something good that I'm not even thinking of.

The point is, there's upside to sharing via a lifestream of some kind... and there's really very little downside.  You are the one choosing to subscribe, so if you don't like it you can leave.  Therefore I don't fear overwhelming people--you opt in.  I know how to be reasonable and professional--so I'm not scared of oversharing and costing myself my job or my next job.  Nor am I scared of stalkers--because honestly, someone could choose to stalk me on my way to and from the office just as easily.  Knowing who I am doesn't really increase the chance if someone randomly stalking me, IMHO.  Plus, being a black belt, maybe I don't fear the stalking that much.  I'm quite sure I have a higher chance of getting hit on my bike than picking up a random interweb stalker. 

Anyway... point being, most what you see in my various streams is all the stuff I don't assume to be important enough to specifically direct at someone.  In that sense, it doesn't warrant any kind of response either.  When you e-mail or text me specifically, I'm supposed to respond and I'm a dick if I don't.  Again, that implies that you think your message is that important.  When I tweet, I'm content for everyone to just ignore it. 

The other thing is that it's not interruptive.  I rarely ever make phonecalls these days--not just because I really don't like talking on the phone, but because I don't consider my call important enough to bust into your moment.  Who knows where you are or what you're doing--but barging in with a phone call makes me feel like it doesn't matter, because my conversation is more important.   A tweet or a text seems so much more subtle. 

So rather than thinking of us tweeters and bloggers as a bunch of narcissists--perhaps we really don't think you'll care about what we have to say, so we're not shoving it all in your face.  We just leave it out there, and if you want, but please don't feel obliged, you're more than welcome to check it out.  But, you don't have to... really... it's ok.

I'm a guy.  I'm not a metrosexual or a fashionisto--just a pretty average dude who plays sports, occasionally doesn't match, and can't figure out why anyone would pay over $100 for a pair of jeans.

I'm also an extremely casual guy--and would never dress up if I didn't have to.  T-shirts and jeans or shorts would be fine with me.  However, I do see the need to dress to impress once in a while, and it hasn't escaped my notice that on the rare occasion that I do put some effort into my clothing, it gets some non-zero attention from the opposite sex. 

So that's me. 

During Startup 2009, I had the occasion to meet Alexis Maybank, the founder of Gilt.  I followed up with her and asked her to lunch, since I think it's generally a good idea to get to know successful local entrepreneurs--and we also know a few people in common. 

I'll be totally honest--I didn't really expect a lot going in.  I couldn't imagine I'd have much to talk about with someone who started a high end fashion sales site--who could probably name more labels than I could name baseball players.  On the contrary, Alexis was awesome--extremely down to earth and very personable.  We had a great conversation and she was just as interested in what I was up to and the NYC startup scene in general as she was interested in talking about Gilt. 

We talked a lot about the way men shop (or try to avoid shopping) and how much of an opportunity there was in selling to men for the site.  It made a lot of sense to me--that guys want to get good value, but they also want to minimize time spent browsing.  They're also more likely to buy online because they don't run into the same sizing issues that women do.  In a way, Gilt almost seems more built around the way that men want to shop than women do--quick and efficient.

So I decided to try it out--and something hit me right away...

I have no idea what the hell I'm looking at.  You see, not being well versed in all these brands, I really can't tell whether what I'm buying is worth it.  They seem like good prices, but I really have no idea.

Actually, what's even more concerning to me are the associations that certain brands have.  As you get up the ladder in terms of brand hierarchy, I feel like most brands are associated with a certain kind of lifestyle--either intentionally or not.  We all know what it means (meant?) to be an "Abercrombie guy". 

Take for example, lobster pants.  Now, I didn't know what lobster pants were (thank God I don't hangout with anyone who wears them) until a friend of mind used them to describe a very special kind of douchebag. 

I didn't exactly need to be told about the association between lobster pants and douchebaggery to avoid wearing them--but what about associations that are not so obvious? 

Take this shirt for example:

What if, in the fashion world, it's universally known that John Varvatos is the shirt of choice for cokeheads?  I don't want to accidently wind up in the cokehead shirt just because I thought it looked cool.

Ok, all kidding aside, my main point here is that Gilt lacks the tools for anyone who isn't really into brands to make informed choices.  Interestingly enough, Amanda Peyton told me that she doesn't really know the brands either, but still loves Gilt because she implicitly trusts the site to pick out good stuff.  I wonder if men and women are different like that.  Guys don't hand over choices too easily... not without some kind of proof or more insight into the decision making. 

Compare that with the shopping experience at Fresh Direct.  I feel like Fresh Direct makes me a smarter food shopper.  It tells me what fruit is in season and which apples are for baking versus eating.  I'm a smarter food shopper because of Fresh Direct--and while I still want a simple and quick shopping experience, I think I might want a way on Gilt to reach out to the crowds and get a sense of whether these clothes are "me".  On top of that, some background on the designers or lables, some reviews of the lines, etc. might be helpful as well, otherwise I feel like I'm flying blind.  I think Gilt could use a bit of an editorial voice or some way to get to know the brands.

The bigger question, though, is whether it's part of Gilt's model to really care about me as a customer.  Maybe I'm just not the target market--and they're doing well enough with people who are more info fashion than I am.  I guess that would make it a lot like art that I didn't understand.  I had an ex that would tell me "Maybe it's not for you."

I just got this e-mail from LinkedIn.  Someone in my network wanted to know if I could help fill a job opportunity. 

What was neat was that it showed me who in my network I might be able to forward this to.  Instead of just telling the person who was looking to fill the position, it was helping me be a more useful contact by letting me vet the candidates:

I've long thought that LinkedIn had done a piss poor job in helping me understand my network.  It was a great way to connect everyone, but for a long time the actual networking aspect of it has been little more than just a rolodex on steroids.  Actually figuring out who's in the rolodex and how I can leverage them, or how I can help, is something they've never really focused on. 

What I'd really like to do is create some active searches...  like allowing me to see who's actively looking for a job, looking to post a job, looking for funding, etc...   or when I see a profile I like, to allow me to turn that person into an active search.  "Tell me when people like this appear in my network."

I'm long on products that help make me look smarter.  That's stuff I'll even pay for.

There are now over 2200 panels up in the SXSW panel picker.  It's basically impossible to go through every one of them.  You have to rely on recommendations from others or people you know.  Therefore, I'm going to help you out by making 10 recommendations.

How will I choose?  Am I going to read all the panel submissions?  No. 

What I'm going to do is to take pitches until Thursday at noon ET.  Start your engines PR people!  My inbox is open for business until Thursday. 

So send me an e-mail at charlie.odonnell@gmail.com and tell me the following:

1) What is your panel on?

2) Who is on it?

3) Why are you the best person to talk on that topic?  (Don't just feed me your bio... tell me why you're actually better than others.)

4) Tell me what I'll learn that I'm likely to Tweet or blog about.

5) Tell me why I won't walk out in the first five minutes looking for another panel.

On Thursday, I'll recommend 10 panels to vote for.  Pitch away!

Facebook's Twitter envy has gotten out of control.  First they redesigned the interface to make the whole Facebook experience much more about conversational feeds--like Twitter--and now apparently they've just acquired Friendfeed. 

It's not surprising.  Clearly Benchmark looked at the flat traffic of Friendfeed and realized that without a revenue model, and with a post money valuation undoubtedly in the teens, Friendfeed wasn't going to raise a next round at any kind of pleasent smelling pre money.  I wonder if they got their money back.  What's the current price of an engineer these days?  Still a million a pop?  With a team of 12, maybe they salvaged something, and I'd even bet they all broke even.

Whatever they paid for it doesn't matter at all, because their cost of capital is a joke.  The valuations that Facebook has been able to raise money have been astronomical.  So whether they gave cash or stock, it's all a drop in the bucket for Facebook.

What's more problematic is the company's indication that they share a vision with Friendfeed.  This is the "vision" of Friendfeed that has seen essentially flat traffic since January--the vision of everyone drinking from a firehose of the completely unrelated social media apps of everyone they know all at once without any context. 

And mainstreamers think Twitter is too much?  Someone should aim Friendfeed at them!

Here's a photo!

Here's a song!

Here's an article!

Good thing Friendfeed never spread much past the Techcrunch navel gazing fanboys, otherwise someone we care about might have gotten an eye poked out. 

Real time is clearly hot, though--and while the peak of the Friendfeed buzz was clearly behind it, the demand for real time anything couldn't be higher.  It seems like every other day that another Twitter client gets funded or a startup completely changes it's product model to chase after what's happening right now.

But is what's happening right now really that important?  If you're a day trader, perhaps--but with everyone else, I'm not so sure.  I think real time is going to be a real let down for a lot of people.

The problem with many real time apps is that they lack focus and context.  Even with Twitter itself, users need to build in focus and context to get value out of it.  While it's become an integral part of the communication infrastructure--that's what it is--infrastructure.  It's hard to just login to Twitter.com and  get immediate value.  Build in a couple of saved searches, group the people that you follow into "competition" or "media", and now you're cookin'.  Layer on apps and communities like StockTwits and you've got gamechanging services, but just the feed itself is just a dumb pipe. 

More and more I've been feeling like Twitter is just the UGC equivilent of a big telecom--owner of a hugely critical pipe but perhaps a total commodity compared to the value of the services people can build on top of it.  The transatlantic cables changed communication forever, but the businesses that made use of it, in aggregate, were worth much more than the business of owning the cable.  Don't get me wrong--the telecoms are still multi-billion dollar cap companies and I have no doubt that it's investors will make a boatload, but pipes often fancy themselves more than just a pipe--wrongly. 

That's why I can't understand Facebook's insistance on chasing Twitter.  It's already a pipe--a social pipe--the social pipe.  If I had to be the social pipe or the real time pipe, I think I'd rather be the social one.  Social makes stuff more relevent to me than "now" does.

Compare that to Foursquare, which I just made the homepage of my mobile browser.  When I login, I get to see where all of my friends are right now.  Simple, perhaps, but infinately valuable for a specific purpose.  Foursquare's laser focus and geographic context makes its data that much more useful.  When I login to Twitter, I don't even see my friends answers to "What are you doing?" anymore.  I get Foursquare checkins and blog link shares and loves from Last.fm and Follow Fridays--all at the at the very moment they post something, not at the moment I need it.

By stripping away the services that create focus and context, Friendfeed seemed to want to compete in the race to the bottom of the value chain.  The more and more these services just open up to everything and everything, the more they feel like... a phonebook.  That's certainly what if felt like when my second grade teacher found me on Facebook to ask if that was the same Charlie O'Donnell from Brooklyn they interviewed in the paper and on the news about this weekend's helicopter/plane crash.  Twenty five years ago, she would have looked me up in the white pages, and now she checks Facebook. 

The more my Facebook feed gets cluttered with Friendfeed-like all-inclusiveness, the less useful it's going to be on it's own.  I don't want to listen to music and see pictures and read quotes and play games in real time just as my friends are doing it.  Don't get me wrong--having all that piping in the ground makes the game playing and music listening that much more fun and useful, but for those apps.  I want to watch a TV connected to a big fat datapipe... I don't actually want to watch my TV while sitting IN the pipe. 

Twitter's DDOS attack created some issues with SMS tweets yesterday, but if it hadn't here's what you would have read, according to the sent texts from my phone:

12:22PM I was paddling in the Hudson when the plane hit the chopper... saw them both go down hard.  Sunk instantly.  Didnt see anyone come out.
12:24PM Was right at 13th St when I heard loud collision and turned to see...  Paddled over right away.
12:24PM Got out of the water at Frank Sinatra park in Hoboken, kinda shaken up.
12:25PM No way anyone in that chopper made it.  Doors and parts and gasoline all over the water.
12:25PM River crawling with rescue boats now.
12:26PM Divers in the water... Not a lot I can do now.  Will paddle around a bit and head back to Pier 96 where I was going.
12:27PM Prayers for anyone involved and their families.
12:48PM I heard one DOA... Nothing else about survivors.
12:56PM Dammit...  Now I'm stuck here.  Cops wont let me leave off the shore.

I was paddling up to the Downtown Boathouse's Pier 96 location at 56th street for a race at 2PM.  I didn't make it in time.
It was a beautiful morning and the water was really calm.  I was very leisurely paddling uptown, because I didn't want to wear myself out for the race.  Right before I got to Pier 57, I turned my head to the NJ side.  I may have heard some engine noise beforehand...  I'm not sure if that made me turn or if I was just looking around.  I saw the plane and the helicopter collide and heard the loud metal clang seemingly all in the same moment.  The helicopter just spiraled down right away, and the plane continued South for maybe another 300 yards or so, heading down towards the water as it went.  Both hit the water with a big splash. 
I was so startled, but immediately started paddling across, saying "Oh shit...  Oh shit" twice out loud as I was paddling.  I motored across as fast as I could...   I finished first in the Boathouse's race two years ago, so I was moving pretty fast.  
I was looking around wondering if anyone else saw it.  There was a Circle Line boat or Water Taxi--I don't remember which one that turned towards the scene right away, and some people standing at the end of the Chelsea Piers marina that were clearly on their phones calling 911.
As I raced across, I started thinking stuff like, "Should I stay in the boat when I get there, or dive into the water?"  I was mentally preparing myself for what I might see.  Was I going to see bodies?  Injured?  Was there anything I should be aware of for my own safety, like propellers still rotating or fire?  Thinking back to the miracle Hudson River plane landing, I thought maybe the helicopter or plane might be floating on the water.  Unfortunately, after the moment of splashdown, both the plane and the chopper disappeared under the water.  
I don't know how long it took me, to reach the scene of the helicopter, but all that was left was a line of parts... floating panels, a door, some insolation.  I was there right after a sailboat, the water taxi, and this dredging barge that had steamed out of the Lackawanna pier, which was right below the crash sight.
There was a gray men's sneaker in the water and immediately a chill ran down my spine.  I poked it with my paddle, but it was free floating on its own.  
I paddled around for another 25 minutes or so, but there was obviously nothing to be done.  I had heard that a body had been found, but that was it.  
We used to run a kayaking program out of Frank Sinatra park, so I knew there was a ramp there and paddled over.  I tossed my boat up on the ramp and got out to sit down.  Cops and emergency people immediately asked me if I had seen anything and they asked me to give a statement.  They were trying to figure out where in the water to search, and were clearly positioned too far north to find the plane, which I told them.  The current was dragging everything on the surface north.  
After a little while, I went to go back out onto the water, but they wouldn't let me go.  I tried to get them to offer me a route around the scene, but the NJ cops weren't hearing it and told me I might be out there for several hours.  I hung out for a bit and answered some reporter questions.  My mom told me there's a picture of me in the Daily News this morning, but I haven't scene it yet.  Honestly, it felt a little weird answering questions and being interviewed, because I just felt so bad for whoever was involved.  Fox News offered for me to be on TV that night and I turned it down.  That would have made me feel like I was jumping at the chance to be on TV at the expense of someone else's tragedy.  Even the photographers at one point got a little much--taking pictures of me as I was trying to leave the shore with my boat.  I told them to cut it out and had to tell this one guy again.
I didn't have shoes or my car keys, which were still at Pier 40.  I knew the Maxwell House Boathouse was nearby to the north, so I put the kayak on my shoulder, and then my head, and started walking, hoping to find a spot to put in that was clear of the crash scene.  I walked barefoot with my boat to the Maxwell House Cove, meeting two EMS people on the shore who were just ambling about.  The streets on the NJ side were all closed off, and by the time I left, it had become quite a scene.
I finally made my way up to Pier 96 about a half hour after the race... and paddled down to Pier 40 later that afternoon.  They were cleaning blood off Pier 40 when I arrived--apparently that's where they took the first body.
I'm flipping through all the pictures and videos of the aftermath, and the news coming through as each of the nine bodies and the wreckage gets found.  The image of the plane and the helicopter together in midair, and that sound, is imprinted in my mind.  There was a big grey puff of smoke, too.   I wish someone had been on the water to help or there was something to be done, but there wasn't.  My heart goes out to all of the families of the people who were killed.  I wish I could have helped.

It's been a busy couple of weeks, but I wanted to recap my first triathlon-- the Nautica NYC Triathlon. 

So let's start out with my expectations coming in.

I taught myself to swim this year--at least to swim with any kind of regular stroke. Before that, you could bet on me not to drown and be an awesome water treader/doggie paddler, but that's about it.  That being said, I still wasn't very confident in my freestyle, so I decided to do a breaststroke.

I figured about 38 minutes for the swim, and wound up doing it in 20:56. 

Thank you Hudson River current.

Seriously, the current is insane.  As soon as I got into the water, I had to hold on to the barge to make sure I didn't float down river too early.  You could go down on your back making snow angels and probably be there in about 30 minutes. 

What was really annoying, though, was that it took so long from when I got there to when I actually got in the water.  It's nearly two hours of just standing around, getting in lines, etc.  I suppose there's not much you can do about the whole thing, but it does require a lot of patience. 

That leads me to Tips #1 and #2.  Some people try to save time by bringing all their stuff the day before to lay next to your bike.  This would be a great idea, except that this year, it rained.  So if you do bring stuff... seal it all up or cover it.  The guy next to me on the swim line returned to soggy running shoes. 

Second tip is to bring your own black marker.  You need to have your number on your arm and your leg, but the lines for getting marked were way long.  Save time by bringing your own, asking the person next to you to mark you, and then throw the marker out.

When I first got in the water, it was a bit crazy.  People were climbing over me to swim, and I was definitely getting kicked.  Fight through it and get over to the side as much as possible. It's every swimmer for himself for the first 100 yards or so.  It threw me off and I had real trouble getting my stroke going.

Once we got seperation, I mentally regrouped and settled down.  I tried to be as deliberate as possible about my strokes--and once I did that, I started moving fine.  One thing about doing the breaststroke in a wetsuit is that I was actually too bouyant.  My legs and feet kept popping out of the water and so I was having a bit of trouble keeping them down.  Next year, I'll try to get a shorter suit if I use the same stroke.

I may very well use the same stroke, because, to be honest--this isn't about swimming.  How much better could I get?  Could I shave 5 minutes off my time?  Even if I did, it wouldn't nearly compare to how much time I could shave off biking and running with improvements there, so why sweat it that much?

First transition went pretty well.... 6:21.  I was wearing swim shorts under my wetsuit, so all I needed to do was throw on a shirt.  I put on mesh shorts over the swim shorts just b/c I didn't want to be all Spandexy looking.  Low cut socks and my sneakers, which I had opened up the laces of nice and wide earlier finished it off.  Last thing you want to do is kick off your shoes in the beginning and waste 30 seconds picking out a knot or something.

The actual biking wasn't so hot.  It was very hilly and I had the absolutely worst bike in the race--no question.  I mean, I didn't even have racing handlebars.  It was pretty sad.  Guys with teardrop helmets and those solid back wheels were humming by me.  On the downhills, I just didn't have the gears to maintain my speeds.  I got up to about 32 MPH on the downhills, but I had to slow down to 25 before I could actually continue pedaling for real. 

That's what makes me want to do it so badly again next year, because I know I can improve so much on my bike time with a better bike.  I finished in 1:26, but there's no way I can't shave at least 10 minutes off my time--and in this race, ten minutes brings you up 20% in the rankings.

Second transition was quick... 2:13, because it's really just getting off the bike.  This is where I made a pee stop during the race, though.  I think it would be hard to go the whole race without it given how much water and stuff you're told to drink beforehand--despite the fact that I went in some bushes right before the swim.  TMI?  Sorry... there was like one portapotty for every 1000 swimmers.  Everyone was doing it. 

The run was great.  I'm a good no energy runner, and it's only a little over 6 miles.  So, no matter what I had left, I'm just good at willing my legs to maintain a certain stride at a certain pace, despite the hills around the park.  I even sprinted at the end with whatever I had left!  My run time was 49:43 and my overall finish was 2:45:40, which was just below the median for my group.  I might be able to go down to about 47 min, but that's probably where I'd top off.  I don't think I could do much better than 7:30 min miles.

The race was great fun--definitely doing it again.  Triathlons are great because you never get bored of any individual activity--so you don't really have enough time to listen to your own head doubting your ability to finish. 

With about a minute better on the swim, 12 min improvement on the bike, and 2 min off the run, I'll be trying for 2:30 next year.  Can't wait!

When I lived on the Upper East Side about five years ago, I used to frequent DTUT, a cool coffee shop that was supposedly the model for Central Perk on Friends.  It was a favorite spot for laptop users because they gave away their wifi. 

It started with some signs that said you had to buy one item per hour.  Then, they started shutting the wifi off if they thought that people hadn't bought anything.  Eventually, they shut it off altogether, driving some of their most frequent customers out.

And yes, we were actually customers.  Not only did we get hungry and thirsty, ever so often ordering something--but we often came back with friends when we weren't working.  You see, more and more, DTUT became the go to spot.  I went there so often when I was just working on my laptop only drinking a cheap green tea, that when my friends wanted to place to go, that was my default recommendation.  So, while it might have been true that my laptop sessions weren't well monetized, the staff there wasn't realizing that I was coming back for food and drink at other times without my laptop.  When they chased me out for being a "laptop moocher", they were also chasing me out as a better paying customer other times.

So when I read today's piece in the WSJ about the end of free WIFI and power at coffee shops, I feel like it's a serious strategy failure on behalf of retail shops.  If you have something that is pulling regular customers into your shop, and you can't monetize them better, kicking them out is not the answer--especially when this is the uber connected social network influencer crowd that often affects your overall recommendation more than you'd like.

Reporter complaining about all the work he did for a story that Gawker reblogged:

"Gawker's version of my story, headlined " 'Generational Consultant' Holds America's Fakest Job," begins by telling its readers to "Meet Anne Loehr" -- with a link to my story but no direct mention of The Post. It then condenses her biography: "Loehr is 44. She spent the entire decade of the 90s running hotel and safari operations in Kenya." That's information I got after an hour-plus phone call with Loehr and typing out 3,000 words of notes."

Funny, because I got that same information in like 10 seconds, off Anne's website:

"I spent five years as owner and operator of an East African eco-adventure safari company. Despite 9/11, SARS and other international crises, Eco-resorts was a successful tour operator. Part of this adventure included writing Kenya’s national eco-rating policies and an eco-rating manual for Kenya’s hoteliers."

At Alley Insider Startup 2009, there was a panel called "How to raise a boatload of money at a huge valuation".  The implication was that, every startup should go for that if they can.  I actually think that's one of the worst things you could ever do as a startup--and it proves over and over to be a trap for many hot startups or people raising money from unsophisticated investors.

Let's start with the basics.  Very few startups that last over the long term ever raise just one round of money if they choose to take outside financing at all.  Therefore, you need to think of your first financing as groundwork for future ones--each at nice, incremental step ups in price at an appropriate size given business or product milestones and goals.  You want to avoid down rounds and getting your earliest and most supportive backers wiped out.  While you might be able to negotiate a sweet deal now, you have to ask where that leave you the next time.

Take the example of someone trying to raise just 600k.  Let's say they're offered a pre of 1.8 million--meaning that cash buys a quarter of the company.  You might not think that's such a great deal.  Someone else comes along and offers 1.2 million on a pre of 3.6--double the money at twice the price for giving up the same amount of the company.  What's not to like?  No-brainer to take the bigger deal at the better price right?

Maybe not. 

Take a look at where each round gets you and what story you're telling at each raise.  Maybe the first 600k gets you to a nice growing userbase and some promising biz dev possibilities--but most importantly a short history of meeting milestones and a promising chance at hitting your future ones.  Sometimes, getting a round of financing is just a matter of timing and being able to say you did what you said you'd do and you're in position to take the next reasonable step.  Given those metrics, your next round could be at a significant stepup and your overall dilution across two rounds could be pretty low.

What if that next reasonable milestone realistically requires another 1.5 million on top of the 600k?  It's not a ton of money, but had you taken that second "sweet" deal, it would have left you with a bridge to nowhere--halfway to a milestone.  That looks worse than if you had accomplished nothing at all--because you will have burned cash and maybe not grown as much as your next product milestone will help you do.  It's like that saying goes, "Nothing like numbers to ruin a perfectly good story."  At that bridge to nowhere point, you might have to raise a flat or even a down round, giving up more between the two rounds than you would have if you just took the "worse" deal early on.

On top of that, a lot of people forget about what more cash and a higher price signals to the market in terms of your post-money (the valuation someone bought in at plus the cash that came in).    If you took that second deal, you'd be signaling to the market that, at the end of this cash, you will not only be a nearly $5 million company, but you believe you'll be even more than that because you should be looking for a stepup.  When I see early stage deals where someone takes $4 million, assuming the VC didn't buy a controlling take, I'm thinking about how that company will be able to get a next round valuation in the mid teens--because that's what they'll have to do the next time around.  If you took 4 million from a VC, even at a pre of 5, you're looking at trying shop yourself around at a mid-teens pre the next time around--so you sure as hell better have some significant revenue traction or you're going to hit a wall and your current investors will be wiped out. 

On top of that, I have to wonder about investors who get deals just by tossing in ridiculous term sheets.  If that's the way they get deals, and their portfolio is just full of people who just go after short term pops for big "on paper" money, is that really the kind of group you want to be in?   They shouldn't need to win deals like that--and you should immediately raise an eyebrow for someone who tries to win you over on price.  That's a little bit like choosing a husband or wife purely on looks.  That may pay off the wedding night, but over the long term, I doubt that's a ticket to happiness and a successful marriage.  If you wouldn't pick an investor over another one if they were all at the same price, you shouldn't ever pick them.   Make no mistake that if you are taking outside money, this is a marriage and you need to pick partners based on quality, not on price. 

If you're worried you're not taking in enough money, instead of trying to raise more, how about just trying to do less?   Better to have hit the only milestone you were attempting than to get halfway on three.  When you're more focused, you tend to spend money more wisely.  How many companies do you see that raise a bunch of money and then start playing business model roulette?  You might say that gives them room to experiment, but I wonder if maybe it gave them the ability to hire too many scientists and allow too much experimentation. 

So instead of going for big money at a big price, perhaps you should be thinking about smaller, incremental steps, at lower prices, so that your next round seems much more palatable to investors.

This Sunday morning, I'll be competing in my firt triathlon--the Nautica New York City Triathlon.  It's very exciting, but honestly, I'll just be happy to finish.  I basically learned to swim this year, and the only stroke I could really figure out how to last a mile at is the breaststroke.  So don't count on me breaking any records in the swim.

I told my college roommate that I think it will take me 40-45 minutes to do the swim and he replied, "In that current, a bag of Doritos could finish in 45 minutes."

So, expect me to finish right behind the bag.

Anyway, if you want to see me, here's an estimation of where I'll be and when.  If you see me, please tweet out or post a Twitpic and mention my Twitter screename @ceonyc.

I'm looking at the times from last year and eyeballing it makes me think that 40 minutes would be bottom decile--but I am really slow, so let's say 38 minutes is my swim target.  Tack on another 6 minutes for transition, since this is my first.  I'm getting in the water at 7:33AM, so that means get out of the water at 8:11 and start biking at 8:17AM.

Actually, if you wanted to catch me a few times, you could come by the swim exit/bike start at 8AM on 79th Street, hangout there for a little while, and then head towards Central Park after you see me.

I don't have the best bike in the world, but I'm pretty sure I'll be able to do the bike in about 1:25.  That means I have to average about 17.6MPH and I'm pretty sure I can do that.  The route is north to the Mosh parkway in the Bronx, back down to 59th street and then back up to the transition area.

That means I'll be back in the bike transition area at around 9:42.  Since I'm just hoping off the bike, ditching it, and running, this should be a quick transition.  Let's say 2 minutes.  Ok, so I start running at 9:44, and I think I'll be on about an 8:30/mile pace.  I definitely want to finish the 10k  in less than an hour and it looks like about half of the people did that.  I'm a good runner when tired--can run on next to no energy, so I'm cautiously optimistic about being in the top half of the runners.  That means I should finish at 10:40 for a total time of 3 hours and 7 minutes.  If I were running last year, that would put me just below the median.  I'd be very happy with that. 

Here's a rough estimate on a map:

From Searchme CEO Randy Adams' letter to Mike Arrington:

"You are correct, we haven’t closed the financing. We knew when we started the company that to compete with the likes of Microsoft, Google and Yahoo,it was going to take at least $100 million, half to build the back end across thousands of servers and half to get distribution (maybe more with Microsoft spending $100 million on Bing advertising alone). What we didn’t plan on was the terrible downturn in the economy which made it impossible to raise another $50 million to get distribution (mainly through toolbar deals). In this economy nobody wants to invest that kind of money in a company that is pre-revenue, even if the net result is potentially a multi-billion dollar company."

So wait a sec...  this company raised $46 million to compete with Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo!, knowing full well it would take at least $100, they still have no revenue, and it's actually news that they're going offline.

Can I see what your investor pitch looked like? 

High burn...check. 

Big, successful competitors...check. 

No revs after $46 million in... check.

And here I am trying to go up against big dumb job boards that everyone thinks should die, trying to raise $2 million, and on the verge of generating some revs after $550k in...   

Today, Hilary and Alex went to lunch with a programmer they knew from the local startup community.  They brought him back to Path101's office and asked if I wanted to see the new side project he was working on.  He came in and what he has is pretty interesting.  We suggested a rollout strategy, a few lawyers to talk to, and some possible alternative sources of funding.

This kind of thing happens all the time.  In fact, after I was done with this meeting, I found someone in my inbox asking me about entrepreneur mentors.  He also added, "I am an aspiring entrepreneur myself and would like to bounce some ideas off of you as I am moving into the execution phase of my venture and will be located in NYC."

Add this to the phonecall I took over the weekend with a fellow entrepreneur who just got a termsheet and was trying to figure out his gameplan.

Meanwhile, in Louisville, Todd Earwood and Rob May were meeting a local entrepreneur giving feedback and talking shop.  It's something I know they do on a regular basis in their neck of the woods, too.

So, while it's exciting to see new entrepreneurship mentoring initiatives like The Founder Institute, First Growth Venture Network, or the upcoming NYCMedia2020 program, there's really no substitute for a strong community of peer mentoring.  Not everyone is going to hear about or even make these programs--but knowing that there's someone experienced, knowledgeable, and well networked within arm's reach in your local area is where the rubber meets the road in an innovation community.  For every YCombinator, there's some dude who owns a warehouse in Bushwick giving cheap rent to a bunch of hackers and lending him his lawyer for contracts. 

Rob and Todd, or people like myself, and Jimmy Gardner down in DC...   we're probably talking to nearly as many startups as some actual investors are, often way before investment pitches.  In fact, I'm surprised at how often I'm in touch with a startup and the junior person at a venture firm who is supposed to be the "feet on the ground" isn't talking with them at all--and they're getting paid to do this! 

We don't make money doing it.  We don't charge for the intros we make.  And these are just some of the people I know about.  This goes on all over the place.  If you're a local city government, venture capital firm, or entrepreneur, figuring out who in the community has a reputation for being able to help startups is integral to understanding the startup ecology. 

Innovation in today's world is a ground war--house to house, relationship to relationship, one conversation and introduction at a time.  Programs with names, logos, and money are great, but when you get down to that incremental college kid with an idea sitting with a PHP for Dummies book, he needs to be able to find someone that he or a friend trusts to share his idea with and get advice from or it's never going to happen--and that could have been your town's Google.

Whether you realize it or not, as a jobseeker you are participating in a marketplace.   Even when you're not a jobseeker, you're part of the equation.  Employers are the demand and workers (or resumes) are the supply.  In this economy, demand is low and supply is high.  Employers have more workers in their ranks than they need, so layoffs and cuts continue to pile up.  They also have stacks and stacks of resumes from people wanting work--even willing to work for free.  Right now, most HR departments could probably recruit from their own inboxes without ever spending a dime on job postings or resume databases.

Actually, I'm not kidding.  That's probably closer to reality than many big job boards are willing to admit.  Revenues at Monster, Careerbuilder, and Hotjobs have taken a nosedive recently.  Because these companies have totally inflexible business models, jobseekers who post to those boards are feeling the hit, too, but they might not realize it. 

Many people aren't getting any bites on their resume  and assume that's because companies aren't hiring.  That's partly the case, but it's also because those job boards are charging fees to look at your resume and contact you.  In today's market, this is a bad deal for companies who already have plenty of resumes in their inbox.  The market had decided that the incremental value of *another* resume in their inbox is near zero, if not zero already--so why pay for something you already have?  More and more people are uploading their resumes to Monster and the big job boards when fewer and fewer companies are willing to pay Monster to see them.  That's right--receiving your resume is essentially worthless to an employer right now... and the big job boards are making it even harder for you by trying to charge companies to see them.

It's the same with job postings.  Why pay to post a job when you can just email your network and ask "Does anyone know anyone good who needs a job?"  You know what the answer to that is these days.

In any transaction, one or both parties needs to pick up the tab for the cost of the exchange.  If companies are less and less willing to pick up that cost in a tough economy when it comes to jobs, it's really going to have to fall on the consumer.  Lots of people recognize that cost will mean additional time and effort on their part, but how many people are actually investing real money into their job search?

On the higher end of the market, users of TheLadders are paying to see only the best jobs and many are paying getting their resumes edited as well.  Is that helping them get in front of employers or getting them a better shot at a job?  Jobs on TheLadders aren't necessarily exclusive, but one would imagine that it does indicate some level of seriousness if you're paying in to see a job. 

What else is out there?   There are lots of conferences and career coaches--essentially content, but the thing with content is that you don't really know if it's worth it until you consume it.  Career content can't be advertising backed in this economy, because as we said before, companies aren't paying to reach you and see more of you now. 

If I were job seeking now, I'd be paying for a Google and Facebook AdWords campaign--putting money behind my efforts at getting in front of the right employers.  Apparently, I'm not alone in that.  In a recent survey that we took at Path101.com, 55% of job seekers would pay to promote themselves online.  Even more interesting was that 23% of people would pay to promote themselves even if they weren't job seeking.  

What do we mean by that?  How about making sure you're ranked first in all the places people might go to look for you?  Take WeFollow.com for example--the Twitter user directory.  If you were an athlete trying to generate a bigger fan following, paying up to be the "Featured User" on a list of top Twitter users tagged "sports" would be worth it.  I think this is where MyBlogLog could have gone, too.  How many people would have paid a little extra to be a profile that lingers longer on Fred Wilson's blog, for example, perhaps with a direct link to their blog.  What about Disqus?  Featured comments?  You could argue that would lower the quality of these lists, but on the other hand, wouldn't you make sure you had a quality/relevent listing if you were paying to make sure it ranked high?

I think there's an untapped market here--to bring the power of sponsored search to the job seeker and individuals to help them promote themselves in the right places--similar to what Indeed.com does on the job side.  I wrote about this about a year ago in relation to people putting cash behind their best blog posts to gain exposure.  Enabling people to get more active about their own self promotion is something we're working on now at Path 101.  Uploading your resume to a big job board is like sending it into a black hole--and candidates can't do anything to actively get noticed as part of that process, even though they want to.  

When I first heard of Foursquare, I'll admit that I didn't jump on it right away.  I knew the founders, Dennis and Naveen (see photo below), but I'm not really much of a gamer, nor am I much of a bar hopper, so the idea of turning my nightlife into a competition didn't seem so appealing to me (especially when working on Path 101 sucks up so much of my nightlife).  Plus, I don't have an iPhone, so that seemed like it should be the third strike for me.

However, I discovered my own reason for using it.  I was talking with a friend about how I stumbled into a great restaurant (August) walking around Greenwich Village, but couldn't remember the name of it.  I was saying how I wished there was an app that pulled my credit card data to track where I had been.  I was always forgetting the places I had gone.

"Why don't you use Foursquare?"

Aaaaaah.  That made so much sense.  Forget the game.  Forget the bar hopping.  Foursquare would be a dirt simple way to just record the places I had been--and that's all I wanted to do with it.  I signed up and started using it through the mobile site on my Sprint Mogul.  I'll admit, I quickly got hooked.

I definitely started getting sucked into the game, too.  Getting badges and seeing where my friends were was fun.  The other night, I realized that I was about to go to a place that Mike Galpert had been to about an hour or so before me, so I called him to ask what he had.  Indeed, the spinach gnocci at Supper was excellent.

That's when I realized how valuable Foursquare really is from a business perspective.  Mike made a recommendation to me, but Foursquare was the service that actually knew that I went, because I checked in.  Being able to connect web advertising, recommendations, and social media buzz to an actual person walking into your store has long been the holy grail of the advertising world.  We spent lots of money and effort online to drum up our brand, but does it actually drive food traffic?  Foursquare knows.

Think about it from Yelp's perspective.  Yelp helps you figure out where to eat, and gives you recommendations, but it only knows about the people who write reviews.  That represents only a small percentage of the overall Yelp traffic--so while Yelp tries to make the business case for advertising and using it's retail services, it doesn't really know how much real live foot traffic it drives.  Foursquare is the missing link, enabling you to come full circle from a review or recommendation to an in person visit from a real customer.  Best of all, it has figured out a compelling reason to get you to submit that data--in the form of a fun game you play with your friends. 

Additionally valuable is that the game syncs up with Twitter and Facebook, so Foursquare users are telling the world where they are and the places they've visited at any given moment.

What Foursquare does is even more valuable than the Yelp mobile app itself.  It not only records where you've been, but it also encourages others to visit the same place and join you.  If I was a business, and I had the choice of getting all my customers on Yelp or on Foursquare, Foursquare seems much more compelling.  It's not about reviews so much, so I have less downside of a bad rating or review killing my business.  Plus, it encourages others who aren't even on the app to come join their friends and check out my business.  More Foursquare users will check in and promote my store than the number of Yelpers who will rate my store and then publish that rating.  On top of that, Foursquare helps me identify who my best customers are, putting a name to a face.

So if I'm Yelp, Foursquare has valuable data that I need--whether or not my recommendations are actually driving anyone to visit the store--and has a much more compelling social media network effect.  Yelp's current social network isn't well tied to their site.  I can have friends on Yelp, but it's not totally clear how having friends improves my navigation of the site or my ability to get ratings--as opposed to Foursquare which is all about tight networks of friends. 

But Yelp also has stuff that Foursquare really needs--distribution and content.  A deal or some funding from Yelp could put Foursquare on the map as the default "Where am I now?" app and make Yelp's social media offering to a business complete and compelling.  They'd finally be able to figure out exactly how much traffic their site drives in the door.  They'd know which reviewers were the most influential--not just to other reviewers but to actual paying customers.

I think Yelp needs to act fast on this, because if I'm Foursquare, I'd start going straight to retail establishments and striking deals.  I'd get every single Starbucks to start encouraging their customers to use Foursquare and check-in to their favorite Starbucks.  I'd know whether or not that was driving feet in the door from other check-ins and who my best customers were.  Foursquare should built a neat little self serve portal that allows retailers to claim their establishments, and track who's coming in and when. 

Yelp has an "Elite" badge for the best users of Yelp, but how long before Foursquare allows retailers to create their own Elite badges for their best customers--rewarding people who support the store, not just the ratings site.   If I'm Shake Shack, I want to know who the Shake Shack Elite is, not the Yelp Elite--the latter doesn't really directly help me as a business.  The more a site enables me to have a direct relationship with my customers, the more valuable it's going to be for me and overall.  Starbucks, Jamba Juice, NYSC, Dunkin Donuts, etc. should be all over FourSquare right now trying to figure out how to get their customers on it. 

If Yelp doesn't strike up a distribution deal with Foursquare soon, I think they're going to regret it.  The deal is simple.  We'll invest a couple hundred grand in you and promote you to our users.  You give us the data (through a sync to Yelp accounts) of who goes to an establishment based on a Yelp review.  That will help Yelp sell it's service to retailers and restaurants.  Yelp should provide reviews in Foursquare in exchange for promoting Foursquare's "Tips" and "ToDo's" as well. 

Google proved that you needed to be able to tell a retailer exactly how advertising helps their business and help them track ROI.  Foursquare is well positioned to capture that all important retail visit--the hardest piece of data to get short of diving into your credit card statement.  That makes them a serious player in the local ad space--and one that will undoubtedly pass on an early Google exit based on Crowley's past experience. 

I was talking with one of my investors the other day about the job search and recruiting space--and how I was surprised that there wasn't more innovation here, given how monetizable the space was.  After all, what's the value of the right hire to a company--and what's the value of the right job to a candidate?

Then I realized that innovative ideas alone don't really spark VC interest.  They need to be in areas that a venture capital firm has already decided that they want to be in.  So, if you're doing something innovative in cleantech, mobile apps, hyperlocal, or some kind of social media monetization tool, an innovative vision can get funded.  VCs are willing to make bets on visions of how certain markets will develop, even if they don't know all the details of how the business works out. 

If you're not in an area that VCs are excited about, you basically have two options.

The first, and probably best choice, is to go make some money.  VCs, especially towards the second half of their funds, will invest in baked in ROI.  Once you prove out your ability to make money, then it becomes the simple matter of an associate's spreadsheet.  How much do you make now and what valuation can we get it at?  What will you make with some product improvements and a new head of sales, maybe some international expansion and what can we sell it at and when?  Dollars in, dollars out, pure and simple.

The next choice, which isn't really a choice, is to have done it before.  This is betting on the jockey, not the horse.  Dave Morgan recently got $4 million for the Simulmedia powerpoint presentation.  Actually, that's a guess.  I'm not even sure there was a presentation.  Basically, if Dave Morgan does something in the ad space, given his track record, you back it.  That's it.  No questions asked. 

So, you better be in a hot space, be making money or have an exit under your belt, because if you don't have at least one of the above, it's an uphill climb. 

Recently, there was a big fluff up over Twitter replies--messages that users direct at each other in public using the @ symbol.  Now, you only see public @ messages if you follow the person being spoken to.

It used to be that you had a choice as to whether or not you saw replies that were directed at you or people you followed. The default had most recently been set to off--meaning that you didn't see many of the public messages that your friends sent. Most users didn't even know this was a setting, so few changed it.

How can we know that most users hadn't known about it versus liking the way it was? We can't know for sure, but the fact that *most* users have trouble catching on to using Twitter in the first place and that *most* users will just leave the default up on any feature in any web service is a good indication that this was not a conscious vote for the setting.

In fact, many were unaware that they weren't seeing all of the Tweets from their friends--I certainly didn't.  These were people they had signed up to follow the conversations of.  It would be an odd assumption to think you weren't seeing all public messages.

The effect?

Discovery of new people to follow has gone way down. One rarely encounters the usernames of new people they don't follow anymore.  It goes both ways as well.  Not only is my own discovery of new people way down, but since the change, the number of relevent, interesting people who have found me has gone way down.   No offense to recent followers, but now I hardly look at who follows me, because it's often people I have no connection to who never chime in on conversations--because they can't see conversations.

Instead of a more organic discovery mechanism based on overheard conversations in your close proximity, most new followers come from recommendation services, PR lists, and WeFollow.  For whatever reason, the quality and relevence of these followers seems to be much lower.

I'd be willing to bet that, across the board, the follow back ratio of new followers of popular people has gone way down.  The lack of discovery is making relevent connection difficult and unlikely.

Fred Wilson argues that hiding public replies increases signal to noise--a big problem for him given the number of people he follows on Twitter. That's true--tweets not directed at Fred or people he knows are less likely to be relevent to him.

So who does this affect?  What is their preference and what are the alternatives?  Also, how does it change Twitter usage?   Also, how does this relate to the overall core value proposition of Twitter?

In Fred's case, not seeing replies increases his signal to noise, but is that really why? What makes something noise? The average Twittter user sends about a quarter of his messages as replies. Chances are, most of those are going to people they know.  While Twitter networks can often have a fair bit of overlap, let's say that 2/3 of my replies are directed at people he doesn't know. That means that 2/3 of 25% of my tweets--or 17% of them--are his issue.

But, even then, is it really true that every tweet I send as a reply outside of Fred's network isn't relevent to Fred? What if I'm writing "@frozen2late I don't think Carlos Delgado is going to come back this season"? Fred's a big Met fan, too. It's hard to believe he wouldn't want to weigh in with a "@ceonyc Josh thinks if we don't get Delgado back, we're screwed."

Here's an example, albeit on Facebook, of how someone else got value from a conversation that wasn't intended for them:

Some of these replies are very relevent to Fred, judged on content alone. There's no reason why anything I write in a reply would be any different from a relevency perspective than any other Tweet.  Sure, I might occasionally tweet out "@zoedisco Funny!" and that's a meaningless tweet to Fred--but is it any more meaningless than when I tweet out that I'm going to bed or that I ate some ice cream--not directed at anyone in particular.

What's also important is what is good for Twitter as a service and a community.  There have been stories about Twitter's engagement issues--that most people join and don't Tweet at all, or stop soon after they start.  This isn't any different from any other site.  One thing we do know is that on any site where there are network effects--the benefit to finding more people that you know or feel are worth following is clear. 

It's no different than walking into a party late.  If no one shows you around, you need to be able to insert yourself in other people's conversations otherwise you're just going to feel left out and leave early.

So while someone following 400 people might feel like replies are overwhelming, those following 3 people really need those public replies to discover new people.  People need to remember that there are many more people *not* using your service than users.

So what's the solution?  I think we should default back to public replies and let people like Fred who follow 100's of people opt out of them--because he represents the minority.  Not only that, but I'm sure he has a few people who are the worst offenders and maybe he just needs to unfollow them altogether.

Or, you could perhaps do give people the choice to opt out at the app level--which would also solve Fred's problem because he's reading these tweets on his phone half the time--and that's probably when it's most annoying.

In the meantime, I've circumvented the hiding of my tweet replies by throwing a period in front of them--the .@ convention for public replies. This way, the person sees the reply and so does everyone else.  I'd like to see more of this, because I want to see who my friends are talking to and discover more people that way.  I think it's also important to the growth an engagement of the service overall.