I subscribe to over sixty feeds, and they generate 1,000 posts per day. If you subscribe to multiple RSS feeds, you’re probably overwhelmed by the amount of posts like I am. FeedHub reduces the number of posts to those that are most relevant to your interests. To start, you export your feeds to an OPML [...]
Popurls is a site that aggregates feeds from the likes of Digg, del.icio.us, Reddit, Flickr, Stumbleupon, Slashdot, Google News, ifilm, BoingBoing, Fark, etc (see very partial list in picture). This enables you to see, on one page, what much of the Internet is buzzing about—think of it as an Internet “dashboard.” There is a fair [...]
Coghead enables businesses to create, customize and/or use real, multi-user business apps in an easy, cost-effective way. Since Coghead is 100% web-based, employees, customers and business partners can use the apps from anywhere there’s an Internet connection. To help people get started, Coghead has just announced “Business Essentials”—a suite of simple, pre-built applications that every [...]
LicketyShip provides courier-service shipping. Its prices are comparable to, and often less than, companies like FedEx, UPS, and DHL. Basically, LicketyShip acts as a aggregator of multiple couriers: it’s researched couriers’ reputations and prices for you. When you want to ship something, go to LicketyShip’s site to enter what you need delivered, where, and when, [...]
Facebook reduced the number of people that a developer can invite to add an application. The limit went from infinity to ten; thus, it is much harder to achieve critical mass. However, if a developer can evangelize people to invite ten friends each, the outlook is brighter. The question is, “How do you get people [...]
Slidecasting by SlideShare.net enables you to synchronize PowerPoint slides and audio files. To create a slidecast, you upload slides to SlideShare.net. The audio file is hosted anywhere on the web. Then you link the slides and audio by using an online synchronization tool. When you play the slidecast, the audio is streamed from its location [...]
Pixilu Imaging Inc. provides professional retouching services as an online service. You upload digital photos and Pixilu’s graphic artists review each photo and perform color correction, acne removal, facial lines reduction, teeth whitening, and enhanced red-eye correction. The cost varies from $1.49 to $9.99 per photo. I submitted my picture to the service, and this [...]
Because of Truemors, I’ve learned a lot about launching a company in these “Web 2.0” times. Here’s quick overview “by the numbers.” 0. I wrote 0 business plans for it. The plan is simple: Get a site launched in a few months, see if people like it, and sell ads and sponsorships (or not). 0. [...]
Where ignorance is bliss, ‘Tis folly to be wise—“On a Distant Prospect of Eton College” by Thomas Gray With all due respect to Thomas Gray, he missed the target when it comes to entrepreneurship: ignorance isn’t bliss, ignoring is. For example, last week I posted a “help wanted” entry soliciting “truemorists” for a site called [...]
It’s Saturday night in California, and if you’re reading my blog, you need help. MatchActivity is a new dating site that enables people to find others who are interested in attending a particular event or activity. For example, these are men and women listing activities within fifty miles of Palo Alto. Activities that are shown [...]
My prediction for Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die is that it will join The Tipping Point and Built to Last as a must-read for business people. The book explains why some ideas stick and some don’t--and I’ve been on both sides of this equation. A warning though: If you read [...]
Talk about unintended consequences, all I wanted to do with “A Review of My First Year of Blogging” was provide some factoids about my blog. However, this tidbit became quite the topic: Total advertising revenue: approximately $3,350 = $1.39 cpm. (This assumes that I can get Google to pay me. I’ve tried several times during [...]
Matthew E. May is the author of The Elegant Solution: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation. He has held a key advisory role with the University of Toyota for over eight years, and he is a graduate of the Wharton School and Johns Hopkins University. You can download a copy of his ChangeThis manifesto by clicking [...]
2,436,117 page views for an average of approximately 6,200/day. 262 posts generated 6,961 comments and 1,937 trackbacks. That’s 25 comments/post and 7 trackbacks/post. 21,000 people receive RSS feeds via Feedburner and 1,457 receive emails via FeedBlitz. Total advertising revenue: approximately $3,350 = $1.39 cpm. (This assumes that I can get Google to pay me. I’ve [...]
A little known story: When I was writing Selling the Dream—How to Promote Your Product, Company, or Idea—and Make a Difference Using Everyday Evangelism, I attended the Billy Graham School of Evangelism to learn from the best. It was a very interesting experience. Some of the finest speakers that I’ve seen (and tried to copy) [...]
I love vertical-markets companies and recently learned of one. Airspun, Inc. offers commercial radio airtime to bands and songwriters for the purpose of showcasing their music to genre-targeted radio listeners around the world. Here’s how it works: Bands browse sixty-second airtime slots on radio stations by genre and city. After booking their slot (at prices [...]
It’s been two years since The Art of the Start hit the streets, and I’m ready to write another book. I have some ideas, but I'd like to tap the “wisdom of the crowd” in order to ensure that it appeals to “the long tail” in this “Web 2.0” world. :-) So...I’ve created a wiki [...]
This is the video recording of the “Funding Your Dream” panel at Garage’s recent “Art of the Start Conference.” The moderator is Mohanjit Jolly, Managing Director - Garage Technology Ventures. The speakers are: Daniel Ahn, Managing Director - Woodside Fund Susan Mason, General Partner - Onset Ventures Chris Moran, General Manager - Applied Ventures Warren [...]
Garage is an investor in a discount travel company called cFares. First, here’s some background info about the travel business: A large portion of airfare expenditures flow through the GDS systems (ie: Sabre, Amadeus, and Galileo). “First generation online travel sites” such as Travelocity, Expedia, and Orbitz rely on available inventory within the GDS supply. [...]
RAZZ, Inc. recently introduced the RAZZ Mixer. It enables people to create personalized audio recordings to post on web pages. This is a Flash-based application consisting of a voice recorder, music uploader, and special effects sound board with hundreds of pre-recorded sounds. Users “mix” recordings for posting onto social-networking sites and blogs. These recordings serve [...]