Disqus - Latest Comments for falicon

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

ceonyc — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:35:09 -0000

You have to be 51% right 10% of the time. The 51% is at the level of
each individual decision...10% is at the company level.

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: Twitter Lists: Categories and Conversations

whitneymcn — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 09:23:27 -0000

Okay, your occasional sobriety is officially on the record, as is yet
another "awesome work on the quick!" from me. :-)

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

fredwilson — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:08:41 -0000

that is a very valid critique. and it is also why i try to checkin about 5 mins before i arrive somewhere

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: Tracked.com

glenngutierrez — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:15:16 -0000

Yeah. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't only me.

Re: Tracked.com

Miles Lennon — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:54:31 -0000

"Good thing I'm not dying of thirst right now"

Kevin - great analogy!

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

VictusFate — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:10:01 -0000

Agreed, there needs to be more of a game or user bonus for opting in. That's my primary concern at the moment, thanks for the rapid review and feedback sir!

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

VictusFate — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:29:15 -0000

Cool will check it out, I think we share some ideas about the direction of customization. Check here for more info:
Http://www.victusspiritus.com
(blasted iPhone cut and paste:)

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

VictusFate — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:55:24 -0000

Kevin I'd be curious to hear your take on the direction of social media driven search and advertising. Do you think there's room to leverage bleeding edge tools to make our web experience more personalized?

I'm interested because a side project has recently survived long enough to become a blog/site widget and want to I need to gather the right metrics to aid design decisions moving forward. The idea is user owns this information, and can tweak, export, or delete it as they see fit. Plus sometimes I don't want to see ads (no matter how well targeted), so an opt in user choice could work.

My first design measure is, do geeky/tech folks like it?

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

lmai — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 17:20:00 -0000

i use foursquare sometimes, but what's the game? get a badge? become mayor? is there any value in that?

- a highly ranked blog is revenue/brand etc. There is a tangible (at least quantifiable) value.
- a highly ranked commenter - value in that too - more twitter followers, more industry reputation etc.

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!