DISQUS

The market for custom products will definitely be enormous. One of my favorite companies innovating in this space is Infectious.com. Not only is Infectious making custom products, but they crowd source the designs and allow the contributors to profit from sales helping the product get traction/distribution (Threadless-like).

I have a sneaky suspicion that if you can customize the product, consumers have more incentive to buy multiple items, increasing sales and repeat customers. No data to back this up, but I'm sure it's the case

http://twitter.com/squasher98

This is a really great thing that the city and Bloomberg are doing. Big kudos to them! I'd also love to see them working to help subsidize the cost of running a start-up here in New York, as opposed to simply providing capital.

LeveragingIdeas.com

Thanks for the post Nick!

Hopefully Facebook will reconsider. If anything building Facebok Pages has likely helped them attract advertisers faster than they would have otherwise. Makes no sense why they would delete the accounts of the people most active in the community

Great post Robert!

I actually wrote about what I characterize as "Twitter's branding problem," but it plays into exactly what you are describing above...

http://www.leveragingideas.com/2008/04/13/twitt...

Yahoo shouldn't be buying anything that doesn't produce cash.

Yahoo has proven an ability to acquire well tractioned early-stage companies and do little to maintain their growth. At the very least, Yahoo needs to make smart purchases that will be reflected in the statement of cash flows, not simply the balance sheet

http://www.leveragingideas.com

I think that sometime in the next 12 months we'll see a new search engine that makes better use of tagged material. I highly agree it's a worthwhile undertaking

http://www.leveragingideas.com

Try Khaiersta at Flower Press Creative

http://www.flowerpress.net/

Sam

http://www.leveragingideas.com

Duncan Riley has a good post on Twitter and Omnipresence over at Techcrunch:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/12/30/a-sign-of-...


I commented:

"Twitter is an amazing service as long as you have a network. Most people don’t understand that you need to dive into Twitter and immediately start interacting…to begin, it’s more about being responsive than being a content producer. Twitter would do itself a world of good by making sure people understood this and helping pair them with contacts and subjects they could respond to. Users see value in Twitter when their UX becomes participatory. Like text messaging you must send to receive"

http://www.leveragingideas.com

Peter - Since I love to debate, I wanted to point out that the ~257 fans you suggest joined the Sequoia page as a result of the Fred's link could be misleading. The primary way that the people learn of a FB Page is by seeing a friend of theirs who also added the Page (populates to the feed). It stands to reason that a friend seeing another friend become a fan of a particular page greatly increases the odds that that person will also 'fan' the Page since people tend to do what their friends do. Facebook is viral like that.

Thus, while highly unlikely, it is theoretically possible that Fred's post could have resulted in only 1 Facebook member directly becoming a fan of the Sequoia Page. However, that one notification then goes into the feeds of say 20 people, two of which also add it, which then goes into the feeds of 10 more people...yada, yada, network effect.

I'm sure Fred's post in responsible for the good number of the 259 new Sequoia members, but just wanted to point out that all 257 may not be A VC readers.

- Peter's Friend Sam :)

Hey Fred, thanks for bringing this to people's attention. You can just add the Simply RSS Application to your USV page to import a feed (as long as you are okay with the terms). Otherwise, yes, notes would be a great feature.

"Facebook squatters" - I don't think so Charlie! I have been completely transparent about creating these pages as part of an experiment. I am willing to give them back over to Fox, Kleiner, or Polo although these brands could also create their own pages. Indeed there could be 5-10 Kleiner Perkins variations and it would be the job of the discerning fan to pick appropriately (or Facebook could add authentication). I have a vested interest in playing around with such new features on Facebook and will continue to do so and in the case of Patagonia, I really am a big fan and I want them represented on thefacebook.

Sam

If the web continues to be the force you suggest, perhaps US venture funds will be more cautious but shouldn't investment continue into innovative web concepts -- even if the funds are China based rather than US based? There isn't a worldwide recession so much as a redistribution, right? Or is US money the only investment likely to see an ROI on web 2.0 since our society is currently the only demographic such apps appeal to?

Hey Tom - It's not quite the same, but I know that some SEO guys mine websites for expiring domains with high PR and backlinks, which they then buy and monetize or use to increase the PR of their own sites.

Sam

http://www.leveragingideas.com

Hey Matt - great post! I think that most companies do not collect errant passwords, but I agree that this could be extremely valuable information. I'm surprised that with module-type languages like Ruby on Rails that there isn't one standard password module/app that has come forth.

A company making a killer open source, protected password system is much needed by the web community. Maybe there already is one?

Glad to see you posting more often

Sam

http://www.leveragingideas.com

Hi Zoli,

Agreed. Facebook certainly has use as an external lead-gen, PR, front-facing tool.

However for real internal collaboration and communications it's not the right platform.

-Sam

http://www.leveragingideas.com

I think this is a great insight. In fact, in doing some recent digging, I have been blown away by the historical ties to another era in California - the 1960's. I had no idea that social media's roots were so deeply entrenched in the counterculture movements of the hippies. Should have paid more attention in high school history class!

http://www.leveragingideas.com/?p=436

Hmm...maybe not the best app for a young professional. Doesn't having that app indicate something about your personality? It's guilt by association, isn't it?

Your boss or future employer may not be such a big fan

Sounds awesome! Way to be proactive...I'm sure you guys will get some good business if you put together a solid development team - especially if they are US based.

My thoughts are that this was a brilliant acquisition.

However, I'm not sure why everyone is so focused on MyBlogLog's application only for blogging...with convergence technologies around the corner I think they have a much bigger future than people are suggesting.

You can read my recent post about this, and MyBlogLog's reaction, here: http://www.leveragingideas.com/?p=146

Facebook could try and add a study tools component, but it won't go anywhere. If anything, users of Facebook are on the network to avoid school work...it would take another network with a different look and different value proposition to be successful integrating with NoteCentric.