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• 07.01.08
  Takeaways from Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good
  Social Media

  Max Levchin and many other famous entrepreneurs failed numerous times before hitting it big Reid Hoffman(LinkedIn), Peter Thiel (Paypal/Clarium) and Sean Parker (Facebook/Napster) were all advisors to Friendster Ability to be successful on the web is highly correlated to amount of capital you have access to A bunch of the Internet greats went to the University of Illinois (Andreessen, Levchin). Seem random? It’s not. The internet is a lot less about being a ‘pure genius’ and a lot more about being in the right place, at the right time (oh and having a ton of connections helps too) Surprise! Lots of famous Internet founders ...
  
  
• 06.08.08
  Slide Giving Up on Facebook? What’s It Really Mean?
  Social Networking

  From Alley Insider: Slide, the company that makes Facebook's most popular apps, says it's done making new ones for the social network. Keith Rabois, VP of strategy and business development, told us this week that the company wants to concentrate on making the existing apps like FunWall and Top Friends better -- and ultimately figure out how to generate real money from them. ...Read between the lines here, and you can see a slightly different story: Slide is saying that the great Facebook app land-grab, which kicked off a year ago, is over. And it's ended up with the best property. I find ...
  
  
• 05.15.08
  Update: I Got Kicked Off Facebook
  Brands and Marketing, Social Networking

  Just an update for RSS readers becasue many have inquired what happened that resulted in my Facebook Account being deleted. Nick O'Neill has a post at AllFacebook explaining what happened. I have been in contact with both Ralph Lauren and Facebook and hope to be back soon. I will provide an update when/if that happens.
  
  
• 05.15.08
  I Got Kicked Off Facebook
  My Experiences, Social Networking

  This past New Year’s I made Ten Predictions for 2008 on this blog, including a bonus, eleventh prediction… Well that eleventh prediction has come true: I have been kicked off Facebook for what is, in my opinion, a really big mistake/misunderstanding. Of course since I am the one who was kicked off I will leave it to someone else to cover the story (to avoid bias) and I will link to it when that happens Nick O'Neill has covered the reason at AllFacebook.com. Needless to say, I have really not done anything wrong and I am confident my account will reinstated after additional ...
  
  
• 05.06.08
  Ten Interesting Memes Plucked From The Blogosphere
  Social Media

  I’ve been noticing a lot of memes floating around the social media/2.0 space over the last two weeks and I decided to pluck 10 of my favorites. If you haven’t been glued to Google Reader or Twitter, here is a run-down of memes worth paying attention to... Socialprise: Social tools + enterprise = "socialprise." According to RedWriteWeb this meme represents one of the biggest shifts in business today. AVC questions whether it’s an oxymoron. Suckage: Refers to a general feeling among smart technologists such as Umair Haque that entrepreneurs aren’t addressing real problems but instead creating ’me-too’s.’ Umair has even issued a ...
  
  
• 05.05.08
  The Anti-Facebook
  Workstreamr

  We recently met with a well-known VC who offered the following observation (I am paraphrasing): At its core, Facebook is pure entertainment. It helps people waste time and feel important – and that’s good. However, we believe that there is an opportunity for a company that does the exact opposite of Facebook. Instead of helping a community of people waste time and be entertained, this service would help them get work done and accomplish productive things. The potential market is enormous. Indeed.
  
  
• 03.31.08
  How to get a Date on Facebook
  Brands and Marketing

    Yesterday, a tweet from John Erik Metcalf got me thinking. I have experimented with Facebook Pages and carried out very targeted ad campaigns using the richness of profiles, to focus on very niche demographics. If you have not used Facebook before as an advertising platform, it’s worth a look, even if only for its user interface. As you add new variables, you can see the total number of users you can target.  Someone could theoretically create a niche campaign focused on women, living in San Francisco, ages 25-30, making over $50,000 who are single… Yes! Someone (albeit someone with balls) could ...
  
  
• 03.16.08
  Irony or Tragedy? The Venturescape and Bear Sterns
  Tech'nomics

  As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I just returned from SXSW. The atmosphere among most attendees seemed one of optimism, bordering on carefree exuberance. Companies like Facebook, Digg, Etsy and Google threw great parties and spoke about how they would ‘revolutionize’ this or that. Many other earlier-stage startups I spoke with were confident they would soon score substantial investments at great valuations. And why not? AOL just bought Bebo and may go for Kickapps. Union Square Ventures just launched a new fund. Microsoft is buying, apparently not deterred by its Facebook investment. Even articles on the Spitzer debacle ...
  
  
• 02.02.08
  Do I Want to Be Friends with a Brand?
  Brands and Marketing, CSR

  The relationship of brands within and among social media communities is still in flux. Facebook is one of the first new media companies to attempt to embrace brands outside the context of paid-advertising with the creation of Facebook’s “brand pages.” These pages essentially allow brands to have profiles and friends just like regular Facebook users. At a breakfast I recently attended several people were outspoken over the “friends-with-brands” concept, believing it absurd that people would choose to be friends with a brand. They questioned what benefits a brand could really extract from a ‘social relationship’ with an individual and ...
  
  
• 01.30.08
  Does 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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