Twitter hits a million and a call for week boycott

Some news reported that Twitter was closing in on a Series C round of funding at a reported $60 million valuation.  On the heels of that news, Twitter Facts is reporting that according to twitdir, Twitter now has 1 million registered users.

As many of you are quite aware, Twitter seems to be the topic de jour in many upon many of blog posts these days.  So much so, that Allen Stern of CenterNetworks is calling for a week long boycott of Twitter reporting.  He has been kinf enough to provide a badge, as you see here in the post.  Here is the code is you are interested in posting it on your blog posts.

<a href=”http://www.centernetworks.com/centernetworks-declares-twitter-free-week”><img src=”http://media.centernetworks.com/images/twitterfree.png” title=”Twitter Free Week” border=”0″ /></a>
So what do you think?  Can it be done?  One entire week without a Twitter post?

Did You Start a Business or a Startup

It is very odd how things line up as you have a certain topic on your mind.  I was having a conversation the other day with a close friend of mine about business.  We were chatting about my business and he asked me an interesting question:  “Are you ready for your business to go big ?”.  I had to think for a second, and answer honestly, “No”.

He told me about a school of thought in business, that no matter how small you are, think you are big, and going to get bigger, that way you are prepared for what is to come.  It hit home with me, as I am a one person company, and while I have aspirations and dreams, the little pessimist in me says “Oh you arent going anywhere”.  But what if I do ?

So as I had these thoughts of business and startups fresh in my mind, I ran across two posts that had great points.  The first one I saw was over at the 37Signals blog titled “Start a business, not a startup” by Jason.  And the other one was by Nick O’Neill at the Social Times called “Talking About Real Businesses Thanks to the Recession“.

They were different posts, but had the same point:  Start a sound business.

Nick argues that the recession is forcing people into

managing cash flow, building client lists through business development and all the nitty gritty details about running a business. We can also talk about how are passions help get us through the hard times.

Jason states that

At the atomic level, all businesses need to generate revenue to pay their bills, grow their business, and stay in business.

..

A poorly run startup is a poorly run business. A wonderfully run startup is a wonderfully run business. I don’t believe there are many great startups that are bad businesses.

..

So if you start something up, start a business, don’t start a startup.

Honestly, great points by both guys.  No matter in good times or bad, sound business fundamentals is what will allow you to run the marathon and not just the 100M sprint.  I think personally, I have always had this “I am a one person startup” mentality, not really thinking big necessarily.  But now I understand that I am the founder of a business and need to think of it as such and more importantly act accordingly.

So put down that startup moniker and start building your business instead.

New Feature: Chronicles of the Entrepeneur

I am not even sure if I classify as an entrepreneur or not .. not sure what I am, but that is what this new feature is going to be called.

I do not consider myself the typical “entrepeneur” if you will.  I have a full time gig.  But I do a lot more.  I write this blog, started a consulting business, and am in developement of a product (www.mydropbin.com).  On top of all that, I have 2 small children, a house, yard to cut, and so on.  I try very hard to balance all of these aspects of my life, but I must admit, it is next to impossible.

And that is what this section is going to be all about.  I want to paint the picture of how it all started.  My passion to write about the local community here in DC.  My struggles in the balancing act, etc.

But I also want to hear your stories too.  I know we all have them.  I dont want to be the only contributer to this section, I want you to post as well and share your own special chronicles.

Send them in and we will get the ball rolling.

Enjoy the journey everyone.

Event Recap: TECHcocktail DC

As you can clearly see form the picture to the left, the DC tech crowd was out in force last night.  The second Techcocktail DC was put on by Frank Gruber and Eric Olson and it was a blast.  I think Frank said there were 400 some odd people there.  There was a great vibe amongst all the guest and it is really starting to show that there are good things happening here in DC.

There is a great set of pics by Raoul Pop that you must check out.

Several local companies were set up showing off their products.

AwayFind - a product aimed at helping combat the email problem by letting your contacts get in touch with you via an online form.

iGala - a digital photo frame with a touchscreen interface that connects directly to Flickr and Gmail to stream photos to the frame like a slideshow.

Loladex - offers local recommendations from your trusted network of Facebook friends.

Odeo - launched a new beta verision which offers both search and personalized content (audio and video) recommendations.

Voxant - a free licensed content offering for publishers which offers a pageview based revenue share to anyone that embeds the content on a their site.

WhyGoSolo - a new social networking site aimed at helping you to create spontaneous new connections so, as its name implies, you won’t go solo any longer.

I want to thank Frank and Eric for a great event, and the great showing the local community had as well.  See you all at the next event.

Photo:  Above photo courtesy of  jgarber

Event: SocialDevCampEast

Seems like the springtime is prime time for events popping up in the DC/Baltimore area.

A couple of our local friends, Ann Bernard and Keith Casey of WhyGoSolo, and David Troy of Twittervision are busy putting the final touches on the Barcamp styled SocialDevCampEast.

Here are the details:

When
May 10 2008
8:30AM - 10PM

Where
University of Baltimore
Thumel Business Center Building
Mt. Royal and Charles Streets
Baltimore, MD

SocialDevCamp East is the Unconference for Thought Leaders of the Future Social Web

Where is the social web going? It’s going mobile, to geocentric services, and to open platforms. Join a community of like minded developers, social media gurus and thought leaders for an unconference to discuss the future of the social web.

We’re looking for thought leaders from DC to Boston to meet, forge relationships, and envision the future.

I am really looking forward to this one.  If you head over to the wiki page for the event, folks are dadding some really great topics for discussion sessions:

• Google App Engine: Implications and First Impressions
• State of the Rails: A Look at the present and Future of Rails
• Mobile Application Development with iPhone & Android
• What are the implications of Geo-based web applications?
• How will Agile Development practices affect ideation and funding processes?
• Platforms Present & Future: Facebook, OpenSocial, LinkedIn, Friendster, etc.
• What will matter on the web a year or two from now?
• Where will information aggregation take us?
• Social Media is here to stay – so where will it go next?
• How will Google keep affecting development, the web and our lives?
• What are the next things web users will want from the web?
• What will be the impact of future generations to the current web we know today?
• Social Media in the workplace vs. in life
• How the Web is being broken apart into pieces - Justin Thorp

I am really looking forward to seeing many of you there.

Event Reminder: Mid-Atlantic Business Plan Competition

I have been remiss in writing lately, with biz travel and working on my other venture, (MyDropBin).  But I wanted to take a few moments to remind everyone about the event coming up this Saturday, Mid-Atlantic Business Plan Competition.

It is a great opportunity for the local crownd to show up in force and support the local entrepenuers as well as to show them that DC is a good place to stay to build their business once they finish up their studies.

So I have created a Facebook group for the event, as well as an Event listing.  Love for you all to join us in spreading the word.

Hope to see many of you there.

Reminder: Don’t Miss Jessie Newburn on the Par-Tay

Everyone knows that we are huge fans of Jonny’s Par-Tay here at East Coast Blogging.  We love the weekly shows, I mean who wouldn’t.  Last week they had a professional yo-yo champion!

Tomorrow is sure to match that.  My good friend up Baltimore way Jessie Newburn is the featrue guest on the show.

Jessie Newburn is a social media coach, cross-generational marketing maven, speaker, hula hooper and Iconic GenXer living in Columbia, Md. She applies how and why the varying American generations use communication technologies and has a unique perspective on generational use of social media.

The talk is sure to be a good one, as they dive into the various generations and addressing social media at the various levels.  It is sure to be an enlightened chat that I for one will not miss.  Thank god they have the interwebs here in St Louis !!

See everyone in the Par-Tay chat room !

Alert Thingy: Finally a Way To Use FriendFeed

Like many around the interweb, I haven’t quite been able to quite get my head around FriendFeed.  It seems to be a bit too much.  Especially going to the website and trying to follow all of that information on one page .. seemed like trying to drink from a fire hose.

Enter Alert Thingy.  I saw a tweet on this from Michael Arrington this morning and decided to go over and see what the fuss was about.  I will admit, it seems to be all that.  If you are a twhirl user for Twitter, then you will feel right at home with Alert Thingy.  It is also an Adobe AIR application that seems to float a bit transparently on your desktop.  The interface is very twhirl like.  And best of all it seems much more able to give me all of my Friend Feed info and alerts in a small concise manner.  It even allows you to send updates back to your FriendFeed stream.

It has pop up alerts like twhirl.  To be honest, this seems like it could very well be what tips the scales and has me get a little more involved and active with my FriendFeed.  Finally the ability to get all the data in a very “Twitter-like” stream, one that I can process very similar to how I have learned to on twitter.

I am curious though to see if this could actually become a challenge to Twitter.  I had not thought about that prior to seeing this interface.  With the ability to post, incuding images, back to your friend feed, it seems like a natural competition to Twitter.  What do you all think ?  Do you use FriendFeed ?  If you are I highly recommend you give Alert Thingy a once over.

Build a Brand and Track It

That seems to be one of the buzz words these days, branding.  In some fore or another, everyone is taking part in this branding.  Whether you are just a person on twitter, or a company out there, it is important that you pick a brand and buidl upon it.

As a person, your brand can simply be your screen name.  Try to make sure you carry the same one across the various social media platforms, like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, and you are on your way to creating your personal brand.  As for a company, make the screen name match your company name and you are branding it on these networks as well.

After creating this brand, it is extremely important that you follow up and track how your “brand” is being talked about, its popularity, any problems with it, and so on.  But with the vastness of todays social media world, that task can be daunting.  Well I have found your solution.  Enter “The Social Media Firehose“.  It is an unreal Yahoo Pipe built by Kingsley Joseph.  You simply enter the terms you want to search for, like your product or company name and you get this:

A list of everywhere in the social media-verse your brand is mentioned, including images, twitter updates, blog posts, and so on.  It is extremely powerful.  It even has subscription options to include RSS, so you can almost instantly see what is being said about your brand so you can respond appropriately.  You can even get badges to embed on your web site so others can see it all happen in real time as well.  It is really an awesome product.  One that should not be overlooked as you are trying to build and track your brand.

Got More Rhymes Than Chris Brogan’s Got Questions

Now that is saying something !
Well its the new rage today out on the ol “series of tubes” as Senator Stevens would say.  I got word form the artist himself this afternoon about his new feature nerd rap.

Scott Stead has released he entry into the Ze Frank Nerd Rap Contest.  It is really quite good and you should head over and give it a listen.

The great line of it though “Got more rhymes than Chris Brogan’s got questions” is quite funny, even picked up by Mr. Brogan himself

Great work Scott.

Next Page »