Since this blog serves as somewhat of a journal of my thoughts, I wanted to bookmark (for myself) this How to Be a Programmer resource I found on StumbleUpon (getting addicted already). Being an entrepreneur, I enjoy creating & building things as well as the unlimited potential of web technology. But I’m no programmer (YET).

There’s a great guest article on CNN by Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist — he’s addressing the subject of net neutrality. It’s a fascinating topic in my mind and worthy of some more commentary. If you’re not familiar with the “net neutrality” issue, here’s a quick description: End users pay cable and telephone companies for the right to access the internet through their networks. Right now, those companies cannot control which sites consumers access at what speeds — meaning all sites on the internet are on a level playing field. However, the cable and telephone companies are trying to get more control over the “pipes” of bandwidth that consumers use. They want to further control thier status as gatekeepers between consumers and internet companies — providing no benefits, but making them a lot of money. How? By charging web sites for the right to be served on their “high speed” pipe to the end user. Meaning, if Yahoo or Google didn’t want to pay the broadband companies, their sites would run much, much slower than sites that did pony up the dough.

I’d encourage you to watch the video I’ve embedded below for further information and commentary.

My personal opinion is that the concept of broadband service providers being given the ability to play “favorites” is absolutely crazy. If you LOVE Yahoo!, but their search results run at half speed because they weren’t willing to pay Comcast the bucks to let you (the end user) run them at full speed — would you be a little pissed? YES, I certainly would be. I think it would stifle innovation by increasing the cost to reach the end user. If I’m not mistaken, consumers already pay to access the internet via the broadband providers’ network. It’s not as if broadband companies aren’t making money with the current system — they just want further streams of revenue for their shareholders by exploiting their gatekeeper status.

Check out http://www.savetheinternet.com/

I just joined StumbleUpon (my account) after seeing that the reccomendation site sent my blog 22 visitors today (via my MyBlogLog stats). Check this awesome picture that my first “Stumble!” click sent me to. Update: Here’s another beautiful picture.

Hopefully, I don’t get too addicted, but I guess StumbleUpon is a cool tool if I do. I’m looking forward to “stumbling upon” a few cool blogs.

There’s been lots of news about Iran’s nuclear program recently. Here’s the latest article I found last night. When thinking about this issue, don’t forget that there ARE TWO SIDES to this story (as with every story). Please note that this post does NOT mean I am in favor of Iran having nuclear weapons — I’m not. But too many Americans take the typical “we know everything, we’re right, you’re wrong” approach without even hesitating. Don’t fall into the same trap. Think before you come to your conclusions. Try thinking about the issue from THEIR (Iran in this case) perspective for a change. Here’s an interesting analogy that might help you realize where they are coming from:

Imagine…you live on a little island that is 20 square miles with 30 other people. Though they are nice & friendly people, there are 3 people who have guns (in fact, those 3 each have multiple guns). No one else on the island is allowed to have a single gun. Yes, guns are bad and the 3 people don’t actively use the weapons against anyone — but as one of the 27 others on the island, are you going to be happy that 3 people have multiple guns and you don’t even get one? 

Nuclear weapons are something so bad that I don’t think ANYONE should have them. The US should destroy all our weapons publicly so the world knows we don’t have them anymore. Maybe then others would follow. This is not about nuclear weapons, it’s about human nature — I think you’re full of crap if you’ll tell me Americans wouldn’t feel the same way in this situation if the tables were turned.

Usually, scanning the blogosphere on any given night — I find something interesting to write about. Not the case the last couple days without regurgitating what others have already written. I just scanned Techmeme and didn’t see anything that grabbed my interest. Bummer — I don’t even have another business idea to share at the moment. I guess content really is king (and I’m not king tonight).

Congrats to myspace — $30 million a month in revenue is a massive number. To answer Mashable’s question — no, I’m not surprised the largest site on the net is making money. Too bad their revenue growth won’t continue forever. It’s only a matter of time before users jump off the myspace bandwagon. Long-term, I still think Facebook has the best chance of success. 10 years from now, I think Facebook will be at the level of Yahoo! while Myspace flops. Who knows, perhaps that opinion is just because I despise myspace though.

ESPN Page 2 has an interesting column by Jemele Hill titled “Putting Kobe in Perspective.”

Is Kobe better than Jordan? Maybe, maybe not. The thing is — I don’t really care who people think is the better player. I don’t respect Kobe Bryant as a person, so I’ll always think higher of Jordan. Kobe is selfish. Enough said. No one can sway my opinion — I watched the 4th quarter of the Lakers vs Sonics, which, if my memory serves me correctly, ended up being his 8th straight game with 40 points in 2003. I don’t have a problem with Kobe scoring 40 against my hometown Sonics — I have a problem with the way he got there.

Bryant was stuck at 39 points with about 3 minutes to go with the Lakers ahead by more than enough to not worry about winning. However, every possession, the Lakers gave him the ball and he attempted to score by taking forced shots. It was obvious all he cared about was reaching his 40-point milestone. Rashard Lewis a stellar job at defending him into missing about 7 shots. With less than 30 seconds to go, Kobe finally drew a foul and reached his 40 point mark with a free throw. Truthfully, if I was defending Kobe in that game, I probably would have shoved Kobe head-first into the stands. Since when is it acceptable to taunt a team by attempting to reach a point milestone when the game is clearly already in hand? Truthfully, Kobe shouldn’t have even been on the floor. In case Kobe missed the memo — basketball is a team sport. Since when is WINNING NOT ENOUGH? I don’t think Michael Jordan ever would have sacrificed his integrity by forcing shots to reach a record point milestone with a game already in the bag.

One quote really irks me as a reason Kobe is better than Jordan: “The NBA is tougher now” — meaning Kobe has tougher competition. Are you f**king kidding me? Nowadays, players may be stronger and taller, but it is absurd they are tougher. I’d argue exactly the opposite. Do you not remember how the Pistons, Bulls, and Knicks used to play? Easy lay-ups and dunks didn’t happen. If you went inside, there was a good chance you’d get a elbow by the likes of Charles Oakley, Bill Laimbeer, or Anthony Mason. NBA players play for the money now — there’s no comparison as to what generation of players was more passionate about the GAME. I think it’s a given that more passionate players will fight harder to win, meaning Jordan had tougher competition.

I thought these videos from 1938 Media were interesting regarding the alleged “A List” of bloggers –

The A list works harder:

The A list needs a new designer:

Michael Arrington has some interesting comments about the whole “print media is dead” topic (started with SF Chronicle in Trouble?) that has been the topic of conversation for many bloggers this weekend. The thing I really identified with is that bloggers seem to have a firmer grasp of the value of their audience — and I think the reason is because bloggers are actually having a conversation with their readers. Bloggers know what their readers want. Here’s Arrington’s words on the subject:

Here’s an example – If a newspaper is writing about a startup and the writer is fairly sure there aren’t any direct competitors, they’ll still write “Snoozy, one of the leading startups in putting people to sleep” rather than “this is the first company to do this, and the only one so far.” They do this because they must never write an incorrect sentence. So instead of figuring out the truth, they will usually just write a noncommittal sentence. I never really saw this until I started blogging. Now, half the sentences in the average newspaper article jump out at me like they are highlighted – watered down, ass covering statements of nothing.

Now, I’ll write the latter if I can’t find any competitors after talking to a couple of sources and doing basic research. And even though startups are my area of knowledge, there’s a very good chance that statement will be incorrect.

But I write it anyway. Then I watch the comments like a hawk. And in an hour I have 95%+ certainty if I’m right or not.

Whenever I write, I try to think about whether my post is something I, as a reader, would find interesting. Bloggers don’t waste people’s time like many journalists do (if I am, let me know).

I read the latest copy of Fortune magazine today — there is a fantastic story about Patagonia (the article isn’t online yet or else I’d link to it), which is about the “greenest” company you’ll find anywhere. There was a superb quote that Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard is said to tell his customers –

The More You Know, the Less You Need

I wanted to highlight the quote for 2 reasons:

1. It’s fantastic & refreshing to see a business tells it’s customers the truth — they need less. After all, most companies are busy telling consumers to buy as much as possible regardless of whether the product is something they need or not.
2. In my mind, the quote is 100% true in life. The vast majority of Americans are too materialistic (keep in mind this is a generalization) — and I think much of it stems from what they don’t know. If they had a better idea of how others live in other parts of the world — they’d realize they don’t need that BMW, new HDTV, or Rolex that they just bought.

I grew up with many fairly well-off friends. As a youth, I wanted the latest cool new transformer, a new lego set, or another pack of baseball cards. As I grew older, my desires only increased. Items such as new rims, a stereo, and exhaust system for my car or a new computer topped my list. Just to be clear, I don’t think I was spoiled and given whatever I wanted — I maintained a job throughout high school and much of college to fund my spending habits. Maybe I was like every other kid, but looking back, it seems I wasted a huge sum of money on material possessions.

After graduating college 2 years ago, I backpacked Europe for 2 months, which changed my values as a result of being exposed to numerous different cultures and mindsets of the people I met in Europe. I tell all my friends who haven’t traveled that it’s the best thing they could possibly do for themselves. I no longer really desire material possessions — I’d rather spend my money traveling and increase my exposure to interesting people with different perspectives. Luckily, I now realize the people worth associating with are the ones that won’t judge me by my material possessions.

I feel like I’m rambling, so I’ll get to the takeaway — travel and learn as much as possible and you’ll realize you don’t need all the material “stuff” you think you do.

Since I’m such a huge fan of Facebook, I thought I’d mention that there is an interview in the WSJ with Mark Zuckerberg (FB’s CEO). Some interesting discussion by Andy Kessler, Tim O’Reilly, and Kristen Nicole at Mashable. One thing I find very interesting is this quote:

In the next iterations, you’re going to see real stories being produced. ‘These people went to this party and they did this the next day and then here’s the discussion that was taking place off of this article in The Wall Street Journal. And these two people went to this party and they broke up the next day.’ Whatever, you can start weaving together real events into stories. As these start to approach being stories, we turn into a massive publisher. Twenty to 30 snippets of information or stories a day, that’s like 300 million stories a day. It gets to a point where we are publishing more in a day than most other publications have in the history of their whole existence.

It seems that Facebook is going after the publishing industry. I think this means, as users continue to share increased information about their everyday lives, FB will have much of the same type of content as Outside.in is going after – hyperlocal content (what’s going on near you geographically). With roughly 16 million potential individual publishers, it’s pretty scary how much content can be created. However, the really cool thing is Facebook will likely have the majority of that hyperlocal content on THEIR servers (rather than sending traffic to other blogs and news sources like Outside.in).  The significance of this for FB? All the resulting page views will then occur on their site, leading to even more virtual inventory to generate advertising revenue.

Thanks to the Under the Canopy blog for highlighting the latest findings (PDF) from the International Labour Organization regarding child labour. Here’s some of the interesting tidbits ipanema highlighted (quoted):

• Global number of child labourers [5-17 y.o.] – decreased from 246 million to 218 million [2004].

• The number of children aged 5-17 engaged in hazardous work – has declined by 26%, from 171 million in 2000 to 126 million in 2004. With 33%, the decline in the age group 5-14 has even been sharper.

• Latin America & the Caribbean – the most rapid decline by two thirds with just 5% of children ages 5 to 14 now engage in work.

• Sub-Saharan Africa – The highest of any region in the world with 26% or close to 50 million children working. The biggest hurdle I think. No figures stating it declined or not.

• Asia-Pacific Region – 122 million children aged 5-14 work, 5 million less than four years ago. Less than 20 % of Asian children in that age group are now at work.

• In industrialized countries – about 2.5 million children under the age of 15 were at work in 2000.

• By industry – Almost 7 out of 10 working children are in the agricultural sector. 22% work in services and 9% in industry, including mining, construction and manufacturing.

• The estimated cost of the elimination of child labour is US$760 billion over a 20-year period. The estimated benefit in terms of better education and health is over US$4 trillion. The benefits would therefore outweigh the costs by nearly 6 to 1.

It sounds like these figures are heading in the right direction, which is great to hear.

Are you looking for a place for all your local news online? If you’re in the Seattle area, Crosscut might be your answer — soon. It’s scheduled to launch soon, so sign up for their newsletter to receive updates. The company was featured in the Seattle Times a couple months ago and was founded by the Seattle Weekly’s founding editor — David Brewster.

Full disclosure – the wife of one of my colleagues works at Crosscut.

I seriously don’t get it – why the hell do people put pure marketing pitches in the comments on blogs? Check this comment that I just got on my “How Can Social Networks become Truly Useful” post I wrote back in August:

A good social networking site for a niche market such as golf would be: iGolf.to – Social networking

Brings golfers together for a round, promotes tee times as well as the industry as a whole. A great use of social netwkring if I have ever seen it.

The comment adds ABSOLUTELY zero value to the post. Of course, there was a link to IGolf in the comment, but I took it out of this post because Brendan doesn’t deserve a link from me for SPAMMING my blog.

Seriously, marketers who still think it’s 1980 and that “cram your message down the consumers throat” crap works — get a freakin clue. The comment is a great example of how NOT to market a company in the blogosphere.

Here’s a cool video with Daryn Nakhuda and my buddy, Tim Reha (also in charge of New Media Synergy).
EyeJot is based on three things:

1. Email messages can be confusing…
2. Video chatting is cool, *if* everyone is online…
3. No one likes installing applications…

I just caught up over at the Forward Blog — there’s 2 interesting posts and a podcast for those interested in public relations/marketing:

1. Less-is-more manifesto – Mass marketing no longer works.
2. PR Girls and PR Boys – Why are there so many more women in the PR industry than men?
3. Online Communities and Relationships – An interesting podcast with Neville Hobson on the subject of online communities & how to build relationships using them.

My gosh, there are tons of people writing about this already (here’s the post on the Inside Adwords blog) — it’s dominating Techmeme.

Since I’m late to the game, I’ll keep this short. What does Google entering the CPA market (Pay-Per-Action) mean? It means publishers have the option to pay ONLY for completed actions on their site — whether that be a form filled out, a user looking at a certain number of page views, or someone buying a product. YOU, the advertiser, get to decide how much you are willing to pay when that action is completed. I think this is absolutely fantastic for advertisers. They won’t have to worry about click fraud anymore, as it is fairly hard to game a payment system that only pays when the end user buys something (rather than just per click on an ad). Why WOULDN’T an advertiser be willing to pay X dollars per sale? There’s very little risk.

If they are not already, Google is now well on its way to becoming THE dominant advertising network. Tight integration with Google Checkout is inevitable, which will further weaken PayPal’s position. I predict it won’t be too long before advertisers will be able to buy local TV ads straight from Google. Perhaps Google is even building a marketplace for buying product placement spots in television shows and movies.

After a 6:30 am flight to Seattle this morning, it was back to the daily grind (though I can’t really call it a grind since I like my job) after a weekend in sunny California. The weekend was a much-needed break from Seattle. On Friday, my friend and I visited several vineyards and drove by some amazing houses in Saratoga, CA. Maybe in 10 years, I’ll be able to afford a house in the area. I didn’t drive by this house specifically, but check out some of the photos on this 5,000 square foot home.

I also did a small amount of blogger networking and met up with Kevin Boer for a drink last night in Palo Alto — I have to say, right about now, I’m a bit jealous of the weather he gets to enjoy on a daily basis. I’ll be back in the Bay Area for the Inman Connect conference in July. I guess until then — I can just hope for a nice Seattle spring.

No writing for me this weekend – I’m taking a break for the weekend to visit a high school friend in Palo Alto. I hope everyone has a good St Patty’s Day!!

I thought this was pretty funny (originally from Sellsius) and worth sharing