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Reality Check: Spokeo

Spokeo finds information about your friends—long-lost or not—and then tracks their online activities as they make updates. These friends don’t have to “invite” you, approve your friend “request,” or be a member of Spokeo. Spokeo is able to, for example, monitor their Facebook notes and shares, YouTube videos, Amazon wishlists, Flickr and PhotoBucket photos, Pandora [...]

By |2016-10-24T14:17:21-07:00December 21st, 2007|Categories: Books, Uncategorized|Tags: |0 Comments

A Tour of PARC

PARC was the center of the universe for the development of many personal computer and Internet technologies. For example: Ethernet, laser printing, personal computer (Alto), graphical user interface, and object-oriented programming. Maybe “center of the universe” is an exageration, but at the very least, it’s one of the main trees as you can see by [...]

By |2016-10-24T14:17:23-07:00December 20th, 2007|Categories: Cool Stuff, Innovation|0 Comments

cFares Special Offer

One of Garage’s portfolio companies, cFares, is a leader in discount air fares. Magazines such as Money and Travel & Leisure have called it “Best for Airfares” and the “Costco of Airfares.” cFares would like to offer my blog readers a 90-day, risk-free trial of a cFares Platinum membership for only $1. As a Platinum [...]

By |2016-10-24T14:17:25-07:00December 20th, 2007|Categories: Cool Stuff|0 Comments

Word of Mouth Versus Key Influencers

This summary of an article from the December issue of the Journal of Advertising Research (good luck finding the issue online because I couldn’t) says that common word-of-mouth advertising by regular folks is more powerful than “key influencers.” Which is to say that sucking up to A-list bloggers may not be all that it’s cracked [...]

By |2016-10-24T14:17:31-07:00December 12th, 2007|Categories: Marketing and Sales|0 Comments

How to Not Choke

I used to take an adult hockey class. Each session started with all of us facing the boards and skating backwards on the instructor’s whistle. We were all supposed to stop on a second whistle; then the instructor grouped students by how far they had skated in the limited time. (This is a picture of [...]

By |2016-10-24T14:17:34-07:00December 11th, 2007|Categories: Entrepreneurship|24 Comments

HomeTips: There’s a Lot to Like

Google announced the winner of the Adsense Story Contest today: Hometips. This is a site that features free content concerning home improvement, remodeling, repair, redecorating, and do-it-yourself projects. For example, here are tips for hanging Christmas lights. According to the owner, Don Vandervort, the revenues generated by Google Adsense went from paying for coffee to [...]

By |2016-10-24T14:17:36-07:00December 5th, 2007|Categories: Entrepreneurship, Marketing and Sales|0 Comments

Christmas Gift Idea

Thankfully, Craig M. and Carla D. pointed out Kiva gift certificates. Your recipient can go online and select an entrepreneur to support. When the loan is repaid, the process starts again. What a great idea for Christmas gifts.

By |2015-03-17T09:33:41-07:00November 29th, 2007|Categories: Cool Stuff|0 Comments

The Mother of Name Change Reports

Continuing on the theme of naming companies, you should read “Company Naming Changes 2006” by Strategic Name Development. 1,900 name changes occurred last year. The company has identified nine categories of name changes: Dog Eat Dog (34%) Too Big or Too Little (29%) Build on the Brand (Building on a Strong Brand) (5%)

By |2015-03-17T09:33:43-07:00November 29th, 2007|Categories: Marketing and Sales|0 Comments

The Six Lessons of Kiva

Stanford Magazine has a terrific article about Kiva called “Small Change, Big Payoff” by Cynthia Haven. This is the story of how Matt and Jessica Jackely Flannery created it to enable people to make micro loans to entrepreneurs around the world. The results are awesome: more than 123,000 people have loaned more than $12.4 million [...]

By |2016-10-24T14:17:38-07:00November 28th, 2007|Categories: Entrepreneurship|0 Comments

How to Name a Name

I enjoy the process of coming up with a name for a company or product, and the fact that so many domains are taken makes it more challenging and enjoyable. (My latest, greatest is Muchobene.) Halfagain Marketing posted an article called “What’s my name?” which is a very useful list of naming tips. For example, [...]

By |2017-09-17T10:54:33-07:00November 26th, 2007|Categories: Marketing and Sales|0 Comments

23andme Party

After a very short while, hearing about the nth social-media, video-sharing, or user-generated-content startup gets boring. After all, you can only listen to so many “unique” ideas if you know what I mean. Luckily, once a year or so, I hear about a company that is truly different, and tonight I attended the friends and [...]

By |2016-10-24T14:17:40-07:00November 20th, 2007|Categories: Cool Stuff|0 Comments

Amazon Announced Kindle

Today Amazon announced its foray into selling hardware with a data service. The device is called “Kindle,” and it represents a daring move for an “online bookstore.” You’re going to see two kinds of reviews: bad ones from people who haven’t used it and good ones from people who have. It’s that kind of product—plus [...]

By |2016-10-24T14:17:42-07:00November 19th, 2007|Categories: Cool Stuff|Tags: |0 Comments

In Search of Inexperience

TechCrunch published a great guest post by Glenn Kelman, the CEO of Redfin, called “Entrepreneur 2.0.” It inspired me to piggyback on his idea that investing in “serial entrepeneurs” who have already been successful might not be all that it’s cracked up to be and write this post. Both our posts run counter to the [...]

By |2016-10-24T14:17:46-07:00November 14th, 2007|Categories: Entrepreneurship|0 Comments

The Ten Commandments of Fake Steve Jobs

All hail Carleen Hawn because she has written a fabulously funny analysis of the management style of (Fake) Steve Jobs. It’s called the “Ten Commandments of Fake Steve Jobs” Never let people know where they stand. You don’t have to hire the best people. Only promote stupid people. Never tell people what is expected of [...]

By |2016-10-24T14:17:49-07:00November 14th, 2007|Categories: Entrepreneurship, Management|Tags: |0 Comments
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