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Leveraging Ideas
January 2008
The Archives
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01.31.08Why You Wish You Went to an Ivy League School [Networking]
My ExperiencesMy friend Chris invited me to a talk this morning at the Cornell Club in Manhattan entitled, "Engaging the media in a brave new world." The talk featured Sharon Tolpin, Senior Vice President, Articulate Communications, and Erick Schonfeld, Co-Editor of TechCrunch.com. Honestly, I got very little out of the talk but what struck me was what happened at the panel's conclusion: the moderator asked everyone to write on the back of a business card two types of people they want to be introduced to. The Club then promised to connect everyone to one of those people within a week. Based on ...
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01.31.08Dude Really Wants a Curve
Pop CulturePretty funny post by a guy desperate to get his hands on a Blackberry Curve [Click to View Full Image]
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01.30.08Who the Heck is Carl Ortutay? How’d He Become So Powerful?
Social MediaThis afternoon while comparing Mint to Twitter on Alexa Compete, I ran into the strangest thing: According to Compete the top keyword driving traffic to Mint.com is - as might be expected - “Mint” and “Mint.com.” However, the second most popular keyword driving traffic to Twitter is strangely the name “Carl Ortutay.” Strange because Carl is not the founder of Twitter. Carl doesn’t work at Twitter. In fact, Carl isn’t even a power user. The guy has 15 followers. He doesn’t even have a blog or website. So who is this insanely powerful Internet rock star? Well, if ...
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01.30.08Does Vampire Weekend Use Macs?
Brands and Marketing[Click for full image] After seeing Vampire Weekend debut their album at the Virgin Mega Store last night, two friends and I ended up having a long conversation lasting into the wee hours. We were discussing the role that innovation plays in society, and specifically whether or not the value that innovation plays on our global economy is less than it was 100, or 300 years ago. Our talk reminded me of a few articles I’ve come across recently dealing with brands, influence and social networks First, Mindset Media recently performed a psychographic a study of Apple users, determining ...
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01.27.082008 Investment Economics for Young Professionals (Part I)
My Experiences, Tech'nomicsMany of my friends are in the fortunate position to have stable, well-paying jobs. Several of these friends have recently come to the realization that while saving money is good, what they should really be doing is growing money – not simply saving it. Along those lines, the impending social security crisis and the power of compounding are concepts most understand. Several people in the past couple weeks have asked me what they should do with their money since simply ‘saving it’ is inadequate. Why they ask me, I am not sure. Perhaps it’s because I have an MBA, ...
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01.24.0810 Pros and 10 Cons for Facebook Being the Next Google
Social NetworkingCons 1. Employees self-proclaim “we don’t do any work!” 2. First serious attempt at monetization was a disaster 3. Early scam artists are now investors 4. Struck a deal with Microsoft, not Google 5. CEO is regarded as a ‘douche bag’ 6. MySpace still crushes FB in terms of eyeballs and MySpace really sucks 7. The younger generation is all about Webkinz 8. FB top engineer masquerades as a stripper on weekends 9. Facebook’s idea of good PR is a 60 Minutes special 10. The valuation is crazy even compared to companies making real revenues Pros 1. Catching up to Myspace like a Ferrari 2. Has a war chest of cash on ...
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01.22.08Business Idea: Amateur Produced Commercials
Business ModelsSeveral months ago an amateur commercial originally created by a student for the iPod touch was picked up by Apple and run in major television spots. I think we are in an age where amateur content is frequently superior (at least in ideation) to stuff professionally produced. In his brilliant Ted Talk from 2007, JJ Abrams (Creator of Lost and Cloverfield) talks about the democratization of media. Specifically, Abrams suggests that whereas he used to tell aspiring writers to “go write” now thanks to advances in technology he can tell aspiring directors to “go make movies.” According to Abrams, innovations ...
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01.21.08Business Idea: Subscribe to Tagged Magazine Articles
Business ModelsDarren Herman has a nice post asking someone to help him start a new website featuring RSS headlines tailored to individual subscribers. Darren’s post reminded me of an idea I had last week... One industry that clearly falls under the long tail effect is the magazine industry. While many magazines make some of their content free available online, for the most part I have stopped subscribing to print magazines because there are few I read cover to cover. Nevertheless, magazines are still proliferating and some B-list mags, like blogs, occasionally have great articles I would love to read. ...
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01.20.08Time to be Worried?
My ExperiencesI'm composing this post on a Blackberry while in the woods of New Hampshire, so apologies for any sloppieness! This weekend has given me an opportunity to read several articles on the state of Fed as well as a post by Paul Kedrosky on why the tech sector may not be immune to a recession.Overall I'm not as optimistic on the economy's outlook as I was several months ago. Indeed I am border line worried. At my grandfather's 90th birthday dinner last night he spoke about the difficult economic conditions he grew up in during the 1930's and then treated us all ...
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01.18.08
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