Netizen

Friday, February 19, 2010

Location! Location! Location!

Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever

I take hometown pride in FourSquare. Twitter is in California, but FourSquare is in New York. I have met the two founders in person, Dennis (@dens) and Naveen (@naveen), although I am not Facebook friends with either yet.

Craig Newmark, Dennis Crowley, Jennifer 8 Lee: Koreatown
Dennis Crowley: I Underestimated Him

Make no mistake, FourSquare is on the cutting edge. Location liberates the web. Time magazine's person of the year one of these past years - You - would like to share where he/she is. There is a funny video on YouTube from last year that shows the successor company to Twitter will disallow vowels and hence make messages shorter even. Ends up, we were not going in that direction after all. 140 characters are a good size for the atom. But we were instead going for something simpler and more fundamental.

I never thought Google might kill Facebook or that Facebook might kill Twitter. If anything the dawn kills the night, it is not the other way round. FourSquare will not get killed by Twitter or Facebook, and it is far ahead of its competition Gowalla. Did I spell that right?

Location is going to be the starting point for many things you might want to do. And because FourSquare does location, although late to the game, FourSquare I think is poised to beat Twitter itself in the monetization department. Are you telling me my customer just checked into my establishment? How can you not monetize that?

It is official, we are now an urban species. Homo Sapiens Urbano. I took to FourSquare gingerly. I avoided it. Then I started texting in my check ins. Now I realize it is such an essential tool if you are trying to turbo charge your social networking. Roaming the tech and biz circles in the city is like going to all the top schools in the country at once. NYC is cream of the crop. You want to feast on people as you move out and about.

FourSquare makes it fun to explore a "dense" - Dennis' word, you can tell, the guy really likes his God given name - city like New York City. Big cities are popping all over the world. Actually it is impossible to explore without.

I never integrated my Twitter account to my Facebook account. But I have integrated FourSquare to both Twitter and Facebook. Most of my Facebook friends are not in New York. Heck, I went to high school in Kathmandu. My Facebook page is public - anyone can visit all corners, so I don't have to feel bad about not accepting friend requests - and it has more than 10,000 pictures of NYC. I plan to add tens of thousands more over the years. I do that for my non New York friends. NYC is magic all over the world. My FourSquare check ins allow me to share some of NYC with my far away friends.

I remember looking down upon Twitter starting out. I only jumped onto the bandwagon in February 2009, thanks to @jobsworth. What am I doing? I am staring at the computer screen. What do you think I am doing? 140 characters, that must be for the lazy bones. I write full blown blog posts. What do you think I am doing?

My skepticism with FourSquare was not as pronounced, but I have taken to it rather gingerly. I was not at all excited when they did their demo at the NY Tech MeetUp, I believe last March. Many startups fail. Not all that do not fail are on the cutting edge. FourSquare is on the cutting edge. It is rightly called the next Twitter, although it might take a year or two to scale out to Twitter size. I am patiently waiting.

Last night I checked into five locations on or near Bleecker St just to make a point. Go FourSquare.

Dennis (@dens) and Naveen (@naveen) are not Charles Darwin, not even close, heck, if they are Evan Williams, and Jack Dorsey, or Biz Stone, they have not proven that yet, but they might, I think they will, and I would not put the two as being in the same league as the Google founders, not now, not five or 10 years from now. But this Please Rob Me talk reminds me of a heckler taking Charles Darwin to task: So if you are suggesting we descended from monkeys, may I ask which side of your family would that be for you, did you descend from the monkeys from your mother's side or your father's side?

I don't accept friend requests on FourSquare from random people. Knowing you might not be enough down the line. And some day I might disconnect my FourSquare with my Twitter and Facebook, but that day might be a few years away. FourSquare allows you to share location, but it does not force you to share it with everybody. You can choose not to share that widely. It's your choice.

Considering how easy it has been for me to become Mayor of two places, one thing is for sure, if you are on FourSquare and checking in, you are easily a member of the tech elite. And if you have not been visited by burglars yet, it must be because there are not that many burglars among the tech elite.

If you are sophisticated enough to play with FourSquare, you are sophisticated enough to know what your privacy options on it are. And if you are sophisticated enough to code Please Rob Me, you surely know you are messing with the facts. That is dishonest.

Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter

For long TechCrunch has been my favorite blog, but I am beginning to have my doubts. I think ReadWriteWeb might be better, although with less traffic. TechCrunch pulled a cheap stunt on Farmville, and now they are trying to do the same with FourSquare. You don't report on the cutting edge if your first instinct is to demonize the cutting edge. Maybe you can't be trusted with the cutting edge.

Anu Shukla Has Found The New Frontier In Advertising
I Just Became Friends With Anu Shukla

TechCrunch: Please Rob Me Makes FourSquare Super Useful For Burglars
TechCrunch: FourSquare Reponds To Please Rob Me: Please Shut Up
Mashable: How Robbers Did Their Dirty Deeds Before FourSquare
Gawker: How Not To Be A FourSquare Jackass
FourSquare: On FourSquare, Location And Privacy

The message I left at the various blogs: The real culprit is the construction industry. They have not applied invisible paint on our houses.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

An Immigrant Story For Brad Feld

I was at the NYC 3.0 blog, and I was just done watching and leaving a comment on a Fred Wilson interview, and out of the corner of my eye I spotted a tweet by Nate that swiftly sunk down from the page. But it said something about submit your immigrant founder story. So I went to Nate's Twitter page, and sought out that tweet.

Brad Feld was looking for immigrant founder stories. If anyone had a story, that was me. My story blows a hole or two into my LinkedIn page. What's my story?

Born in India, grew up in Nepal, came to America for college, got elected student body president within six months of landing. Was a founding member of Chaitime.com that raised $25 million round 2. We were trying to be the top South Asian online community. They asked me to drop out of college. I said let me finish, I will rejoin you. By the time I finished, the nuclear winter had set in. I hit the road in a 18 wheeler, and hit all 48 states in two and a half years on and off, and did not understand why until I met the MeetUp CEO Scott after moving to NYC in 2005 who went to work at McDonald's for a few weeks after his dot coms went down.

There is a concrete mathematical theory called the butterfly effect. A butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon could be the reason a cyclone hit Bangladesh. During April 2006 over a period of 19 days, over 8 million out of Nepal's 27 million people thronged the streets to shut the country down completely to oust a king dictator. I was the butterfly flapping my wings in New York City. I am extremely good with vision and group dynamics.

This is my startup's relaunch. I am trying to raise 100K for my round one right now. I was done doing that, and then in February 09, reacting to the worst economy in 70 years, most of my investors walked away. I took time off, focused on social media, accumulated more followers on Twitter than Donald Trump, experimented with pro blogging, and now I am back in the game.

I am looking to sell 2% of my startup for 100K. The first 100K in Google became a billion in 10 years. I don't expect to match that. But I think I could do at least one third as good in twice as much time. I bring the passion of a freedom fighter to my startup. Internet access is the voting right for this 21st century. http://jyoticonnect.net The two Google guys had their algorithms. I have the equivalent in group dynamics. Show me some respect. What they are failing to do in Iran, what they failed to do in Burma, I succeeded to do in Nepal.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Fred Wilson: A VC

Fred Wilson talks trends, advice for startups from Vadim Lavrusik on Vimeo.

Monday, February 15, 2010

I'll Be Gone

I'll be gone from KORB on Vimeo.

Via TobyD

Online Dating Newsflash: Race And Religion Matter

There are some people who believe the Internet is supposed to have created the New Human. And, surprise surprise, that does not seem to be the case. The technology itself will not do it. Although it does help catalyze the processes that one hopes will lead to human betterment. But the good versus evil fight will continue with this technology as any other. Overall I think the Internet is a major force for good, something fundamental, I would even call it millenial, as in something this good only happens once every thousand years, maybe. But the Internet is as much a reflection of who we are as it is a reflection of who we can become. It is said of New York City that the most diverse city on earth is also the most segregated. We mingle and then go back to our own ethnic enclaves.

Plenty Of Fish: Online Dating King

I looked through the OKCupid numbers. My personal conclusion is, race matters, but not all that much. Get a haircut, work on your manners, say hello. And when there is no chemistry, respect.

"White women prefer white men to the exclusion of everyone else—and Asian and Hispanic women prefer them even more exclusively. These three types of women only respond well to white men. More significantly, these groups’ reply rates to non-whites is terrible. Asian women write back non-white males at 21.9%, Hispanic women at 22.9%, and white women at 23.0%."

Looks like The White Male's got it made! I know plenty of dorky ones, and meet even more. ;-) At this point, the whole thing descends into a sociological exercise.

When you mix race and religion, looks like if you are a white guy who is laughing about his religion, you are hot in online dating. That cocktail sounds weird.

If you are out to date an entire race or two, these numbers are alarming. But if you are looking for one person, these numbers are boring. That person is out there.

Conclusion: Macro matters, but micro is where it happens or not.

Seeking My Race-Based Valentine Online This Valentine's Day, more of us than ever will be looking for love online. And if recent studies are any guide, relatively few women on mainstream dating sites will bother to respond to overtures from men of Asian descent. Likewise, black women will be disproportionately snubbed by men of all races. ..... Behind computer screens and cutely coded user names, people clearly communicate things about race that few would ever say aloud in a bar........ lists 10 racial and ethnic groups users can select as preferred dates. Among the women, 73% stated a preference. Of these, 64% selected whites only, while fewer than 10% included East Indians, Middle Easterners, Asians or blacks....... a little different for the men, 59% of whom stated a racial preference. Of these, nearly half selected Asians, but fewer than 7% did for black women....... men's choices are influenced by the media's portrayal of Asian women as being hypersexual and black women as being bossy..... "racism is alive and well." ...... black women garnered the fewest responses of any female group. White women responded at much higher rates to white men than to men of color. Asian women's and Latinas' response rates showed even stronger preferences for white men

How Your Race Affects The Messages You Get despite what you might’ve heard from the Obama campaign and organic cereal commercials, racism is alive and well ..... When I first started looking at first-contact attempts and who was writing who back, it was immediately obvious that the sender’s race was a huge factor. ..... although race shouldn’t matter in messaging, it does. A lot. ...... Black women reply the most, yet get by far the fewest replies. Essentially every race—including other blacks—singles them out for the cold shoulder. ...... White guys are shitty, but fairly even-handed about it. The average reply rate of non-white males is 48.1%, while white guys’ is only 40.5%. Basically, they write back about 20% less often. It’s ironic that white guys are worst responders, because as we saw above they get the most replies. That has apparently made them very self-absorbed.
How Races and Religions Match in Online Dating Astrological sign has no effect whatsoever on how compatible two people are. ...... Jewish men, in particular, have an above average match percentage with every religious group. They even match Muslim women better than Muslim men do ....... Why, for example, Hindu men would match worst with Hindu women is a mystery....... Protestant Christians only truly match well with other Christians. Catholics have above average match percentages with Hindus, Jews, and even Agnostics. ...... The less serious you are about religion, the better liked you are, even by very religious people. ...... Muslims and Protestants tend to be more intense about their beliefs than the others, and Jews and Agnostics are by far the least serious. ....... If religion is a minefield, then race is a field that’s just one giant mine. ...... white people tend to be better liked, (or, if you want to think reciprocally, do more liking) than the other races, or that black and Indian men are less liked/liking, but, still, those differences are small compared to what we saw with religion ....... It’s not as simple as saying, Mary really likes hockey and Bob really likes hockey, therefore they are a good match—which is how many dating sites work. What if instead Mary really likes being dominated during sex? If Bob also needs to be dominated, and good sex is important to them, Bob and Mary are terrible matches. In bed, at least, they both want their opposites.....OkCupid is no more responsible for people’s match percentages than Microsoft Excel is responsible for their net worth.

In the Calculations of Online Dating, Love Can Be Cruel It is love in the time of ones and zeros, the rudimentary language of computers. In the digital age, everything must at some point be reduced to this basic construct of choice: One or zero. Yes or no. On or off.......“What everyone is looking for is chemistry,” she said, “and that’s not quantifiable.”
Three Steps to Demystifying Online Dating Pick someplace casual. Opt for a happy hour or a coffee shop — not a play or a four-course dinner. If the chemistry isn’t there, you’ll have an easy exit.....do not tell your date that you Googled them, even though you most likely have.

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Thursday, February 11, 2010

Paul Graham: Y Combinator

Y Combinator

"If you want ideas for startups, one of the most valuable things you could do is find a middle-sized non-technology company and spend a couple weeks just watching what they do with computers. Most good hackers have no more idea of the horrors perpetrated in these places than rich Americans do of what goes on in Brazilian slums."

"Once you've got a company set up, it may seem presumptuous to go knocking on the doors of rich people and asking them to invest tens of thousands of dollars in something that is really just a bunch of guys with some ideas. But when you look at it from the rich people's point of view, the picture is more encouraging. Most rich people are looking for good investments. If you really think you have a chance of succeeding, you're doing them a favor by letting them invest. Mixed with any annoyance they might feel about being approached will be the thought: are these guys the next Google?"

"You have more leverage negotiating with VCs than you realize. The reason is other VCs. I know a number of VCs now, and when you talk to them you realize that it's a seller's market. Even now there is too much money chasing too few good deals.....A few steps down from the top you're basically talking to bankers who've picked up a few new vocabulary words from reading Wired. (Does your product use XML?) So I'd advise you to be skeptical about claims of experience and connections. Basically, a VC is a source of money. I'd be inclined to go with whoever offered the most money the soonest with the least strings attached..... The most efficient way to reach VCs, especially if you only want them to know about you and don't want their money, is at the conferences that are occasionally organized for startups to present to them."

"Google is again a case in point. When they appeared it seemed as if search was a mature market, dominated by big players who'd spent millions to build their brands: Yahoo, Lycos, Excite, Infoseek, Altavista, Inktomi. Surely 1998 was a little late to arrive at the party."

"At sales I was not very good. I was persistent, but I didn't have the smoothness of a good salesman. My message to potential customers was: you'd be stupid not to sell online, and if you sell online you'd be stupid to use anyone else's software. Both statements were true, but that's not the way to convince people."

"There is nothing more valuable, in the early stages of a startup, than smart users. If you listen to them, they'll tell you exactly how to make a winning product. And not only will they give you this advice for free, they'll pay you."

"The other reason to spend money slowly is to encourage a culture of cheapness."

"An apartment is also the right kind of place for developing software.... I'd advise most startups to avoid corporate space at first and just rent an apartment. You want to live at the office in a startup, so why not have a place designed to be lived in as your office? .... Besides being cheaper and better to work in, apartments tend to be in better locations than office buildings. And for a startup location is very important. The key to productivity is for people to come back to work after dinner. Those hours after the phone stops ringing are by far the best for getting work done."

Business Tips via Mixergy, home of the ambitious upstart!

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