Master of 500 Hats

Got SchadenFreude? Profit from Other's Despair -- Enter the SlideShare "Credit Crisis in 30 Slides Contest" (Judges: Cuban, Varian, Kedrosky, Wilson)

Can you explain why High Finance is/isn't Going to Hell in a Handbasket in 30 slides or less?  Terrific. 

Enter the SlideShare Credit Crisis Contest (C^3) and you might win an iTouch, Nano, or Shuffle.  (yeah we know the prizes are cheap, but listen up mofo we're trying to preserve cash)

The Credit Crisis in 30 slides contest

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

Credit Crisis Contest judges include:

• Mark Cuban (Dallas Mavericks owner / Entrepreneur)
• Hal Varian (Google Chief Economist)
• Paul Kedrosky (Finance Guru & Blogger)
• Fred Wilson (Venture Capitalist Pauper)

Mark Cuban	Hal Varian	Paul Kedrosky	Fred Wilson

just remember folks: the Startup you Save might be your Own.

and Now for Something Completely Different... (LoveFoXXX Monkey Dance, Cansei de Ser Sexy)

ok, just got back from SeedCamp 2008 in London, & a brief layover in NYC to hookup with some friends for dinner. here's a quick CSS diversion b4 i go gonzo next 2 weeks on Startup2Startup, Startup Metrics, & STARTonomics... enjoy :)

TonchiDot Sekai Camera (aka World Camera): "Look Up, Not Down! We Have Patent! Imagine... Join Us!"

TonchiDot Sekai Camera was without a doubt the most amazing & hysterical presentation at TechCrunch50 this year... never seen anything like that demo, or the Q&A that came after. 

The entire room was spellbound, then laughing uncontrollably at the Q&A responses ("Look Up, Not Down!  We Have Patent!  Imagine!  Join Us!").  Almost never see Jason Calacanis & Michael Arrington speechless, but it happened.  Several audience members gave the presenters a standing O.

Facebook Inbox 666: Number of The Zuck

Facebook Inbox 666: Number of The Zuck
Originally uploaded by davemc500hats

uh-oh... either Damien or Mark Zuckerberg has Possessed my Inbox.

pretty sure Merlin Mann has something to say about this.

Why I'm Big in Japan / How I Got Married

I've previously fallen in love with I Can Haz Cheezburger, also FAIL Blog... my latest infatuation is now EngrishFunny.com (warning: very un-PC, esp. if your wife is japanese).

and yes, i resemble that remark.

Q: What Does Your *PLAY* Button Do? (increasing User Activation thru "Site Animation")

I was in a meeting with a startup today, and a concept i call "Site Animation" came up that i've been thinking about a few times over the past year.  it's related to the Activation stage of the 5-step AARRR! Startup Metrics for Pirates model i've spoken about previously.

the basic idea is this...

startups spend a lot of time (or should) trying to figure out how to get users to take the FIRST step along the path to becoming a regular user.  HOWEVER, frequently it's a challenge to communicate the basic concepts of the site, and get people to understand what you want them to do (or conversely, it's hard for startups to figure out what users are LIKELY to do, and how that connects with their primary features).

Q: what if you created a PLAY button that automated the action you want the user to take, and just act like the user hit PLAY after 3-5 seconds if they don't do anything?

I'm not sure i have the user experience figured out here just yet... it's sort of halfway between 1) playing a short screencast, and 2) animating the mouse cursor on behalf of the user to just click on something.  i'm sure many folks might find this pretty annoying... but on the other hand, if 1/3 - 2/3 of your traffic is "bouncing" when it gets to your site, why not try something outlandish to see if you can engage with them before they leave?

a very simple example of this is when i visit YouTube, and they just start playing the video automatically for me.  on the other hand, a NEGATIVE example of this is when i hear background music on a website kick in automatically... occasionally i like it, but most times i hate it and/or it's too loud.  then again, maybe that's ok if i'm not target audience.  from a purely goal-focused perspective, there's not much harm in asking girls out on a date who were going to shoot you down anyway, right?  (ok sorry, that example might not "PLAY" well with some readers, but you get the picture.. ;)

interested to hear people's reactions to this... also what ideas you have for cool PLAY button scenarios.

a few questions:

Q1: is a PLAY button better/worse than having a 30-second screencast about your site?  (see Jing + Screencast.com)

Q2: would creating a PLAY button get in the way of learning about how to improve your default CTA?  might it even DECREASE user activation in some scenarios?

Q3: aren't there better things for me to be doing at 3:40am, like sleeping?

(note: in any case, re: Q2 above, creating a PLAY button should NOT take the place of testing landing pages  / modifying Calls To Action (CTAs) so that you can improve upon current user activation... still i wonder if you might convert an extra 2-10% of audience by taking the next step on their behalf.)

so let's hear it... What Would Your PLAY Button Do?

For Sale: Silver 2005 Acura TL ($21,500 and it's all yours baby)

For Sale: my Silver 2005 Acura TL ($21,500)
Originally uploaded by davemc500hats

yo folks: haven't tried this before, but wtf: i'm selling my car... on my blog! (+ craigslist too).

for only $21,500 simoleons, you can drive home in a Silver 2005 Acura TL 3.2 Sedan 4D (automatic, black leather, *great* navigation system, awesome stereo, power everything, dual air bags, etc etc). 

only 31,500 miles, very good condition, no accidents, one owner, still under warranty.  CARFAX report is here.

in short it's a great car, but we have 2 kids and 2 other cars (minivan + mini SUV) so time to give it up.  besides, i know a startup who needs the cash ;)

more info on Craiglist, or call Dave @ 650.743.4738  (email if u know me).

ps - if you mention you saw this on my blog, i'll take $500 off and you can have it for $21,000 flat.  cuz i know all you hosers on the internets are nice peeps.

UPDATE: sorry folks, it's been SOLD.

Tantek DisOBEYed @ Techcrunch August Capital 2008

Techcrunch 2008 - Tantek DisOBEYed
original photo by Silicon Valley Blog

hands-down best photo from TechCrunch / August Capital 2008.

Tantek & Phans shown here taking the *Measure* of his Awesomeness.

more TechCrunch / August Capital 2008 pix here

Geek Woodstock @ Foo Camp 2008 + Startup Metrics @ OATV Startup Camp

This past weekend i had the pleasure & privilege of attending O'Reilly Foo Camp (2008), and as usual it was mind-blowing.  I'm always amazed at the incredible people you meet at Foo, the wide range of topics discussed, and the general air of insatiable curiosity and intellectual generosity.  The event is by invitation only, and ~250 people usually show up.  While it's unfortunate not everyone who wants to attend gets invited, at the same time the caliber of people you meet is quite impressive (due to my work on O'Reilly conferences over the years i made the cut, but i'm not sure i really measure up on merit... better keep coming up with events / ideas Tim thinks are interesting ;)

photo by Scott Beale, Laughing Squid

In addition to Foo, this year O'Reilly Alpha Tech Ventures also hosted a Startup Camp one day before Foo Camp for a few of their portfolio companies & some up & coming entrepreneurs.  I was asked by Mark & Bryce to join them and give a talk on Startup Metrics for Pirates, which i recently updated below:

| View | Upload your own

So on Thursday afternoon (after dropping by YouTube Developer day in San Bruno) i picked up Andrew Chen in San Francisco, and we got to chat for a few hours on the drive up to Sebastopol.  The conversation with Andrew was a little mini-Foo all by itself, and we talked about all sorts of stuff including social networks, online gaming, advertising & revenue models, the state of venture capital & angel investing, etc. 

On Thursday night we joined the rest of the OATV Startup Camp geeks at Stella's for a wonderful dinner, and continue the startup conversations throughout the evening and into the next morning back at O'Reilly.  There were several great talks on startups by Tim O'Reilly, Mike Arrington, Mark Fletcher, Marc Hedlund, Ev Williams, Howard Morgan, Esther Dyson, and others.

Foo Camp started late Friday afternoon just as Startup Camp wrapped up, and went thru late Friday night, all day Saturday, and finished up Sunday around noon. A few of the Foo sessions i particularly enjoyed were:

• Economics isn't Physics (Bill Janeway)
• The Big Search Debate (Tim O'Reilly, Mike Arrington, Danny Sullivan)
• Neural Hacks (Ramez Naam) *note: this session topic has become a TechCrunch post on Provigil / Modafinil

There were many other great meetings / hallway discussions, as well as many games of Werewolf, and i also ran another session of Half-Baked Dot Com (winner: MilkMoms Dot Com, an on-demand breast milkdelivery service... don't ask me, ask Thor Muller ). 

All in all, a great weekend... thanks Tim!

Facebook's Yishan Wong to Kottke, TechCrunch, et al: "You Wouldn't know a Walled Garden if it bit you in your F8."

my former PayPal colleague Yishan Wong, now an ass-kicking, name-taking engineer at Facebook, lays the "Walled Garden" rebuttal smackdown on Kottke, Arrington, et al.   you go, Yishan... you just go.

look for more news on the Facebook front coming in a few weeks at the 2008 Facebook F8 conference in SF on July 23rd (register before July 7 to save some bucks).  rumor has it Dave Morin will be debuting Facebook Friend (oops) Connect at the event.  no word on whether Mr. Morin will be ripping any big air on stage, but we know he has the cojones if needed.

i'd also bet even money F8 will featured the long-awaited debut of Facebook Payments, whereby Facebook will finally begin addressing the monetization issue that has been dogging them for the past half-year. (btw, interesting listserve here apparently run by Jared Morgenstern... hi Jared ;)

happy 4th of July to everyone, and enjoy the long weekend... second half of 2008 begins Monday. gonna be a very interesting summer, i think.

update #1: Doh! guess Yishan's post is only visible to his facebook friends... okay, so maybe semi-permeable garden, perhaps.  for the record, Yishan notes in the comments this is likely a bug, not intentional.  might want to fix that.

update #2: so Kottke obviously came across this [now a bit ironic] post, and noted that it's also not viewable.  to which, i was going to write a 'yeah, guess it seems a little silly' comment... except that Kottke's blog doesn't appear to accept comments (or am i missing something?) except on this property where nobody ever comments. tho his TOU seems to suggest he did previously, and earlier posts do have comments... if i'm clueless, maybe someone who knows the story there can fill me in.  still, i wonder if people who live in semi-permeable blogs should throw stones at invisible smackdowns.

update #2b: thanks to Jon Bell who informed me that occasionally Kottke's posts are comment-enabled... but not that one.

update #3: no question, mr. kottke has a pretty damn huge audience.  getting one of my larger traffic days ever from his off-day link to my piddly-ass little piece of shit i call a blog.  holy crap.