Chip Griffin: Pardon the Disruption

If You're Going to Blog Anonymously, At Least Be Smart About It

I'm not a big fan of anonymous blogging.  I don't think there's anything wrong with it and won't rule out ever doing it myself (it's foolish to say "never" anyway), I just prefer it when you're open about who you are when you're expressing opinions.  It helps the audience understand your message in context.  That said, I understand there are situations where it may be unavoidable if you are focused on wanting to share your views online.

But if you're going to blog anonymously, at least use enough common sense not to write in such a way that it is blatantly obvious who you are.  From today's Boston Globe:

As Ivy League-educated pediatrician Robert P. Lindeman sat on the stand in Suffolk Superior Court this month, defending himself in a malpractice suit involving the death of a 12-year-old patient, the opposing counsel startled him with a question.

Was Lindeman Flea?

Flea, jurors in the case didn't know, was the screen name for a blogger who had written often and at length about a trial remarkably similar to the one that was going on in the courtroom that day.

In his blog, Flea had ridiculed the plaintiff's case and the plaintiff's lawyer. He had revealed the defense strategy. He had accused members of the jury of dozing.

With the jury looking on in puzzlement, Lindeman admitted that he was, in fact, Flea.

The article itself then gets slightly hysterical about the risks of blogging ("The case is a startling illustration of how blogging, already implicated in destroying friendships and ruining job prospects, could interfere in other important arenas."), but story about "Flea" is worth reading as long as you ignore the hysteria.

Technorati tags: blogging, bloggers, anonymity, Boston Globe, malpractice, anonymous blog

Calacanis' Project X Revealed: Mahalo, a Human Search Engine

I'm a big believer in the notion that computers can't yet do everything that humans can. No matter how comprehensive a job that a programmer does, nobody has yet replicated all of the judgment of people -- for better or worse.  As good as Google is, there are still results that don't make sense.  (For a time, one of my blog posts was the #1 result for "teacher tenure" for instance, which I'm fairly certain is not what someone was looking for.)

So the concept behind Jason Calacanis' much talked about "Project X" is promising:

Mahalo is the world's first human-powered search engine powered by an enthusiastic and energetic group of Guides. Our Guides spend their days searching, filtering out spam, and hand-crafting the best search results possible. If they haven't yet built a search result, you can request that search result. You can also suggest links for any of our search results.

It feels sort of like Google meets Wikipedia. 

It could prove to be a valuable resource.  Right now, however, just hours after it was unveiled, it feels thin to me.  I'm not talking about the number of searches that have been customized -- I expect that it will take time to get that to a broad level.

I guess what I mean by "thin" is that the results pages don't feel especially robust.  They do a decent job of providing the obvious links, but I'd love to see the results page act more as a portal for more information -- perhaps a "dashboard" of information for the search term.

I should also note that this is likely to work best when you are searching for a concrete topic, company, product, person, etc.  For instance, there is a "Star Wars" page but if you type in "Star Wars AND Lucas" you get zilch from Mahalo.

If it doesn't evolve significantly from its present form, though, I'm not certain that Wikipedia isn't actually more helpful since it provides the nuts and bolts on one page, whereas Mahalo just provides links to the real info.  Google and the other generic search engines are all pretty good at the basics.  They tend to start having difficulty with more complex searches.  And that's where I'd love to see Mahalo or some similar engine come through with tailored results.

Nevertheless, glad to see this project has come to life, and I'll be watching to see how it evolves.

Read more about Mahalo: TechCrunch, WSJ, Danny Sullivan and Mashable.

Technorati tags: Jason Calacanis, Mahalo, Project X, Google, Wikipedia, human search, search, innovation, startup

Are Web Sites the Death of Newspaper Real Estate Ads?

A Realtor in the San Francisco area tried an experiment where he compared newspaper listings to web listings.  He discovered that the newspapers drove virtually no people to see the homes in question, while 89% were web-based leads.  He at first attributed this to the proximity to Silicon Valley, so he tried a second home in a "more traditional market" in the area. 

His conclusion?  Newspapers are dead.  But he writes this:

So far, the data is backing up my original thesis that newspapers ads for homes for sale are about promoting the Realtor, not the house. Buyers find houses online, either via the MLS or online real estate tools like Oodle, Trulia, etc.

The question then becomes how effective are newspaper ads in convincing people to check out a Realtor's web site?  It's possible that while individual home listings don't matter per se, that the mere presence of the ad does serve a useful purpose.  If they were web leads who found the web site via the newspaper, that would make them newspaper leads ultimately.

An interesting question.  And I'd be very interested to see if Realtors from other parts of the country could share some data to help determine if this is a geographic phenomenon.  It would also be interesting to see if it matters whether the house is at the high, middle, or low end of the regional market.  Perhaps there is an income bias or an age bias?  For instance, homes more appealing to empty nesters might do better in a newspaper than one more appropriate for a young family.

There are so many facets to the future of traditional media that it really is a fascinating area to watch.

Technorati tags: newspapers, real estate, realtor, MLS, home sales

A New Way to Grow Startup Companies

Leave it to a New Hampshire guy to shake up the way companies innovate.  James Currier, founder of Tickle, has taken his windfall from the sale of that company to Monster.com and has started a new kind of innovation incubator: Ooga Labs.

He calls it a "technology greenhouse," a hydroponic environment that harnesses so much energy and ingenuity that it can nurture a crop of companies. The 13-employee San Francisco startup currently has five stealth projects under development, including GoodTree.

Until recently, the Internet incubator was dismissed as bubble-era folly. But the comeback of Idealab, the original Internet incubator founded in the 1990s, and the early success of Obvious Corp., the San Francisco idea factory that spawned Twitter, the popular Internet messaging phenomenon that tells your friends what you're doing at any given moment, are generating renewed interest in testing many ideas at once and turning the best of them into businesses.

...

The small staff is organized into two-person speed teams, each pair an engineer and designer, who are the only employees working on one of the five businesses. They sit side by side in an open pit in Ooga Labs' Financial District office so people can get to know one another and what everyone is working on.

For my next act (or one of them at least), I've played with a similar concept myself.  I'm one of those people with more ideas than resources and I'm a firm believer in rapid development.  Since almost every startup changes course significantly over the course of its lifetime, why not admit that up-front and try a different approach?  It's what the big companies do -- Microsoft, Google, and the others all have teams of people trying out new ideas.  Some stick, some don't.

It will be fascinating to see how Ooga and Obvious play out.

(via Silicon Valley Watcher)

Technorati tags: Tickle, Ooga Labs, James Currier, Monster.com, Obvious, Evan Williams, incubator, entrepreneurship, innovation, Silicon Valley, startups, Twitter, GoodTree, Google Labs, Microsoft Research

A Wealth of Data on Angel Investing

Don Dodge shares a lot of great angel investing data in a detailed post worth reading if you are on either side of the investing/entrepreneur fence.  A highlight:

The Angel Capital Association did a survey of its members and got data on 590 deals that achieved an "exit".

• 47% lost money

• 26% returned 1X to 4X multiples

• 15% returned 4 to 6 times their investment

• 8% returned 6 to 30 times

• 4% returned 30X or more

Don observes that: "One big winner can cover lots of losers. Angels do 10 times as many deals as VCs, but on average the success rate is about the same."

Technorati tags: Don Dodge, angel investing, venture capital, startup funding, entrepreneurship

Looking for Seed Funding or Angel Investors Outside of Silicon Valley?

Scott Burkett has a great write-up with ideas for entrepreneurs seeking early stage funding.  He writes with a geographic focus on Atlanta, but much of what he writes applies regardless of where one is located.

Raising money is rarely easy. It is even harder in Atlanta. The good news is that software/IT is a sector in which Atlanta is very strong. There are a lot of people in this city that get information technology.

Whenever the “panels” and “luminaries” are asked this question, they usually throw out the two stock answers: the 3F’s and Sig Mosley. The 3F’s being friends, family, and fools, and Sig Mosley being the unwitting godfather of early-stage technology investing in Atlanta.

If you take out Atlanta and Sig Mosley, Scott could be talking about New England as well (or many other non-Silicon Valley parts of the country for that matter).  As the managing director of a small angel group (AOS Ventures)

Last year I interviewed Matt Rightmire of Borealis Ventures (formerly of Yahoo!) and he discussed VC life outside of Silicon Valley.  He had a lot of good insight for anyone looking for funding and not located in California.

On a related note, Will Price shares some thoughts on the question "Does Geography Matter?"  There's also an Atlanta nexus in his analysis:

The most important insight for me is that the modern economy competes on innovation and that operating within a cluster shortens the cycle time to identifying, resourcing, and realizing areas of need and opportunity.

The genesis for this post was a conversation I had with two founders, currently based in Atlanta, about the merits of moving to the Bay Area to start their company. Michael Porter's thoughtful analysis helps me better understand why the Bay Area "cost premium" is well worth it. Market cap is a function of innovation and growth, and innovation is a function of access to ideas, talent, and supporting resources that eliminate frictions and catalyze connections and progress.

Personally, I waver a bit on the geography question.  Maybe I'll do a more thoughtful post on this soon, but my quick take is that while Silicon Valley offers clear benefits to Internet entrepreneurs, it also makes it harder for companies to differentiate themselves.  Does one outweigh the other?  As always, it depends!

Technorati tags: entrepreneurship, startup funding, angel investing, seed funding, Matt Rightmire, Borealis Ventures, Will Price, Scott Burkett, Silicon Valley, business strategy

Should a Startup Entrepreneur Choose DIY PR or an Agency?

Guy Kawasaki today has a guest post from Glenn Kelman, the CEO of Redfin, arguing that startup entrepreneurs should follow the DIY PR route

Nobody knows if Charlemagne could read because an advisor always read aloud for him. It was considered humbling for the king to do anything himself. The same fears drive the most captivating, articulate entrepreneurs to hire publicists. Who wants to risk looking like a fool? As a result, hardly anyone in technology ever tries to talk to a journalist by herself—except Guy, of course.

That’s too bad. Just the other day a newspaper’s technology editor told me, “It’s just so hard to meet entrepreneurs these days. You always get their PR people.” A dozen entrepreneurs sprang to mind who would kill to tell their stories. All have agencies. So what I am recommending is not howto manage an agency, but something more radical: not hiring an agency at all.

Kelman goes on to offer 10 reasons why and does a lot to take the mystery out of startup PR.  There's no question in my mind that agencies and sole practitioners offer real value.  The question for the startup entrepreneur really becomes when is it appropriate to spend precious dollars on PR versus the DIY approach? 

It's a constant battle for entrepreneurs to make these types of decisions -- when do you hire a bookkeeper or someone to do payroll?  What functions should you outsource and which ones should you keep in-house?  When does the dollar spent on a vendor provide more value than the time spent internally?  Like Justice Potter Stewart said of obscenity (paraphrasing), "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it."  Ultimately, many decisions for the startup entrepreneur are gut calls based on the best information, advice, and experience available.

Certainly, however, entrepreneurs shouldn't be afraid to do PR on their own, especially in the early stages.  If the choice is between investing in the product or investing in PR, it's a no-brainer.

I'd be interested to hear what the "wizard" (Dick Costolo of FeedBurner) thinks since he does Q&A for founders on his blog.  For that matter, Ask the VC might take this on as well to see what Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson think from the VC perspective.  And, of course, thoughts from Shel Holtz, Shel Israel, or others who have helped provide PR to entrepreneurs in the past would be interesting as well.

UPDATE: Shel Israel weighs in on this topic. Speaking of Kelman's post, he writes: "In my opinion, it's the best piece yet written on the subject."

Technorati tags: DIY PR, public relations, PR agency, PR consultant, Brad Feld, Jason Mendelson, Dick Costolo, Guy Kawasaki, Glenn Kelman

Book Review: Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston

A few months ago, I picked up a copy of Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston, but I didn't get a chance to read it until this past weekend.  Turns out to be an excellent read.  At first, I was skeptical of the notion of reading transcripts of interviews rather than a coherent story, but it really seems to work.  Included are conversations with 32 founders of tech startups, ranging from older companies like Apple and Lotus to the hot, hip young companies of the recent boom like Flickr and 37Signals. (See the tags below for the full list of company founders included)

Between this and Ben Casnocha's book this weekend, my reading has caused me to do a lot of reflecting on my own entrepreneurial experiences.  (And it certainly fuels my ever-present itch to start more new companies -- enterprises in their infancy are my passion.)

Because of the variety of companies profiled and the different backgrounds that each founder brought to their own startup, the book does a great job of exploring different paths to success.  Certainly common themes seem to exist throughout, but this book demonstrates that there's no right or wrong answer to any startup question.  Ultimately, each entrepreneur must follow a unique path.

A few examples of things that popped out at me as I read:

• The interviews with Steve Wozniak of Apple, Dan Bricklin of Software Arts (VisiCalc), and Mitch Kapor of Lotus took me back to my days of programming on cassette tapes in BASIC for the TRS-80.  But more important, it shows many of today's younger entrepreneurs that memory space used to be a huge commodity and tight, efficient code was key.  Today, computer programs tend to be much more bloated since memory and hard disk space are cheap.  In the current environment, the focus is on lean hardware to make everything lighter and more power-efficient.
• Ray Ozzie on hiring: "In a startup, you're on this mission together.  Everyone has to feel that, and you have to hire people who are willing to believe in something they are trying to accomplish.
• More Ray Ozzie on the real reason to take investors on: "I funded the first few years [of Groove] myself.  But eventually I took money from Mitch Kapor and then others.  Not so much because I needed it at that point, but because I knew that, ultimately, you cannot accomplish something completely on your own.  You really need to develop a network of people who win when you win."
• Paul Graham, founder of ViaWeb, on deals: "Never believe it's a deal till the money's in the bank.  Even at the point where you walk in that room to sign the final papers, there's still a 10 percent chance the deal's going to fall through.  At the point where people say, "We want to buy you," the chances of it falling through are like 80 or 90 percent.  So you can't let yourself believe.  If someone wants to make you an offer, fine, but don't change your plans based on that.  Just keep going."
• Ron Gruner of Shareholder.com: "I think that bootstrapping the company on a quarter of a million dollars made us a little myopic.  We became so proud of that fact that we didn't find the middle ground.  I think that in '98, '99, or 2000, we could have taken a million, $2 million of capital, at a very attractive valuation, and retained control and grown the company twice or three times as fast as we did."

My only nit with the book really, is that I would love to have seen a companion offering or a few chapters outlining the key themes that Jessica picked up on in her interviews.  I'm certain after spending that amount of time with all of those successful founders, she would be able to do a decent discussion of the lessons and themes that permeated those talks.  Of course, that deviates from the "in their own words" format, but I still would have enjoyed it.

Technorati tags: 37Signals, Adobe Audition, Alliant Computer, Apple, ArsDigita, Blogger, Bloglines, Craigslist, Del.icio.us, Excite, Firefox, Flickr, Fog Creek Software, Gmail, Groove Networks, Hotmail, Hot or Not, Lotus, Lycos, Marimba, PayPal, Research in Motion, Six Apart, Software Arts, Tickle, Tivo, TripAdvisor, ViaWeb, WebTV, Yahoo!, Y Combinator, Jessica Livingston, Founders at Work, book review, business books

Newspaper Ads Up Online, Down Offline

 From PaidContent:

For the 12th straight quarter, newspaper websites saw their ad revenues rise; this time around, the increase was 22.3 percent to $750 million in Q1 compared to the same period a year ago, according to estimates from the Newspaper Association of America. For context, online made up 7.1 percent of total newspaper ad spending in Q1 compared with 5.5 percent for the same period a year ago. In general, however, sites are not pulling in enough to offset the drop in newspaper ad expenditures. Together, newspapers and their websites totaled $10.6 billion for Q1, a 4.8 percent decrease from Q106. Spending for print ads in newspapers totaled $9.8 billion, down 6.4 percent versus the same period a year earlier, while classified revenue fell 13.2 percent to $3.4 billion.

Technorati tags: newspapers, advertising

Why SF Chronicle is Failing

John Battelle looks at what's really ailing the San Francisco Chronicle.

clipped from battellemedia.com Up until recently, the Chronicle had 400 journalists working at the paper. FOUR HUNDRED! When I wrote for the LA Times, I often wrote two stories a day. Is the Chronicle pumping out 800 stories a day? Is it breaking all sorts of amazing stories and being a leader in the community with those 400 journalists? Hell no! 400 reporters and what is the paper DOING with them? Not much, I'm afraid. The paper should OWN the Valley Tech story. Does it? No. It should OWN the biotech story. Does it? No. It should OWN the real estate/development story. Does it? No. It should OWN the California political story. Does it? No! Why? Well, maybe it has THE WRONG 400 journalists working for it?! And the wrong tone/approach/structure? Just maybe?

links for 2007-05-30

• Have the people at ESPN.com have lost their minds or am I missing something here?!?!?
  Apparently Jason Calacanis and I both missed the story a while back that ESPN.com was refusing to stream video to customers of certain ISP's that would not pay them
  (tags: onlinevideo)
• Social Information Overload
  in many respects, social network overload is harder to deal with than news overload from traditional media and blogs
  (tags: socialmedia SocialNetworking iinformationoverload)
• Why Ustream will change mainstream
  a fantastic discussion of this newborn company seeking to change online video
  (tags: onlinevideo startups)
• The state of Technorati according to Dave Sifry
  an interview with the outgoing CEO of the social media search engine
  (tags: socialmedia startups entrepreneur)
• Where to from Google News
  fascinating stats from Hitwise on traffic to UK news aggregators, including referrer stats
  (tags: Aggregation news search Newspapers media OnlineMedia)
• Engadget Analysis Part I - Posts, Words, Comments & Categories
  must reading for anyone interested in content analysis and/or blogs
  (tags: blogs stats analysis)
• After the page
  Jeff Jarvis with some thoughts on online news layouts
  (tags: onlinemedia media)

Disruptive Dialogue #12 - Future of Media and Online Advertising

The latest episode of the Disruptive Dialogue podcast is now available.  This one was recorded in Bow, NH and is 23:37.  You can download this podcast as an MP3 or subscribe to the RSS feed to make sure you never miss an episode.

Topics:

• The O’Murdoch Factor
• Doc Searls on newspapers
• Private Equity is the biggest threat to journalism
• Media consumption rates
• Online ad spending hits $17B
• Breakdown of online ad spending by format
• TripAdvisor grows by user generated content
• Why Ustream will change mainstream
• Online video stats
• Risk of user generated ads
• Deal for small webcaster copyright royalties?
• State of Technorati
• Vertical search
• Don Dodge on search market share
• Blog Search is dead and Google killed it?

Show Notes:

• The state of Technorati according to Dave Sifry
• Why Ustream will change mainstream
• The Interweb as Mass Media
• Retrevo - Gadget Search Vertical Nirvana
• Why 1% of search market share is worth over $1 Billion
• The O'Murdoch factor
• Because paper is scarce. And so is time.
• U.S. Online Ad Spending, by Format
• The High Price of Creating Free Ads
• 2006 Online Ad Spending Hits Nearly $17 Billion
• TripAdvisor Growing With Help of User Generated Content
• Blog Search is Dead and Google Killed It
• Live Innovation Journalism Conference Notes: Private equity is biggest threat to journalism in Silicon Valley...
• Industry Royalties Org Offers "Subsidy" To Small Internet Webcasters; SaveNetRadio Says No Thanks

To Comment:

• Leave your comments here
• Call the Disruptive Dialogue comment line: (617) 273-CHIP / (2447)
• Email me your comments in MP3 format (no more than 2 minutes and 5 MB, please)

links for 2007-05-29

• The Interweb as Mass Media
  breakdown of media consumption rates
  (tags: media metrics)

(Partial) Book Review: The 4 Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss

There's been a bit of buzz in the blogosphere over The 4 Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, so despite its absurd-sounding name, I picked up a copy to read.  Unfortunately, it was pretty much what I expected.  I only made it about one-third of the way through when I came across a piece of advice I was compelled to take: "Practice the art of nonfinishing."  He writes: "Starting something doesn't automatically justify finishing it.  If you are reading an article that sucks, put it down and don't pick it back up."

Tim takes organization and work-life separation to an extreme.  The entire focus is on cutting corners while still being, or at least feeling, "rich."  There are morsels of good ideas speckled throughout the portion of the book I read, but they all get carried to the extreme.  For instance, rather than the potentially helpful advice to turn off the alert beeps when new email arrives and checking email in a more controlled manner, he brags that he looks at email for just one hour, one day a week.  And when he travels abroad, he doesn't check voice mail at all, he says.  I kid you not when I tell you this is what he writes about that:

But what if someone has an emergency?  It doesn't happen.  My contacts now know that I don't respond to emergencies, so the emergencies somehow don't exist or don't come to me.

The final part of the last sentence is what the author apparently overlooks.  All he's really doing is pushing the work off on someone else.  It still needs to get done.  And that's what's wrong with the book.  It's essentially an arrogant approach focused on manipulating rules and people to get what you want.  Unfortunately, if everyone followed his advice, nobody would be working and there would be nobody left to leech off of.

My advice for how to find more free time?  Skip this one unless you're one of those folks who believes you really can get rich quick with no real effort.

Technorati tags: The 4 Hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss, Timothy Ferriss, book review, business books

links for 2007-05-27

• The High Price of Creating Free Ads
  the pitfalls of inviting consumers to create ads for your brand
  (tags: advertising ugc)
• coRank: Build Your Own Digg Clone
  could a more focused Digg challenge the "original"?
  (tags: socialmedia ugc)
• Who Can Compete with Facebook?
  which matters more? platform or user base?
  (tags: innovation)
• Don't Adjust My EBITDA
  excuses on financial statements don't change reality, they just make managing harder
  (tags: business startups)
• U.S. Online Ad Spending, by Format
  a good breakdown to better understand online advertising
  (tags: advertising)
• Because paper is scarce. And so is time.
  Doc Searls argues newspapers should free their archives and charge only for fresh content
  (tags: Newspapers trends media)
• Video may not be best way to monetize online
  another thoughtful piece from Jeremy Liew. One of the challenges with online video is that it consumes time, the visitor's most valuable resource
  (tags: onlinevideo Advertising)
• Dick Costolo on Wallstrip
  a good interview for Dick. The only answer I really thought he fumbled was benefits of RSS over email.
  (tags: rss MandA startups)
• Does Geography Matter?
  Will Price has a thoughtful post on a topic I consider a lot
  (tags: startups geography)
• Yahoo Experiments With Third Party Links On Home Page
  will Yahoo go back to its roots and link to others?
  (tags: portals)
• The O'Murdoch factor
  a diatribe against for-profit newspapering. Gary Weiss sees profit as the root of the problem, but I would argue that the notion that journalism and profit are incompatible is why newspapers are struggling.
  (tags: newspapers journalism)
• Six Pixels Of Separation Podcast Society - The Facebook Group - Please Join
  Facebook appears to be making serious inroads among communicators and entrepreneurs lately. Starting to feel almost like Twitter circa March 2007.
  (tags: SocialNetworking)
• Why 1% of search market share is worth over $1 Billion
  Don Dodge shows why search is still a hot market and there's plenty of room for all the existing players, even smaller ones like AOL and Ask -- and even for vertical search players.
  (tags: search VerticalSearch)
• Kauffman Index Home
  465,000 new businesses started in US every month and lots of other facts and figures on entrepreneurship. (via StartupNation)
  (tags: entrepreneur startup)
• The Final Days of Google
  is Google unwittingly sowing the seeds of its own destruction from within?
  (tags: Google innovation startups entrepreneur business)
• Retrevo - Gadget Search Vertical Nirvana
  It's a review of just one engine, but it also serves as a validation of vertical search.
  (tags: search VerticalSearch)
• Signs Point to Yes for Online Video Revenue
  more facts and figures on this growth area
  (tags: onlinevideo)

Book Review: My Start-Up Life by Ben Casnocha

I just concluded Ben Casnocha's crisp and informative memoir -- quite a feat for a 19 year old.  My Start-Up Life covers the eight years of his career as an entrepreneur, beginning at the age of 12.  I believe it was Brad Feld who pointed me to this book and he has a cameo role or two in the book.

Ben does a nice job of capturing the early years of an entrepreneur's life.  Although he experienced them earlier than most, the lessons and challenges are very similar to what others -- myself included -- have faced in starting companies for the first time.  Of course, he had unique challenges to confront as well.  He had to get Mom or Dad to drive him to meetings for the first few years since he didn't have his license yet and in high school his grades suffered significantly as a result of his entrepreneurial activities.

Nevertheless, there's a lot to chew on here for anyone who has started, is starting, or is considering starting a company.  Everything from funding (including entertaining memos he sent to his Dad asking for his first "friends and family" money, as well as angel and VC efforts) to hiring, product development, and sales.  But even if you're not an entrepreneur, this book offers lots of great anecdotes and ideas that will help you do any job better or improve your career path. 

Reading this book today has filled my head with a bunch of ideas for my own blog posts, so I can attest to the mental stimulation value of his book.  And he has a crisp, clear writing style that wastes little time on platitudes and navel-gazing and focuses more on sharing his lessons learned and vision.  Some of what he says strikes me as a bit off the mark, but that's the beauty of entrepreneurship -- we all do things differently.

The only structural complaint I have with the book is excessive use of sidebars.  I found them to be a bit distracting because they broke up the flow of the narrative.  Often they provided real value, but I would prefer that they be presented inline at an appropriate breaking point rather than in a call-out box often in the middle of a paragraph.

Some things that jumped off the pages for me:

• Chapter 4 (I refuse to use the gimmicky "4.0" styling employed by the book) has a great sidebar about "Why Some People Get More Stuff Done."  In short, these people are: committed to themselves, focused on "good enough" not perfection, focused foremost on the short-term, held accountable by sharing their goals with others, and devoted to taking the first step.
• In hunting for a COO as employee #1 for the company, the final 3 candidates were interviewed by the company's advisory board.  "We're not here to pick the best of three.  Rather, we're here to see if there's a superstar -- by our budget -- who can lead Comcate to the next level.  If none of these guys blows our skirt up, we will keep searching."
• "I have an analytical turn of mind and enjoy being around more creative types (who don't wear tattoos and have tie-dyed hair)."  Though I'm more Brooks Brothers than beach bum, I've learned over the years not to judge people by appearance, so this is one area where Ben might want to expand his horizons a bit.
• "I would spend an hour or more to customize the look and feel of the product for each city -- it makes a big difference."  Amen to this.  Prospects love seeing personalize product demos.
• Pricing is the subject of a sidebar in Chapter 10 and is well worth reading.  Ben correctly points out that most start-ups have trouble in this area.  Poor pricing in the early days can sometimes be difficult to resolve later on, especially if you price too low (people appreciate discounts more than price hikes).  He also points out: "How you price your product affects how good your product is thought to be."
• Another entrepreneur who got started as a teenager, Marc Benioff of Salesforce.com, wrote the forward, but he's also the subject of a sidebar on "cold-call emails" in Chapter 12 where Ben focuses on personal branding (hey, Mitch Joel, you should have this guy on 6 Pixels of Separation!).  The focus is on turning cold emails warm by Googling your target and otherwise gathering information to make yourself relevant and valuable in your opening email.
• The ever-present tension between management and development teams reared its head at Comcate.  If you're on either side of this fence -- and let's face it, if you're reading this blog you probably are -- you should at the least pick up Ben's book and read Chapter 13 ("The Product Development Process: Cheap, Good, or Fast?") to understand the tension and see how it was resolved in this case.
• "Dare to be Mediocre: Good Is the Enemy of Perfect" is one of the sidebars in the product development chapter.  This resonates with me because I have 3 simple rules for those I work with.  One is "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."  (The other 2 I'll share in an upcoming blog post.)  The sidebar includes a good anecdote about Google making a good compromise in its cafeteria, understanding where to cut corners.  Ben says the food is great, but the tables and chairs suck.
• Ben properly stresses frugality.  He also emphasizes the value of time.  Both are correct.  But he offers conflicting anecdotes on rental cars.  On the one hand, the COO was spending money on Hertz and Ben and his Dad felt that was wasteful.  On the other, he relates a story about going with a cheap rental agency and it taking 2.5 hours to get the car.  My point of view is like the Google food example: save money where it makes sense.  I use Hertz because with their Gold service you can walk up, get in the car, and drive away.  Saves 30-60 minutes by avoiding lines, paperwork, etc.  My time is more valuable than the $20 a day I might save.
• "One issue of the New York Times contains more information than somebody in the Middle Ages was exposed to in an entire lifetime."  It's a cliche, but true.  It also underscores why people find themselves overwhelmed by information and why a real opportunity exists for creative thinkers to solve the information overload problem (or at least make it better).
• Early in the book -- I can't find find where as I write this -- Ben talked about the difference between wants and needs when it comes to customers.  It's easier to get prospects to pay for "antibiotics" than "vitamins."  Steve Bracy, our EVP at CustomScoop, prefers "painkillers" to "antibiotics" in this analogy (as do I), but the point stands.  If your product solves a problem it's more likely to sell than one that just adds icing to the cake.

The book concludes with Appendix B which provide 30 days of tips (1 a day) about how to make yourself a better entrepreneur (and, as I said before, even entrepreneurs will benefit from most of the advice).  It's a great list and I highly recommend reading it.  Lots of good ideas you can implement this month. 

Technorati tags: Ben Casnocha, My Start-Up Life, entrepreneur, book review, books, business books, Brad Feld, Mitch Joel, personal branding, angel investing, startup advice, startup funding, venture capital, career advice, Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com

links for 2007-05-25

• Seth's Blog: I'm liveblogging this
  Seth Godin joins the anti-liveblogging crowd
  (tags: blogs)
• TripAdvisor Growing With Help of User Generated Content
  "TripAdvisor is successfully showing the blue print of how to leverage user generated content, now the only question is the rest of the world watching? And who will be the next business to take this model and dominate a given online vertical in such a com
  (tags: ugc content)
• blogTV: A platform for Broadband Broadcasting
  I'm finding online video an increasingly fascinating space to watch
  (tags: onlinevideo)
• 2006 Online Ad Spending Hits Nearly $17 Billion
  (tags: advertising)

links for 2007-05-24

• Industry Royalties Org Offers "Subsidy" To Small Internet Webcasters; SaveNetRadio Says No Thanks
  grandstanding or honest attempt at compromise?
  (tags: copyright music internetradio)
• Blog Search is Dead and Google Killed It
  are the days of vertical search numbered?
  (tags: search VerticalSearch)
• Live Innovation Journalism Conference Notes: Private equity is biggest threat to journalism in Silicon Valley...
  interesting comment from biz reporter that private equity firms are a threat to journalism
  (tags: journalism)

links for 2007-05-23

• No more fun in the Valley
  a view from across the pond on Mike Arrington's musing about leaving Silicon Valley to escape the current craziness
  (tags: siliconvalley bubble)
• Monster, Community Newspaper Holdings forge alliance on recruitment
  local newspapers team up with Monster for job hunting
  (tags: newspapers classifieds advertising)
• From Internet Portals to Social Networks
  "As the New York Times highlights, the first dot com boom was marked by countless startups that generated web portals targeted at a niche audiences. The current boom is marked by startups that generate social networks targeted at niche audiences. See a co
  (tags: entrepreneur bubble)
• Relative clout: BW vs. TechCrunch
  "I thought BW had clout, but Michael Arrington at TechCrunch appears to have a level of influence I have never seen at the magazine. He has made CEOs cry merely by turning them away."
  (tags: media influence)
• Parkinson's law - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  I keep hearing and reading about Parkinson's law today: "work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion"
  (tags: workforce)
• Ghost blogging and the coming end of the Golden Age of blogging and transparency
  Dan York has a great post on the evolving conventions of the blogosphere
  (tags: blogs ethics)

Disruptive Dialogue #11 - Old Media, New Media, Multimedia, and Books

The latest episode of the Disruptive Dialogue podcast is now available.  This one was recorded in Bow, NH and is 29:51.  You can download this podcast as an MP3 or subscribe to the RSS feed to make sure you never miss an episode.

Topics:

• SF Chronicle Lays off 25%
• Don Dodge says newspapers need to go hyper-local
• Mark Cuban says TV and newspapers should follow a convergence model to thrive
• The Mini Media Maven model
• Cynthia Brumfield says media needs to follow the model of Om Malik, Rafat Ali, and Mike Arrington
• Monster.com does a deal with Community Newspaper Holdings
• Joe Wikert of Publishing 2020 talks about a new model for book reviews
• Free NYC newspapers now battling online
• Hawaii court to settle blogger vs. journalist question
• Google denies paying UK papers to index them in Google News
• The Apple/iPhone/Engadget kerfuffle
• Wall Street Journal reports on TV industry "blogola"
• Stephen Baker of BusinessWeek muses about new media influence in wake of Mike Arrington's lament about Silicon Valley
• YouTube focused more on user content than big media
• Internet TV downloads to hit $1.5 billion by 2012
• Next New Networks launching "micro TV networks"
• More on pre-roll ads and tragic news video
• Can book projects be "crowdsourced"
• Technology changes the meaning of "out of print"
• PRSA Yankee Chapter Social Media Skills Workshop
• New comment line set up

Show Notes:

• Relative clout: BW vs. TechCrunch
• Monster, Community Newspaper Holdings forge alliance on recruitment
• No more fun in the Valley
• Hawaii Court to Decide if a Blogger is a Journalist
• Google Denies Content Re-Use Deal With UK News Publishers
• Book Reviews: Newspapers vs. Blogs
• Newspapers need to go hyper-local to survive
• Google News: The End of News Indexing As We Know It?
• Publisher to Let the Public Have a Vote on Book Projects
• Man Bites Dog - Chronicle to Lay Off 25%
• 2 Free New York Newspapers Are Doing Battle on Web Sites as Well as in Subways
• San Francisco Paper Whacks Jobs
• YouTube founders bet on user-generated content over big media
• Why Can't Newspapers Get With the Program?
• SF Chronicle Trims 25% of Newsroom Staff
• Newspapers, TV and the Net - Its Convergence Time
• Next New Networks Building Micro Television Networks
• Publisher and Authors Parse a Term: Out of Print
• Internet Television Downloads To Reach $1.5 Billion in Five Years
• Blogola
• Pre-roll ads and tragedy

To Comment:

• Leave your comments here
• Call the Disruptive Dialogue comment line: (617) 273-CHIP / (2447)
• Email me your comments in MP3 format (no more than 2 minutes and 5 MB, please)

links for 2007-05-22

• Google News: The End of News Indexing As We Know It?
  is Google cutting secret deals with European publishers?
  (tags: copyright)
• The Value Of Aggregating Content
  disaggregation vs. aggregation -- where are we headed?
  (tags: Aggregation media)
• Newspapers need to go hyper-local to survive
  echoing my argument that most newspapers can only differentiate on local coverage because national, international, business, entertainment, etc. has become commoditized or moved to the land of the giants
  (tags: newspapers)
• Book Reviews: Newspapers vs. Blogs
  making reviews more relevant and interesting
  (tags: newspapers books)
• The future of professional associations
  how do they compete in a world where social networks, social media, and unconferences offer compelling content with no attendance fees or dues?
  (tags: conference unconference SocialNetworking associations)
• Google Denies Content Re-Use Deal With UK News Publishers
  umambiguous denial
  (tags: copyright)
• Hawaii Court to Decide if a Blogger is a Journalist
  should a blogger be forced to reveal sources?
  (tags: bloggers journalism shieldlaw)

Why Do We Need to Abide by Old Media Silos of Text vs. Video? (Taking Lessons from the Mini Media Mavens)

The line between newspapers and TV blur more and more every day.  Heck, we may as well include radio in the mix.  The new media universe on the web allows all forms of old media to encroach on each other's territory.  The Wall Street Journal and other papers provide audio and video coverage on their web sites (like Walt Mossberg's column, for example).  MSNBC, CNN, ABC News, and the other networks all provide text coverage on their web sites.  And radio stations provide text as well, while the others offer podcasts or other audio-only content.

Recognizing this, Mark Cuban calls for old school media to acknowledge reality and seek out more formal convergence.

Riddle me this Batman: Rupert Murdoch has figured out that Print and TV can be combined to be a vertical news organization and is willing to pay 5 billion dollars to do it. Why has no one else realized the value of combining big news brands and organizations ?

Why isn't a CBS News merging their news department with a NY Times and rebranding itself as the 6pm NY Times News ? Or with Time Magazine News ? Or NBC News and ???

Mini Media Mavens already realize this convergence is occurring and they're taking advantage of it.  Think of all the podcasters and vidcasters who also blog.  The likes of Robert Scoble, Jeff Jarvis, Mike Arrington, and others are establishing their own media empires that blend text, audio, and video into a cohesive platform.

Old media is doing so, but slowly and reluctantly.  Cuban's suggestion has been adopted in small measure by traditional players, but slowly with more of a "dip the toe in the water" feel.  Newspapers, for instance, have arrangements with TV where they contribute content.  The Boston Globe, for example, co-brands some shows on the New England Sports Network and supplies reporters as on-air personalities.  Similarly, the Washington Post and MSNBC have an arrangement where the Post contributes to the network and its web site.

Mark's thoughts come at the same time as the blogosphere is abuzz about the significant layoffs at the San Francisco Chronicle.  It's not at all clear that convergence would help here (from afar it feels like bad business decisions got it to the point it is at), but it underscores the ongoing difficulties as traditional media try to evolve and adjust to the new media world.

Cynthia Brumfield at IP & Democracy thinks that newspapers should take their cues from the likes of those I noted above and argues:

in these days when Om Malik, Rafat Ali and Mike Arrington can whip up profitable web-based publishing empires seemingly overnight (not really overnight in the case of Om and Rafat), why can’t newspapers do the same thing? Or at least try to leverage the journalistic talent already on the payroll to forge new territories instead of letting that talent go?

If big traditional media outlets on television, radio, and in print were to take these lessons to heart, they would be able to evolve more rapidly.  More importantly, however, they must learn not simply to follow the lead of the Mini Media Mavens, but to find ways to innovate on their own in order to return to the leadership spots they once held on the American media landscape.

Technorati tags: Mark Cuban, Robert Scoble, Mike Arrington, Om Malik, Rafat Ali, Jeff Jarvis, Cynthia Brumfield, Boston Globe, Washington Post, MSNBC, Wall Street Journal, Walt Mossberg, video, tv, radio, newspapers, traditional media, msm, online media, social media, NESN, media mavens, Rupert Murdoch, podcasting, vidcasting, online video, San Francisco Chronicle

links for 2007-05-21

• Next New Networks Building Micro Television Networks
  (tags: media OnlineMedia onlinevideo)
• Newspapers, TV and the Net - Its Convergence Time
  (tags: media newspapers tv video onlinevideo)
• SF Chronicle Trims 25% of Newsroom Staff
  (tags: media Newspapers)
• Nielson Pees In The Social Media Kool-Aid With Their Recent Report
  (tags: socialmedia advertising)
• What's Wrong With Ghost Blogging? Or Insights From Inside PR #59
  (tags: socialmedia ethics)
• Why Can't Newspapers Get With the Program?
  (tags: newspapers)
• Gen Y, Social Media and the workforce of the future
  (tags: workforce)
• Should Copyright Live Forever?
  (tags: copyright)
• YouTube founders bet on user-generated content over big media
  (tags: onlinevideo OnlineMedia video ugc ConsumerGeneratedMedia)
• What Is The Value Of Online Display Ads?
  (tags: Advertising)
• San Francisco Paper Whacks Jobs
  (tags: newspapers media)
• Life after pageviews: Proposing AudientStream and AttentStream
  (tags: metrics attention)
• Ombudsing
  (tags: newspapers)
• 2 Free New York Newspapers Are Doing Battle on Web Sites as Well as in Subways - New York Times
  (tags: newspapers)
• Man Bites Dog - Chronicle to Lay Off 25%
  (tags: newspapers Aggregation)
• Publisher to Let the Public Have a Vote on Book Projects - New York Times
  (tags: wisdomofthecrowds crowdsourcing books)

Information Aggregation: Man vs. Machine

The concept of information overload is hardly new.  But in the age of social media, we're all inundated with so much information a daily basis that it's hard to keep up.  I know I have trouble keeping up with 233 feeds on a daily basis.  I've done my best to organize them into logical folders to help me prioritize since I know some days I can't keep up with everything. 

Like many, then, I rely on aggregators to find information that's valuable to me, especially when I don't have time to do my own hunting for big news or simply serendipity.  But what works better?  Man or machine?  TechMeme or Scoble? 

Automatic Aggregators

I visit sites like TechMeme, Google News, Topix, and TailRank, to find stories of interest in traditional and new media.  In so doing, I see what's being talked about a lot and make sure I don't miss hot topics of conversation.  But while the machines -- or more accurately the algorithms that were created by the likes of Gabe Rivera, Rich Skrenta, and Kevin Burton -- do an excellent job for this purpose, they still have the quirks associated with anything that is computer-generated.  Each has its strengths and weaknesses, as well as a unique focus, but they all suffer from a similar flaw: computers can only follow a fixed set of rules and sometimes the best information doesn't fall into a neat little box.

User Voting

In an effort to balance man vs. machine, sites like Digg, Reddit,del.icio.us/popular, and others accept user submissions of stories, compile "votes" for the various pieces of content, and then use some sort of algorithm to generate lists of popular items.  Personally, I find these sites less valuable than the automatic aggregators because the chosen content tends to be all over the map, without a clear theme or pattern to what becomes popular.  In addition, often what becomes popular does so more for amusement than practical value.  My interest tends to be more in these sites for business than entertainment, so they don't serve my own needs quite as well as they may for others.

Human Editors

Despite my love of technology and my affection for automated solutions to information problems, I continue to find the greatest value in aggregation performed by humans.  The editorial value that an individual can provide in directing me to timely and accurate information still exceeds that which a computer algorithm can offer. 

I began my career almost two decades ago in Washington, DC and there we relied on a daily fax newsletter that summarized key political news in newspapers across the country.  In those pre-Web days, National Journal's Hotline was a "must read" and the only way to digest the latest on campaigns and policy debates around the country.  Even today when we can easily access newspapers from across the nation online, the Hotline continues to play an important role in distilling this flood of information into a digestible form.

Of late, I have also come to rely on Robert Scoble's shared links to help find interesting items that I might otherwise overlook.  He says his goal is to help save time for others.  Like the automated web sites, his offering isn't perfect (I don't share his affinity for cat pictures, for instance), but his interests parallel mine pretty closely and I find a lot of value in it. 

For years, Steve Rubel has offered his del.icio.us links as part of his daily blog feed, and those are also a great resource, though much narrower in focus and volume than what Scoble shares.  Jason Calacanis just announced he's getting into this game as well and is in fact trying to create a broader network of like-minded people that will share a combined feed on del.icio.us. 

Yet these human solutions all have their own major weakness: the human element!  People get busy, have biases, and fall into their own patterns. 

So What's the Answer?

For now, there's no magic solution to the challenge of information overload.  Machines are more timely and consistent, but humans offer greater judgment and more serendipity.

Like many, I will continue to use all of the methods above plus continue to read feeds on my own.  The short-lived SearchFox application once tried to bridge this gap by trying to analyze my feed reading behavior to organize information in a priority fashion.  It was a good start and I was sorry to see it disappear.

In re