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June 2007

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06.18.07

The Other Bubble
My Experiences
While freely flowing venture capital and hedge fund money has arguably created a new financial bubble, there is another bubble expanding at an even greater rate. It is a bubble that remains largely unmentioned and it normally does not affect most of us. However, I unfortunately experienced the consequences of this ’other bubble’ today. Around 1pm I was jumped in a grocery store, two blocks from my apartment in one of the nicest areas of Washington, DC. It happened completely out of the blue. The guy was the stereotypical ’thug’ depicted on crap shows like cops. A large black man. I wasn’t ...
06.15.07

Weekend RoundUp
Pop Culture
I haven’t been able to do much writing this week but I wanted to point out a few things I have come across that others may enjoy... Rob Webb has a great post about our rival alma matas forays into venture capital endowment investing. Looks like Colby has the upper hand as of now. There is an interesting email from Justin Rosenstein making the rounds with the message that ’Facebook is THAT company.’ Brilliant PR or is this guy onto something? In answer to Noah’s question ’“ I rarely ever check email. Instead’ I listen. The beautiful buzz of my Blackberry has ...
06.13.07

The Ultimate Summer Internship is Hiring!
Campus Chatter, Social Media
Looking to work for one of the hottest web startups in the world? Want a boss who is universally known as technology genius? Want to work from the comfort of your own home? Want the opportunity to research and learn about new topics? Want to work for a company where you can see your results? Want to set your own hours (i.e. sleep until 10am?) Want to make $30+ per hour? You Can! Sort of’ Jason Calacanis has announced the launch of Mahalo Greenhouse. The Greenhouse program allows members of public (basically Mahalo interns) to build search result pages for keywords not currently included in Mahalo results. ...
06.12.07

MyBlogLog Hack: Traffic and Authority from Tags
My Experiences, Social Media
As most MyBlogLog users have noticed there is a new tagging feature. As far as I can tell it doesn’t matter if you tag yourself or someone else tags you. Most people have tagged themselves and their communities with keywords (’tags’) describing them. So what does this matter? Well, if you click a tag, say ’Social Media’ you can see all communities and people tagged with ’Social Media.’ The more people who have added the same tag to a community or personal profile, the higher-up the profile will be shown on a search for Social Media (MyBlogLog associates more tags with ...
06.12.07

Obnoxious Free Marketing that Works!
My Experiences, Pop Culture
So this past week I was traveling all over the east coast for various events. I had a couple flights which lead me to make some observations on effective marketing in airports. First, while waiting to board a flight you have a zillion people waiting in a small area. Several times while waiting to board I was forced to listen to some guy on his cell phone having a conversation for all to hear. Well, what if you were to loudly have a ’fake conversation’ promoting your product? It’s a quick way to get 100+ to hear about you, and ...
06.07.07

Give Me My Facebook Back! What’s a Social Utility Anyway?
Business Models, Campus Chatter, Pop Culture, Social Networking
Currently the most-emailed New York Times article is ’omg my mom joined Facebook!!’ The article is a humorous recount of a Mom who, feeling disconnected from her daughter, joins Facebook (now open to everyone) only to find that her daughter isn’t exactly happy with her decision’ The article highlights an issue that became apparent to me tonight while talking with my youngest sister. A college senior who has been on with Facebook from its very beginnings, my sister shocked me tonight by announcing that she was DONE with Facebook and plans to delete her profile. ’It sucks now’ was her ...
06.07.07

Picnik: The Best Online Photo Editor
Social Media
I have been experimenting with the application Picnik and it’s AMAZING, especially when using the Firefox plugin. For someone like me who doesn’t own Photoshop but still likes to play with and alter pictures (presentations, blogging, etc) Picnik is a God-send. It allows you to screen-capture, or directly upload images for editing. Once uploaded you can then save directly to Flickr, Facebook and other sites. The customization features are cool as well ’“ definitely not as in-depth as the expensive programs - but for a FREE, web-based image editor I have yet to see anything that matches it. Oh and ...
06.06.07

Young Professionals & Entrepreneurs: The Similarities Abound
Campus Chatter, Entrepreneurship
My sister is currently looking a job and she’s two years out of college. My other sister will be graduating from college next year and she’s already thinking about her impending job search... It got me thinking that there is a lot in common between entrepreneurs looking for funding and recent college graduates looking for jobs. As an analogy, think of a recent graduate (and his or her resume) as a business plan ’“ a potential gamble or risk for some company looking to hire. The recent graduate, like the entrepreneur, must sell themselves and show how his or her skills ...
06.05.07

Guest Post: AllFacebook
Social Networking
I have a guest post today over at the new blog AllFacebook by Nick O’Neill. Check it out.
06.04.07

The Truth About Truemors
Business Models, Entrepreneurship, My Experiences, Venture Capital
There has been a ton of blogosphre buzz lately surrounding Guy Kawasaki and his launch of Truemors. Today Guy came out with a transparent ’by the numbers’ look at the Truemors production. Specifically, Guy seems very proud about only spending $12, 107.09 to build his new company. However, I think a lot of people are missing a crucial point: it’s not what it costs to build, so much the length of the payback period that an entrepreneur should be concerned with. In this case, since Guy made a free website that will likely make a minimal amount of money on advertising, ...

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