As an entrepreneur in the tech space — network your ass off. New research is out from Informs.org that says “cultivation of strong and relevant social networks among a firm’s managers can be an important determinant of the success of a startup venture.”

Thanks to Businesspundit for highlighting this.

I agree with Ronald Lewis’ comment on TechCrunch post calling for Yahoo’s Terry Semel’s head. Here’s the last two paragraphs of comment -

And for crying out loud, GET RID of Yahoo! Photos and other services where things overlap. Why the hell does anyone need two photo sites when you’ve got the world’s MOST popular and KICK ASS photo sharing property (umm, Flickr?)

Ahhh, it’s just the American way to make changes when it’s far too late — it’s only then when our ignorance and arrogance fails us and we awaken to realize we need to do something. We do this shit everyday in society, business, relationships, ahhh … why bother going on.

Regarding the last paragraph of his comment — I am just praying that society won’t wait until it’s too late regarding global warming (but I’m convinced we probably will given human nature). We need more people like Al Gore championing this issue.

On the subject of Yahoo! — they need to determine their core focus instead of trying to do everything.

The New York Times has a great article about Quigo Technologies, a company I didn’t know existed even though they now serve the text ads on ESPN.com. Here’s a bit about Quigo -

Founded in 2000, Quigo provides innovative, performance-based marketing solutions that achieve superior results for premium-branded websites and advertisers. ROI-based solutions for content-targeted advertising and search marketing form the foundation of Quigo’s product offerings.

The company is trying to take market share away from Google in the battle for the contextual text ad market. How are they competing with Google? Well, by being transparent. Frankly, I’m amazed Google has gotten away with not telling their advertisers which sites their ads are displayed on for so long. There are thousands (probably hundreds of thousands) of sites displaying Google ads – but as an advertiser, there’s no way to tell which sites your ads are appearing on. It’s pretty obvious advertisers are willing to pay more for an ad on a site like CNN than on, say, Fred’s News Blog. Quigo is bringing transparency to text advertising — and as a result, Google is going to start showing its advertisers the same type of data in a couple months. It’ll be interesting to see how much traction Quigo gets — it’s great to see some serious competition for Google (and Yahoo!).

There’s plenty of links to other posts covering the subject at Techmeme if you’re interested in reading more.

A take away is this: if part of your business model relies on hiding data from customers, you might as well start giving customers access to the data they want — or someone else will.

Startup Review posted a great case study of MyBlogLog this morning — it’s a fantastic read if you’re interested in the web 2.0 space.

Is anyone using Megite to find conversations? How is Megite different than sites like Techmeme? How exactly does either site figure out what is most relevent anyway?

I checked out Megite this morning and the interface seems a bit cluttered. It’s harder to visualize & find the conversation than on Techmeme.

Should Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook, and other hi-tech entrepreneurs, cash in now or continue building their company on their own? There’s some debate and I definitely see the arguements both ways.

With Facebook, my personal opinion is that they should remain private for at least another 18 months. They have an absolutely huge opportunity in front of them. Since FB is already profitable, it is not really subject to the lack of cash problem as many young tech companies are. Facebook, which has built their brand name to a point that advertisers view them as a viable option (ie media buyers won’t get fired for buying ads on FB), has two absolutely huge advantages in terms of attracting a large number of big-name advertisers:

1. Highly engaged audience — I think the roughly 1 billion page views a Facebooks serves on a daily basis says it all – users are very, very active.
2. Highly targeted audience — I would guess FB can (and do) target their ads against almost all of the fields that users fill in. That means, advertisers can target users that are “Very liberal, between the ages of 20-22, live in Seattle, and single” if they want to. Users targeted to that level are extremely valuable to advertisers.

If anyone can take the social networking reigns from MySpace (and I REALLY want someone too), I think FB is the most likely. That said, I hope Facbook continues to listen to their users and build compelling products – though I’m certainly not impressed with their “Gift Shop” feature.

Eric over at MyBlogLog has done a excellent job this week dealing with the SPAM issue that faced his (well, Yahoo!’s now) company last weekend. The issue was that thousands of users were e-mailed as a result of a loophole in their code.

It’s no secret I’m a fan of MyBlogLog, but that’s not the reason I’m writing this — I think the episode is a great example of how companies can benefit from being completely transparent and brutally honest regarding mistakes & corrections made. So, how’d Eric do it? Well – he was honest and transparent with everything he did:

1. Apologized to users for the SPAM & developed a 6 Point Plan to fix make sure it doesn’t happen again
2. Fixed point number 2 in the post referenced above
3. Banned ShoeMoney (TechCrunch coverage)
4. Fixed 4 more points
5. Eric listened to the feedback that he got from contacts around the blogosphere & un-banned ShoeMoney

Corporations far and wide should be watching how effectively companies can use the web as a customer service tool. Being completely open and honest with your actions creates massive customer goodwill. Hopefully, pretty soon, companies will get over their historical fear of admitting mistakes.

Afterall, does this really sound like something you would hear from a founder?

Here’s the thing. A lot of people I respect immensely have written in to tell me that I screwed up, and after a point, it becomes impossible to avoid the truth. We banned Shoemoney originally to keep him from updating his list of User IDs on Wednesday night, which I think was the right thing to do. But after fixing the exploit, I should have unbanned him and thanked him for finding it. But I didn’t. I screwed up.

I agree with Matthew — everyone should accept the apology & move on. Once again – congrats to Eric for a job well done!

Update: I apologize, but I fell into the trap of just giving credit to Eric, rather than the whole team, because he was the one interfacing with the public. The whole team deserves a pat on the back.

If the single-source rumor of a Google announcement tomorrow is true, what do you think it is??

It would sure be sweet if it was one of the things I mentioned in my Google analysis the other day…

Everyone seems to be crazy about user-generated content and community — bloggers are no different. Search Marketing has a thorough article titled “Cultivating a Blog Community in 10 Steps – Part 1.” Not that all his points aren’t great, but I think number 4 — Think Long Term — is the real key to building a successful blog community. In fact, I think this success factor is one of the more important ones relating to success in business or life as well. Too many people expect instant results when they start blogging — it’s just completely unrealistic to expect an instant audience (unless you are someone like Bill Gates or Kobe Bryant) or instant measurable benefit. Those that constantly think short term are going to struggle to succeed in anything, not just blogging.

After reading part 1, I can’t wait for part 2 of the series!

There are two primary aspects of business that are extremely enjoyable — 1) relationship building and 2) business strategy. On the subject of business strategy, Guy Kawasaki asked Michael Raynor some fantastic questions & receives some great responses. Michael has a degree from Harvard and authored The Strategy Paradox — so I think it’s safe to say he knows what he’s talking about. What makes companies succeed? What makes them fail? Have a look for yourself at Mr Raynor’s answers.

Stay tuned…

Update: Zillow is back online – check it out for yourself (hint – if you have a home posted for sale, check the bottom of the details page of your listing).  For more information, please see the Zillow Blog post.

So, Kevin Rose announced Digg will start supporting OpenID in 2007. Back in August, I mentioned that a universal integrated login allowing internet users to access all their accounts is deparately needed. OpenID seems to have done gained significant traction in this space — including the recent support of AOL & Microsoft. And now Digg.

I’m looking forward to the day when I can login with one ID & surf everywhere on the internet without remembering 30 user names/passwords. Hopefully, that day will come sooner rather than later.

Guy Kawasaki posted about the “World Map of Happiness” on Friday that lists the happiest countries in the world based on a study by Adrian G. White, a psychologist at the University of Leicester. The United States, with the largest economy in the world, is number 23 on the list. That should tell you something. Money does NOT lead to happiness — though I’m sure many of you THINK money makes you happy.

If you are a CEO — do you have a handle on your employees? Do they really like working at your company? Ask Miller Brewing Company how social media impacts them after several discontent employees decided to publish a song on YouTube in response to the “possibility of CEO Norman Adami freezing their pensions.” The video is a great demonstration of how social media is giving anyone and everyone a way to make their voice heard. The impacts are far-reaching in business and public relations. Wonder if Norman is losing any sleep over this??

I found this through the Church of the Customer Blog, but Brains on Fire found the story.

Since I had so much fun with my first “If I were the CEO” post, I thought I’d try my hand at it again…this time with Google. The difference is I’m guessing that the Google founders won’t come comment on this post (whereas the MyBlogLog ones did). This one is a little shorter than my last one, but I thought I’d put it out there anyway.

1. Add the ability for users to “rate” search results that they receive as unhelpful or helpful (or even a 5-star rating?) – One new site I know of doing this is TallStreet (I’m sure there are others). Google would bring social recommendation into the limelight almost overnight when/if they adopt this into their search results. I believe rating search results has the ability to vastly increase the relevance of their results — though I’m guessing this would open the system up to abuse by bots in a massive way.
2. Create new brands – yeah, yeah — when a company dominates the internet, marketing is not usually a huge concern. That said, I believe it will be extremely difficult for Google to be known for anything other than search with the Google brand. Use Google as the search brand (we know EVERYONE thinks “search” when Google is mentioned), but I would argue their online office suite (Google Docs and Spreadsheets & a Power point clone on the way) should take on its own brand name to gain traction. Zoho seems to be the leader in this space thus far. I’ll be honest, I haven’t really played around with either platform yet. Yahoo! is known for — trying to be everything to everyone. Google will risk being categorized as such unless they build new brands for vastly different product groups. So, who disagrees with me on this point (i’m guessing many will)?
3. Expand Google Checkout’s Reach – All I will say is that PayPal is in trouble in the long run. Google has the cash to essentially buy customers (free to merchants until the end of 2007) for the next year. The vast majority of people already have a google account (by having a gmail address), removing one barrier — registration — that is usually hard for a new service to overcome. Lower fees and superior software engineers are going to be difficult for PayPal to compete with — good luck !
4. Develop a COMPLETE Self-Service Advertising Platform – businesses should be able to buy television, radio, print, and online advertising all in one spot. As a small business, I think part of the difficulty in advertising is that there is no central hub. For instance — how the hell would I go about buying a commercial on a local television station? I wouldn’t know where to begin. What about a local magazine? No clue. I’m guessing the answer is to contact each publication/station individually — but that’s time consuming. Small business owners most likely don’t have time to devote someone full time to marketing, which makes navigating the advertising options difficult. Google is the ONLY company that has a legitimate shot at successfully building an all-in-one platform & get media publications, television stations, newspapers, billboard agencies, etc ALL on board (in my opinion at least). Will it happen?? I can’t even fathom how much revenue such a system would pull in.
   Update: Google has added to their advertising reach with their purchase of Adscape for $23 million. Adscape is in the video game advertising space.
   

All in all, Google stands to dominate the internet for at least the next 5 years. No one has the cash they do. Or the vast collection of amazing software engineers. Or the powerful brand name that gets mentioned everywhere. Or, maybe more importantly, data on 55% of searches performed on the internet. Google knows how people think & what they want based on how everyday people search better than anyone else.

If I feel inspired on the topic, I’ll do a “round 2″ on Google — but I won’t promise anything. Any ideas as to another company I should write about? Let me know.

This article on MediaPost Publications was brought to my attention earlier today by a colleague — starting next year, “flogs” (fake blogs) are being banned in the UK. I was actually going to write something intelligent about this (or at least try), but I just played in a basketball league game and sprained my thumb. Therefore, you just get the link and not my thoughts (i’ll save my effort for typing tomorrow at work).

Happy Valentine’s Day.

I just came across an interesting article in BusinessWeek titled “Social-Networking Sites Open Up” that I thought I’d share my thoughts on. Many web 2.0 companies, which certainly include the social networking category, have realized the power of API’s — the largest being that there is no way a young company can develop all the features that their users want in a reasonable time period. The solution — let the developer community build those features in the fraction of the time it would take to build internally.

API’s seem to be following the Google model — distibute your content in as many places as possible to get your brand out there. Except Google is a little different in that they actually monetize their content straight from other sites, whereas the majority of companies that develop API’s do so for two primary reasons — branding to a larger audience and links (& traffic) back to their site.

Here’s an interesting quote:

After social network Friendster opened up its proprietary software to a select dozen or so developers six months ago, the number of unique visitors rose by 17.6%, to 18.8 million, in December, 2006. “This is our biggest [month-over-month] growth since launch,” says Jeff Roberto, marketing director at Friendster. Now, for example, Friendster users can create slide shows of photos on Slide.com and then post them directly onto the social-networking site.

Makes me wonder — will API’s have a massive effect on social networking traffic and adoption in the long term? Personally, I have yet to see anything earth-shattering developed using an API from a social networking site, but maybe that’s just because developers have not had enough time to build them yet.

So, assuming everyone releases API’s, what developer (or group of devs) will build the 1st social network that combines Myspace, Facebook, Friendster, and LinkedIn? Whoever it is will certainly become a household name in the developer community by effectively merging contacts and communication across social networks.

Who’s going to end up on top in the battle for the top spot in the social networking space? Will myspace continue to dominate? Or will Facebook come out of the woodwork to lead the charge? Or, will a newer, “hipper,” network catch the imagination of today’s youth to become a force? I think it’s still too early to tell who will succeed. Myspace could easily fall as fast as it rose. The dominoe effect can happen — speaking of that, I actually noticed one of my “Top 8″ friends deleted their profile today (it’s already started??). And lastly, will API’s be a part of what makes a site successful in the long term?

Zlango

TechCrunch covered the Zlango news that they raised $12 million in funding from Benchmark Capital & Accel Partners. It’s a pretty neat little application and deserves a quick mention if for no other reason than their press release — it’s very creative.

Here’s their blog post if you’re interested

There is some interesting advice for young PR professionals from Richard Toth over at Forward Blog. Here’s one piece of advice that I wholeheartedly agree with — “avoid limiting their focus to just public relations and communications. Learn the ops side of all businesses and position yourself to be ready for job and career burnout, cutbacks, promotions, demotions, moves, etc.”

I know – sorry, political overkill, but Barack Obama was interviewed on 60 Minutes tonight (here’s the video) and I think there is something we can all (ESPECIALLY other politicians) learn from him: admit your mistakes. Obama didn’t deny that he “used marijuana and cocaine as a teenager.” Personally, I know few people who did not try drugs in high school or college — and I don’t think I’m in the minority. But does anyone ever admit that publicly? Those in the public spotlight think it is the end of the world if they admit to a mistake. Wrong — everyone makes mistakes. The real PR nightmares occur when someone tries to cover up a mistake only to have it uncovered by the press or bloggers later on.

With the rise of social media, the truth will come out. It’s just a matter of when & if you are the one breaking it. Businesses should not be afraid of their mistakes — they should be afraid of hiding problems/mistakes from their customers.