Disqus - Latest Comments for falicon

Re: Chasing Innovation and Steak in New York City

falicon — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:20:31 -0000

OK - so here's the lesson you just taught me from this post...never end any quality lesson with a reference to food or food locations or else that's all the discussion will be about ;-)

Seriously though - great self-inspection here...I agree with your view on some of your key talents and why the VC community is lucky to have you back in the game (and why NYC has always been lucky to have you in the game).

Now I gotta find some time to do a post like this too (of course it'll be a little depressing when I come to the realization that the *true* talent I bring to the table is being a dumbass!)

Re: Where’s your head at? A good example of an entrepreneur thinking about the right stuff

falicon — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:20:41 -0000

In the VC world, don't you only have to be right about 10% of the time? It's just that, when you're right, you're REALLY right! ;-)

Re: BotFu the blog - all about technology, sports, and random other things

falicon — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:11:25 -0000

Terry - thanks and nice to meet you! Yeah we should def. talk more...I think each comment does have it's own URI for example, directly to your comment above is: http://blog.botfu.com/index.php?p=284#comment-2...

Larry (@lmai via twitter) and I also hacked a little bit on using the RSS feed to support a discussion based game...we decided it's doable, but we weren't convinced to go full speed ahead on it yet (in talking with Disqus people directly, it sounded like they are working on some API updates that would make building a game or two like we want much easier and so we are sort of dragging our feet until we see what they do)...

Re: Twitter Lists: Categories and Conversations

falicon — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:36:12 -0000

Great explanation...oh and for the record, it was 5 days in New Orleans (Sat. - Wed.) and I was at least reasonably sober while watching the Falcons lose...the rest of the time I plead the 5th.

Re: Top 5 things missing from most entrepreneur pitches

falicon — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 18:49:43 -0000

Very helpful post Charlie...hope to see you do this type of post more often going forward. I think it helps both those seeking funding (to build better pitches) and those not seeking funding (to ask better questions to themselves about the businesses they are building).

Re: A Couple Foursquare Anecdotes

falicon — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 11:58:15 -0000

One of the bits of your story, "Sadly, we had left by the time he got there." is exactly what I don't like about foursquare...as cool and interesting as it is, I think they are missing out on a huge market for "where you are going to be" instead of "where you currently are"...unless I'm within 5 minutes of you, there's no chance I can do anything with the information about where you currently are (though there is a lot of value in the history of where you have been)...

To me the most useful data around the foursquare idea right now is "where your friends have been"...and the question that isn't being addressed yet is "where are your friends going to be"

Disclosure: I've been quietly attempting to build http://tym.ly to help answer just that question (it's got a ways to go, but I think it's an interesting start and if nothing else the right question to be focusing on).

Re: Facebook Fan Pages

falicon — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:14:06 -0000

+1 to your confusion...I've never really understood the point of them either nor I have ever heard of a REALLY useful/successful one.

Re: BotFu the blog - all about technology, sports, and random other things

falicon — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:12:25 -0000

I agree with you on all fronts here...I don't know enough about the overall ad business to dive into building a system like this but I do think it's coming at some point soon...and really, at this stage, as a consumer...all I want is a simple way to filter out ads that def. don't apply to me...it can be a simple 'ignore this ad' or 'remove this ad' link that google adsense puts in...I won't always click it (in fact I would rarely click it)...but I would occasionally click it and eventually the ads would get 'better' for me, the advertisers would get more valuable feedback (at least on what ads clearly aren't working), and google would have even more insight into my brain ;-)

Re: Failing: A Very Difficult Piece for Contemplation

falicon — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 22:33:25 -0000

for what it's worth, I fail on about 9 out of 10 things on any given day...but I forget the failures quick and generally only celebrate the 1 win...and whenever possible I try to pull off at least 100 things a day (so I can fit in 10 whole wins!)

Still I think it's built into a techie's DNA to live life on a bit of an emotional roller coaster...as I'm often up when I solve a problem and then almost immediately crushed when, five seconds later, I realize a thousand other people have already solved the very same problem (and in what appears to be infinitely better, smarter, ways).

Anyway - point is I feel for you...and I'm more or less in the same boat...so if/when you figure out the next move...keep me in mind too! ;-)

Re: Is your own dog food good for you? Building apps where you are the user

falicon — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:20:22 -0000

From my own personal experience, if you are building something to solve your own problem you probably aren't going into it thinking of it like a business (you might try and convert it into a business down the road, but it wasn't a driving factor in the start)...and for one reason or another, I think it's a lot harder to turn something that wasn't intended into a business than it is to build a business from scratch with the idea of it being a true business...

It can be done (my statsfeed project was a business I backed into out of solving a personal need)...but I think it's more the exception than the rule (from my own personal experience I probably have another 100 examples of things I built to solve my own problems/needs that I later thought I might be able to turn into a business...only to later realize at some point during the journey it wouldn't be worth the effort/return to keep at it)...

So +1 to 'it depends' :-)

Re: Tracked.com

falicon — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:42:34 -0000

I'm with you here...my first reaction to the homepage was "WHOA! What am I supposed to do now/first?"...it def. feels like the kitchen sink is in there...but it's gonna take me some time just to figure out how to get a drink of water, let alone fill up a whole pitcher... (good thing I'm not dying of thirst right now)

Re: Twitter Powered Contextual Advertising is Live for Any Bloggers/Web Hosts

falicon — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:49:37 -0000

It's an interesting angle to attempt...I *think* it's going to be hard to get people to 'log into twitter' just so they can be targeted for ads...you might need to come up with some other benefit/reason to get them to log in (and make the targeting of ads a nice side benefit to that action)...the key here is also going to be intelligent semantic processing of their feeds/data in real-time (that's a great space with a ton of action right now, but also a VERY hard nut to crack, it will be interesting to see how leveraging Zemanta works for you on this)...

Overall I think you've got a good start and gives people something to see/play with for sure...will be watching to see where you take it from here :-)

Re: Just Try It Out

falicon — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:11:17 -0000

email me directly at info@falicon.com if you want to chat about it in more detail...but the short answer is that I'm for anything that can make the web experience more personalized...the trick is in making it relevant to each user (I think it's VERY hard to make a widget relevant)...and at the same time making it so simple to use that people don't even really notice they are using it (ie. passive acceptance/participation with real, tangible benefits)...

As an aside, I actually just posted an idea on my blog yesterday related to a system much like adwords + disqus -> http://blog.botfu.com/index.php?p=283

Re: Just Try It Out

falicon — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:22:30 -0000

I did the same thing as Fred when I saw the news about them getting funding...and I personally think the service falls heavily into the "interesting but not really sticky" category for me...but there def. is a niche for it (look how popular flickr is, and this is sort of like flickr + twitter)...I think it could be huge with the teen crowd, but not sure how you monetize them ;-)

Re: BotFu the blog - all about technology, sports, and random other things

falicon — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:25:38 -0000

I'm with you 1,000% ... I don't use foursquare but I see the value to real businesses (they get to see where people are/have been), and to users I see the value in knowing where your friends have been (ie. looking for good sushi, what places have my friends gone to the most)...but as a game, not sure how fun it is...and yet, tons of people seem to like playing it.

As a side note, my http://www.tym.ly project is also a bit of a take on foursquare (and eventful or meetup)...no real game angle yet, but the idea is that instead of saying where you are, you say where you're going to be (or planning to be)...since my other big gripe with foursqure is that it does me very little good to know where you are at right now (unless I happen to be within 5 minutes of your location, I'm not going to be able to meet up with you anyway)...but if I know where you are going to be, or even better, where a group of my friends are going to be...then I can make a plan to be there too...I'll write more about that project soon too ( http://www.tym.ly is already up and running in VERY early beta though ).

Re: BotFu the blog - all about technology, sports, and random other things

falicon — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:13:22 -0000

Yes - in theory a win/win/win for everyone...and the best part is, if done right, there is no extra effort required to play...for example, you would have just earned a badge for my blog...and you didn't even know you were playing! ;-)

Re: Never Too Early

falicon — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:58:26 -0000

+1 on this post!

Re: Hosted Mongo

falicon — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:41:24 -0000

Most all of these key/value type databases (Mongo, SimpleDB, Google's Big table) are designed to solve just that pain point...right now the real question in picking one over another seems to be what company/environment you want to be tied to (ie. Google, Amazon, or your own hosting world)...and this directly relates to all the other tech. decisions you'll be making (like what language you want to work in, what your tech. budget long term is, what type of scale you expect to have to support, etc.)...

Re: Hosted Mongo

falicon — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 08:35:22 -0000

Without knowing much of anything, I believe that MongoDB, especially a hosted version, is much more like the combination of Amazon S3 and Amazon SimpleDB (both the database-like features as well as the actual large data store)...S3 is really just about data storage, while SimpleDB is about giving you some database-like features from a key/value system...

Awesome stuff though on all fronts for us techies to learn and play with! ;-)

Re: Paying To Pitch

falicon — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 07:55:43 -0000

David,

Thanks for the clarification. Believe me, as a software
developer, I understand the need to charge for all the work that went
into building and maintaining the platform...and that's what I was
under the impression the $250 was for (but great to hear about some of
the other options too).

I was just curious as to what the perception of AngleSoft by most
start-ups is as it relates to the idea of pay-to-pitch...since it
seems like that's still one of the biggest hurdles you guys have to
get over (the perception vs. the reality)...but for whatever it's
worth, I've heard good stuff about Angelsoft from the few people I
know that have used it...so keep up the great work!

- Kevin
http://blog.botfu.com

Re: Paying To Pitch

falicon — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 14:57:57 -0000

Where do you come in on something like AngleSoft for this type of debate? If I'm not mistaken, start-ups are charged for access, but you could argue it's for 'software use' as much as for access to the network of Angels...

I've never chased any funding, and hopefully never will have to, so I really know nothing about the funding world...I just sort of watch fascinated from the outside (which is one of the reasons I enjoy your blog so much).

Re: Comment Length

falicon — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:04:39 -0000

A little tangent to the topic but I've been thinking about building a game based on top of disqus comments for awhile now...the basic idea would be to award points for comments that generate responses (or discussions if you will)...the hope being that the game helps inspire people to leave even more engaging comments around the various blogs they read...

I haven't had time to think through it enough yet (and really no time to develop it yet)...but it might be a fun experiment to play with and if nothing else, a good reason to dig into the Disqus API a bit more eh?

Now back to your regularly scheduled program... ;-)

Re: Any programming n00bs want to learn Python with me and Julie?

falicon — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 09:04:20 -0000

Hey Charlie, this is awesome and I would love to help out if I could...what I'm thinking is what if we get a small group together, pick a night to meet once a week or every two weeks (or whatever schedule works for people)...and then pick a small, fun project that you guys will actually build...and I can mentor or guide you guys through some of the decisions and direct you towards what you've got to figure out to make it actually work...what do you think?

Re: Dear Twitter: It’s Not You, It’s Me

falicon — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:48:14 -0000

I've got five or six twitter apps out there and I'll probably build a few more as ideas hit me...so on one hand I too love Twitter...and on the other hand, I'm not banking on Twitter for anything 'real' and I probably won't be any time soon...

To me the big issue is this, Twitter solves a problem that nobody even knew they had (how to stay in touch with and follow people that they find interesting)...so yes it's cool, it's fun, it's easy to pick up and play with...but it's also very easy to put down and stop playing with (and when you do, you don't really feel like you're missing much of anything)...

For something like Google, the difference is that they solve a real problem people knew they had/have (how to find what I'm looking for)...so while Twitter has a 'chance' to one day get to google's level because of all the attention they are currently getting, I think (as you also mention) they have a lot to figure out before they'll get there...

I too am intrigued with the idea of Twitter as plumbing...and I think it's the first 'service' to reach this status (I think that all the other plumbing is basically software or standards so far)...so there is no clear cut path to making it really work long term...which does make it a very interesting case to watch unfold if nothing else.

In the end, I get the feeling that everyone pretty much has the same feelings as you...the VCs feel like there's "something there" with Twitter, they probably don't really know what it is, but they know they don't want to be on the sidelines when it comes to life...

Re: Statistically Generating The Perfect Pickup Line

falicon — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:09:34 -0000

I've been tucked away in my own little corner of NJ the past few weeks, so this is the first I've heard of your engagement as well...Congrats and welcome to the dark side...it's all downhill from here my friend! :-)

(actually, from the little I know about you, and from reading your Vegatarian Metal-loving profile, I think being married will agree quite well with you)