August 2008
25 posts
So many cool features this week
This has been a big week for new features in my blog world. Disqus, my comment system, added the reblog a comment feature which works great and is awesome.
Also this week Tumblr, the platform this blog is on, launched a new interface. In that interface there are a few “coming soon buttons”. They are Queue and Drafts, I am hoping that these will allow me to start a blog post or put...
Closer to Mirroring
This was the direction I was hoping to take when I wrote the feature. Hopefully it’s on the horizon.
Originally posted as a comment by Devin on James Siminoff using Disqus.
When I saw the Disqus reblog feature it reminded me of a feature request that I had sent over to Disqus a while ago which I wrote about again a few posts below. It is really cool to see that Devin one of the...
Success is when your customers care about you
I got the best email from a customer today. He saw that Klausner launched a lawsuit against Google, Verizon and some others on his visual voicemail patents. Here is a quote from that customers email,
“I got the following article through one of my news feeds today, and I thought it would be particularly relevant to you. I’m sending this along because I love using PhoneTag and I...
Trying out Disqus Reblog of Comments
I agree, funny Out of Office, especially the last line about addressing availability to his daughter lol.
Originally posted as a comment by Jason Anderson on James Siminoff using Disqus.
I have used Disqus comments since I started this blog. They just came out with a really great feature that allows you to reblog a comment with one click. Very cool feature.
I have spoken to them about...
Swapalease.com
Image via Wikipedia
I saw a commercial for Swapalease.com on TV this morning so I went and checked it out. I had a Porsche on a lease that I got rid of in January of this year, it was kind of a pain in the ass, wish these guys had been around then.
I like the micro-ebay/craigslist competitors start up space. It is one of the only ways to take those 2 giants on is to try and shave off a small...
Another great "Out of Office" response
I wrote about a funny automated out of office response a few weeks ago. Well I got another fun one back today. I think that this is a good trend, if you are going to do the out of office response thing get creative and make it fun.
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I will be with my younger daughter on an end of summer trip now through Sun eve August 24th. Per the rules set down by my daughter I am not allowed...
Big Foot was a hoax... suprised?
Image via Wikipedia
Well this week it came out that the whole Bigfoot thing was a hoax. What a shock. These guys might of well said that they found the remains of Santa Clause in the woods.
However unlike many articles I have seen I am not mad at these 2 bored Bigfoot hoaxers, I think it is great. The fact that 2 nobodies were able to attain massive national attention with no evidence other...
The Hydrogen Hoax →
When I met one of the investors in Tesla about a month ago we talked about why they did electricity and not some other type of alternative fuel like Hydrogen. Well this article that Marco has posted makes all of the arguments very clear, as did the guy from Tesla, basically Hydrogen needs to be taken out of the alternative fuel equation, it is just not practical.
marco:
This is an absolutely...
Is first class really worth it?
Everyday we all make choices on which level of goods we want to use, from food to transportation. Some of our choices are based on physical budget limits others are more about “is it worth it?”
I was flying back from New York yesterday and the woman sitting next to me said, “is it really worth the money to fly first class”. We were both in first class (she paid, I was...
Spark Capital is now my favorite VC!
The below post is from Bijan Sabet over at Spark Capital in Boston. I have had the pleasure of becoming friends with him over the last year or so. Spark has made some really great investments including a recent one at Twitter but their most recent investment in Clear is what makes them my new favorite VC.
Clear is one of those services that truly effects my daily life. Being a frequent...
Good gone wrong?
This weekend I had 2 “run ins” with charities.
The first was when I was walking around Malibu, some kids from Greenpeace asked us if we want to learn more about Greenpeace. They ask, “Do you have 5 minutes for the environment?”.
The second was at the grocery store. The check out person asked me if I could spare a dollar for Muscular Dystrophy. With 10 people in the line...
Gas is getting cheaper, damn it!
Image via Wikipedia
Americans have notoriously short memories. My theory is that as soon as gas goes back below $4 per gallon which looks like it is almost here, that we will all return to our old wasteful ways.
Without gas continuing to rise, people will get used to the price. For the US to really become energy independent we need constant and un-relenting pain.
Related articles by...
Great piece on becoming successful in Tech
I saw this on the Vator.tv site this morning. It is a blog post by Seth Godin. Every business I get into I try to focus on how we can sustain the business as it gets its footing. You can never fail if you have more runway, which is why you have to learn to limit the amount of speed you put into a market based on the real rate at which that market will grow.
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The irony of the web...
“I’m currently out of the office, attempting to take a family vacation, and...”
– One of my favorite VC’s Out of Office AutoReply. I think it is one of the funniest ones I have ever seen (usually they are not funny at all).
Starbucks needs mobile ordering
Image via Wikipedia
I am not really a Starbucks guy but my wife likes to go there and get her morning coffee. Our local Starbucks in Pacific Palisades, CA always has a ridiculously long line. So failry often when she goes there, she sees the line and leaves.
So, Starbucks should team up with the mobile carriers to do payment and ordering via SMS. The reason that they need to team up with the...
“There is clearly a great deal of unease in the entrepreneur community about the...”
– Fred Wilson- AVC.com
I thought that this quote was interesting. I remember when we were named one of Business 2.0’s 25 Startups I was invited to a panel with the rest of the founders. Everyone had an advertising based business except for me. When the discussion came around to...
Tweet Beep
Just signed up for Tweet Beep for Twitter. The service is basically Google alerts for twitter using the twitter search API. Why is Google not using the Twitter search API, seems weird that they are leaving such a massive amount of data untouched.
Memo from the head of OakTree Capital →
This is a great memo that the Chairman of Oak Tree Capital, Howard Marks, wrote about the recent financial meltdown. Tony Wesley the CFO of PhoneTag sent it to me, thanks for the heads up on this one.
It is pretty long but worth the read. The best part is when Howard talks about that if the CEO of Citigroup had thought about the long term positioning of the banks and had not gotten into the...
The Entrepreneurial Cure
Oliver, my new son, was diagnosed with a rare, 1 in 65,000 births, genetic disorder called Galactosemia. If you do the math it means that there are less than 5,000 people in the US with this disorder.
Galactosemia is the result of having lost the genetic code for the enzyme to digest any lactose. It is not lactose intolerance as with Galactosemia lactose actual becomes a poison and can kill the...