Disqus - Latest Comments for James

Re: 24hrs Blogosphere Buzz 2008.08.13

James — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 17:02:02 -0000

Hey Buzz, thanks for mentioning AdHack in your roundup of local tech happenings. We're keen to get connected with anyone looking to create an ad -- video, image, audio, whatever! -- or looking to source an ad.

We've got a handful of great local tech companies onboard buying ads and we're game to find more.

And anyone with a better Mr. Muffin ad, please create it, upload it to AdHack and let's put it out its misery!

Re: » CIX - Canadian Venture Capital Meetup | StartupNorth

James — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:56:28 -0000

The fine print on the reg page also says “* In addition to the conference fee, $495.00 will be charged should your company be selected as a Presenting Company.”

As an entrepreneur trying to make the startup a living, breathing, successful reality, this additional charge (conference + travel + pitch cost) starts to make it look like a $2,000 bill. That’s $200 per minute of presentation or almost $700 per guaranteed meeting.

I think entrepreneurs already fully recognize the nothing-ventured, nothing-gained mantra, but why is the burden of cost on the startup? It looks like an additional tax on trying to get your venture working.

And how many startups will be selected to present for 10 minutes? It can’t be too many, maybe 5 at the high end? Doesn’t it seem more fair for someone who stands to benefit from the potential dealflow to sponsor this part of the event for $2,500 (5 companies x $495) instead of extracting that from the startups?

Lastly, unless we (the startups) know the ‘20 leading investors,’ the proposition is pretty weak. It’s a matter of speaking to the right people, not the most people. So it could be 100 leading investors. The number doesn’t really matter. Who are they and what are their areas of expertise / investment? That’s what counts.

Re: » 30 Ideas that need to be Funded | StartupNorth

James — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:44:20 -0000

12. Fix advertising.

I believe we're swinging for that pitch. Ready to hit it out of the park. AdHack.com

Re: Free means never having to say you’re sorry

James — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 02:52:18 -0000

And the Globe...?

I mean seriously, the website just isn't any good. And the pay restrictions seem perfectly arbitrary, to me, someone who even reads the thing in print 3 or 4 days a week. W.T.F?

Re: Tay Zonday: Cheesy sellout 2.0

James — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:35:31 -0000

Hey Matthew, don't hate the playa because of the game. The ad just sucks. Simple. I don't think any hand wringing about selling out is relevant. The culture eats everything. If the Apple iPod Touch ad done by the 18-year old from Leeds sucked, would folks be calling him a sellout?

But for Tay Zonday to make money off his odd singing is not that different from doing a lounge act in Las Vegas in person or you writing for the Globe. Each of you has a passion you don't get paid for that you do because you love it, and a commercial interest that you also pursue because it pays the bills.

The intersection of art and commerce is a tough negotiation. Ya can't knock the hustle without cutting it a fair deal.

Re: Tay Zonday: Cheesy sellout 2.0

James — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:36:56 -0000

Oh no, not at all. I like the writing. Keep up the pimp life!

I couldn't stomach my whole way through either the original song or the banal ad remix.

Re: Twitter: A micro-financing vehicle?

James — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:26:35 -0000

Re: "Why couldn’t someone “crowd-source” a financing for a startup?"

I think the barrier is more human than anything, although it sounds like there are legal hurdles as well. Crowdsourced financing would create 2 problems:
1. The company would likely have a huge number of relationships with investors to update and manage. That sounds hard.
2. It's pretty hard to establish 'money trust' (high level trust that must endure difficulties over a number of years) through a web page, twitter message, etc.

That's my perspective, as the CEO of a startup company (AdHack) that just launched our beta and is now preparing to go to the market to raise funding. I've played with the idea of crowdsourcing and it just doesn't feel right.

Re: 2006 Agency Of The Year: Nobody

James — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 19:45:27 -0000

Hey Max, great post, particularly the top-10 list of criteria. I think we're on the same page and that agencies are what they do. The crap half measures currently underway to get 'you' to build the ad for them are a paternal pat on the head to folks who deserve more respect.

Oh, and I invite you to check out AdHack, the do-it-yourself advertising community I'm working up.

Re: Social Media Is What Caused The Marketing Game To Change

James — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:23:53 -0000

Hi Max, here's my question:
In an immersive digital media world of micro markets and micro marketing, where audiences and interactions are fragmented and creating their own experiences, does systemic marketing work? Is it appropriate?

(What I mean by 'systemic marketing' is one message to many audiences, and one message staying the same over time, according to a system and not according to context.)

Re: Confronting Friction & Risk Head-On

James — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:05:28 -0000

This feels like the Getting Real approach applied to management. I like it.

Re: Imagining the potential of Portable Social Graphs

James — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 03:08:14 -0000

Privatizing social activities universally = bad idea for users like me. I don't the Faceborg to know any more about me than it already does. I don't trust them and I don't think anyone should.

Does no one else remember FOAF?

Re: collision detection: Study explores how a fly avoids a swatter

James — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 12:51:14 -0000

In a former life, prior to my engagement with geekiness, I spent summers guiding fishermen in northern Ontario. One of the necessary tasks of the guide is to clean the fish. Nothing, in my experience, attracts flies like fish guts. Flies of all types and wasps. For sport (and because many of my guests were not so interesting), I'd see how many of the flies I could kill.

I could usually kill 20 or 30 flies in a day. So that taught me a few things.

1. Flies have an optimal size for swat avoidance. The deer fly is the most elusive I ever found. Bigger flies (horse flies and blue-ass houseflies) can take a swat and still live, but they're slower and easier to hit. Small flies are harder to hit but they don't tend to move too fast, either in the air of taking off.

2. Flies circling in the air are hard to take with your hand but easy to knock down with something larger. The larger thing you swing ought to be flat, like a cutting board or hard-backed book, and light enough to get a quick, concussive swing. You're not trying to actually kill the fly with the blow, just knock it down and stun it, then kill it.

3. Flies crawling on fish guts (or a counter or plate) will take off very fast. Rob's comment, "The one certainty is that a fly will always fly *up*. Slowly move your hand up behind the fly until you're about 3-4 inches behind. Then swipe the air about 1-2 inches above the fly. Works 90% of the time." is bang on from my experience. This is the money technique.

The exception to this is when flies are buzzing against a window, which is really the only time I've found a fly swatter the most useful tool.

Hope that helps you rid the world of a few flies. I don't count on it, but I hope. Happy hand washing!

Re: Strategies for Two-Sided Markets

James — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 16:21:51 -0000

Great pointer to the Harvard article and great topic for discussion. One note: the link to the Harvard paper shows up for me with two http:// references. Remove one and the link will work.

Re: 10 Web 2.0 Tips: $75

James — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:12:03 -0000

Great post, Furqan, with some great lessons for folks considering starting an online community. I've seen lots of examples of companies doing huge projects, spending hundreds of thousands and not learning this much.

My only question is around Ning. It seems like a dead-end platform if you want to build a business on the community websites. You never own your user profiles (you can't view them, export them, extend them). They remain with Ning.

Have you found that? Would you make the same platform decisions if you were building a business?

Re: FriendFeed As FoeFeed

James — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:36:22 -0000

Alternately, you can also custom roll an RSS feed with Yahoo Pipes - http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/

It seems more powerful and flexible with what you can do. And more permanent with how you can manipulate the feeds. This is particularly applicable if any competitors or news you want to track is hard to parse with specific keywords or keyword phrases.

Re: Ethics Test

James — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:41:35 -0000

I agree with C: speak up. And when speaking up make it clear you would be glad to address any of the concerns you have just overheard.

These are folks who are (potentially) trusting you with a bag of money. If you're not trustworthy with a conference-call logistics slip up, can you be trusted with an investment when offered temptation?

Most importantly, I think you'll respect yourself for it. And that's who you have to work with the rest of your career.

Re: Want To Know More About Your Competition?

James — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 23:10:18 -0000

Interesting for certain data sources. But for many of the data sources, a little Google-Fu will save you the $5 / $10 / $20 for a report since they're available on the web or in the cache.

Re: http://www.gothamgal.com/gotham_gal/2008/08/feta-salad.html

James — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 10:31:00 -0000

Any thought to consider some lemon or orange or grapefruit rind in there?

A dash of the juice would give it some zip too (Mario Batali is always on about having an acidic / citrus flavour because it promotes salivation, which makes food taste better. Seriously.) and would help extend the fridge life.

Re: CIX - Canadian Venture Capital Meetup

James — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:56:28 -0000

Re: 30 Ideas that need to be Funded

James — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 18:44:20 -0000

12. Fix advertising.

I believe we're swinging for that pitch. Ready to hit it out of the park. AdHack.com

Re: How To Launch a Startup: Ideas, Acceleration, Raising Capital and More

James — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:11:37 -0000

Hey Ben, this is a strong presentation and some great guidance. Particularly your point that as a founder you never stop raising money. I had never heard that before and never recognized it until you said it, but it's true.

We're building a prototype and raising money at once. Through that process I've found you just have to get used to running the two streams and do your best with them.

Now the second balancing act - running the big-picture business and detailed execution at once - presents an additional challenge.

It seems to me the most natural fit in most startups is to have the technical founder more focused on the details of execution, especially in the early days when breaking new ground is such a priority. But that just be in our situation and with our team.

Re: AdHack.com alpha ( Do-it-yourself (DIY) advertising.)

James — Fri, 23 May 2008 11:37:09 -0000

Thanks for the mention, Tony. It's flattering to see the company we're among. And this is a dandy idea for a site. Come on in, the water's fine!

Re: 10 Crowdsourcing Marketplaces for All the Designers and Freelancers

James — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 13:08:39 -0000

Great list and pretty comprehensive.

The one miss is the one that I'm the biggest fan of -- AdHack: http://adhack.com -- a marketplace for advertising creative.

(Confession: I'm the biggest fan of AdHack because I'm part of the AdHack team.)

We connect ad buyers with ad creators and help them both win. Ad buyers get great ad creative. Ad creators get paid for their work, get to sell any unsold work they have and build a portfolio to attract new ad buyers.

We've evolved our model from the original crowdsourcing model to much more of a market for creative work, where creative folks can find gigs, buyers and retain control over the rights of their unsold work.

Re: Who’s Afraid of Online Advertising?

James — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:50:43 -0000

Point 1: people, alone and in groups, make decisions based on faith, not reason. No surprise that they stick with what they know, what has succeeded for them in the past, what presents no risk to them losing their job for advocating something new. The person who stands up and wants to do things differently gets the target on their back.

Point 2: marketers want mass audiences but mass audiences are fast becoming as rare as hens teeth. Why mass audiences? Because then marketing is a system. Design the system and then adjust it as needed. We already have the mass system -- get a bunch of people and pound them as hard as you can with the same message.

But the web doesn't conform. Given choices, people gather in smaller groups. They form social bonds or reinforce existing ones. They recommend things to each other, reflecting and tailoring to that individuality they always had. Mass media has lost its ability to focus those individuals into mass audiences at the same time as people have discovered they can do media for themselves.

So a new advertising system is needed to fit a web architecture, and that new system is emeging slowly in small pieces, loosely joined (Weinberger). Which makes a lot of people uncomfortable, even afraid.

So who's afraid of online advertising? Everyone already in advertising, and all the companies making their living off those people.

Re: 10 steps for those that got laid off

James — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:26:03 -0000

The number one thing I'd recommend it getting recommendations. From peer, from managers, from reports -- anyone who will talk you up. It's social proof of your value.

Get them to put their name on the recommendation and use that in all your communications. If your potential recommenders are lazy, write the recommendation for them and then ask them to edit it until they're comfortable with it.

You are your reputation and you have lots of power over it.

Re: Clever — Really Clever Video spot

James — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:59:04 -0000

The original that I've found was done in Argentina for a polical campaign.

Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFz5jbUfJbk