Master of 500 Hats

Chad Hurley, YouTube CEO/Co-Founder, talks to entrepreneurs @ June Startup2Startup dinner

props & respeck to Chad Hurley, CEO & Co-Founder of YouTube, for speaking at our June Startup2Startup dinner this past week, sponsored by Mohr Davidow Ventures & Charles River Ventures.

Chad gave a terrific talk (with no powerpoint!), as chronicled by several in attendance such as Liz Gannes of NewTeeVee / GigaOm, & Brian Solis (who took awesome pix). 

I was lucky to spend a short time working with Chad at PayPal, as well as other co-founders Steve & Jawed, before the three of them left to start YouTube along with some other amazing ex-PayPalers.  Over the next year or so, I had a front-row seat watching YouTube grow from an early alpha site to mainstream craze thru acquisition by Google into the full-blown video juggernaut it is today.

Here is a brief video clip intvw i did with Chad before the dinner:

Here is video Liz shot of Chad's talk (ironically posted on blip.tv, not YT):

(additional clips were also taken via cellphone by Daniel Brusilovsky, teen-tech entrepreneur & community evangelist at Qik)

For those geeks interested in learning more about YouTube API & technology & and their growing developer program, i encourage you to join me on July 10th & check out the Powered by YouTube Day at YouTube HQ in San Bruno, CA (more info on the YouTube API blog).

yo Fred: i got yer Inspiration right HERE.

Fred Wilson wrote a post a few days back asking his readers where to find inspiration.  I guess he was talking about text, since he mentioned TechMeme, Hacker News, etc.  But i think the solution lies in other medium... especially since Fred is a music geek, i think he probably would get more inspiration from sounds & images & stuff like this:

This video was itself inspired by the work of Jan von Holleben, which i came across earlier this evening via tweet from Jerry Michalski (thx Jerry!).  In particular, his series Dreams of Flying is just amazing, see below:

Dreams of Flying, Jan von Holleben

speaking of musical / video inspirations, i put together some wacky video bumper clips for my recently-concluded Graphing Social Patterns East conference in DC, including favorites both old & new: music videos from Cansei de ser Sexy (CSS), Feist & Facebook, radio & film via typography, wonderful commercials by Fruit of the Loom & Sony Bravia & Honda, fun stuff from Japan, Korea, China, plus other stuff that just brings me sheer joy :)

sometimes the best inspiration comes from switching gears.

change it up, folks.

"Liquid Conversations" @ Supernova: Rise of the Comment Mashup DJ Artist & The Share Pimp

Our recent Liquid Conversations panel at Supernova covered some interesting territory about how blog posts & particularly comments are becoming more distributed, shared semi-privately among friends & followers.

in particular, i think there's a really interesting conversation (heh) that's becoming more important around the role of what i call the Comment DJ Mashup Artist, or the Share Pimp -- that is, not the person who creates original content, but rather the person who promotes / shares / pimps it out to other audiences, whether that be via Digg, Delicious, Reddit, Mixx, Facebook News Feed, FriendFeed, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, SlideShare, embeds (see below), etc etc. 

i think this is a really important function, one that you often see performed by someone like a Robert Scoble or a top Digger (or occasionally yours truly).  we may not be original, but we amplify signal like nobody's business.  this particular audience is one that website owners & content creators should be paying more attention to... they may even be more important than the person who creates.

here is the TechCrunch writeup & another by Elliott NG / CNreviews:

• FriendFeed and The Future Of Distributed Conversations (TechCrunch)
• Supernova 2008: Three insights about distributed conversations from FriendFeed, CoComment, Seesmic (CNreviews)

and here's a followup video interview Nick Douglas did with me after the panel:

Link: sevenload.com

a few other photos:

Bret Taylor (FriendFeed) and Dave Sifry (Offbeat Guides, ex-Technorati)
(CC) Elliott Ng, UpTake Travel Search

Loic Le Meur (Seesmic), Dave McClure (500 Hats)
(CC) Elliott Ng, UpTake Travel Search.

MillionForMarriage.org

this really warms my heart :)

(although i wish they'd make the embed code for the video easier to find... doesn't appear the video below is displaying properly... had to view source to figure out how to even try to do embed.  dammit.)

Care & Feeding for FakeDave Twitter Troll. Here Trolly-troll-troll! Come & get it.

FakeDave Twitter Troll.
Originally uploaded by davemc500hats

it appears my FakeDave twitter troll is now spam-tweeting other folks (see tweets in red).

i realize it's probably not a good idea for me to give him/her this much attention ("Don't Feed The Trolls!"), but i find it mildly intriguing that someone would go to this much trouble...

weird shit.

Elliott's Twitter "re-direct". (very smart)

Elliott's Twitter "re-direct".  (very smart)
Originally uploaded by davemc500hats

elliott claimed his mis-spelled twitter name (only one 'T'), then redirects to the correct one.

very smart.

here is Elliott's writeup of our "Liquid Conversations" panel at Supernova yesterday, with Bret Taylor (FriendFeed), Loic Le Meur (Seesmic), Dave Sifry (ex-Technorati) & Matt Colebourne (coComment).

Graphing Social Patterns East: Day 2 Video Bumpers

by popular request, here are all the video bumpers from Day 2 of GSP East:

• Music is my Boyfriend / Hot Hot Sex (CSS)
• Never Gonna Give You Up / Rick Astley (RickRoll)
• Muppet Matrix
• Microsoft iPod
• Facebook for Grandparents
• Who's On First? (Typography)
• Hate Floats (Venture Brothers)
• The Cog (Honda Rube Goldberg)
• What's Opera Doc (Kill The Wabbit)
• Sesame Street / Rubber Ducky
• Let's Make Love (CSS)
• Wabbit Season
• Tarako (Japan)
• Korean Madness
• Lazy Sunday (SNL)
• OK Go / Here It Goes Again

altho i have several favorites among the clips above, in particular the "Who's On First? (Typography)" was a recent & amazing discovery. there are several other cool typography video clips done in the same style, like the Pulp Fiction (Typography) one below (we didn't use that as a bumper, tho i was tempted ;).

Viral Marketing & Advertising Strategies for Social Networks (Kevin Barenblat, Context)

I invited Kevin Barenblat from Context Optional to lead a workshop on viral marketing & advertising strategies for social networks at Graphing Social Patterns East, and boy did he ever deliver.

Here is his presentation, one of the best i've ever seen on this topic:

| View | Upload your own

thanks Kevin!

Graphing Social Patterns panel on News Feeds: I Can Haz Privacy?

The GSP Feed Panel
Originally uploaded by duncandavidson

Chris Messina & David Recordon share a moment on privacy, at the Graphing Social Patterns East panel on The NEED for FEEDs, along with Dave Morin (Facebook), Adam Nash (LinkedIn), and Kevin Chou (Watercooler).

this panel was WAAAYY out of control, but lots of fun ;)

Graphing Social Patterns East: Day 1 Video Bumpers

Several folks attending the Graphing Social Patterns East 2008 conference asked if we could post links to the video bumpers between speaker / session changes... here is the list of links from Day 1:

• Richter Scales: Another Bubble
• Blue (SF) / Fruit Guys, of the Loom
• Muppet Bloopers (Rickroll)
• Facebook Song (Rhett & Link)
• Flight of the Conchords / MuthaFlippin
• Muppets / Manamana
• Cansei der Sexy (CSS) / Off the Hook
• Feist 1234
• The Lion Sleeps Tonight
• Sony Bravia (SF) / Jose Gonzalez "Heartbeats"
• Hifana Wamono
• Facebook Course @ Stanford (Fall 2007)
• Facebook News Network (News Feed)
• Two Chinese Boys
• Brad Paisley Online

among others, this one in particular was a lot of fun & relevant to the topic :)