austinpreneur

Facebook is radio, not TV

Most of my friends have taken to Facebook like fish to water, but a few seem to have trouble getting started. They can see that lots of their friends are participating but don't really understand what all the fuss is about. A common complaint I hear is that they think it is a waste of time, as if it is something that requires your full attention like TV. I think of Facebook more like the radio that I listen to in the background.

I really enjoy Facebook and check it a few times a day. I find it interesting to see the "newsfeed" postings about where my friends are traveling to, pictures they have posted online, events they are attending and connections to friends I've lost touch with.

I have a few recommendations of how you can maximize your Facebook experience if you are just getting started or want to give it a second try.

1. Make Facebook the home page on your web browser. This way every time you open a web browser the Facebook newsfeed will flash in front of you for a few seconds. Even when you move on and keep doing what you were doing, you will notice interesting tidbits about your friends activity that is posted on the newsfeed. Every once in a while, something interesting will catch your eye and you will click on it for more information.
   
2. Spend an hour adding as many Facebook friends as you can. Facebook is a social network, and without friends you can't be social. Your newsfeed only shows things about your Facebook friends, and only friends who you approve can see things about you.
   
3. Update your status when you travel. If you're going on a trip, announce it a few days before in your Facebook status, ie. "Joshua is heading to San Francisco on Monday for Ad:Tech" and then "Joshua is in San Francisco for Ad:Tech" and finally "Joshua is back home in Austin".
   

Follow these three steps and then explore other parts of Facebook for yourself as they catch your eye. I have started using Facebook for sharing pictures because of its ability to "tag" messages with the names of the people in them.

Facebook is not about spending hours browsing through other people's pages (at least not for me). I interact with it very passively - mostly noticing things on the newsfeed and updating my status once a day. Occasionally I'll spend a few minutes browsing but it's more like listening to the radio than watching TV.

Jasmine On Rails

Since the beginning of the year we've been hosting the Austin On Rails monthly meetings at the Datran Media and OtherInbox offices (fourth Tuesday of every month, 8th floor of the Omni Hotel at 7th and Brazos downtown).

At our first meeting, the Statesman came by to learn more about Austin On Rails. In addition to the human group members, they were enthralled with my dog Jasmine. Apparently they didn't realize that ROR was so easy a dog can do it!

Keyboard envy

It looks like there may finally be a keyboard to replace my Microsoft Natural Keyboard that I love so dearly (when I found out they stopped producing them, I bought as many as I could find on eBay).

They finally released the keyboard with organic LEDs on each key - allowing you to have full color icons on each key that change depending on what application you're in. For me, this is great because I type in Dvorak and so the keys would actually have the right letters on them. But it's also great for creating custom keys that launch applications or perform common tasks. Depending on what application you are using, the picture on the keys can change and the function associated with the key changes appropriately.

I need one of these!
(actually I need 2)

Available at ThinkGeek

Only drink half that Coke

For a few years now, I've been buying the mini-cokes (8 oz cans) instead of the regular sized ones. They cost about the same, but I realized that I'm just as satisfied after drinking a 8 oz can as drinking a 12 oz can - with 2/3 the caffeine and 2/3 the calories. Sometimes a full 12 oz can can be too much acid for my stomach and give me heartburn, which one more reason for the smaller cans.

Here's another reason from Wired magazine. Apparently they way caffeine works with your brain, smaller doses are better than big ones.

10 years after the bubble

It seems like a good time to reflect back on the past. It is almost 10 years after the dot com bubble was at its peak and everyone seems to agree that we're in a recession.

What's the same and what's different? I was watching this 2 minute clip about IveBeenGood.com, a startup I worked on at Trilogy University in 1999.

What's the same? What's different?

The predictions were right. Most of those companies spending all that money went out of business.

Dan Rather is no longer on CBS.

In 1999, 48% of consumers in the US could not name an online company. Today, Google is officially the most valuable brand in the world, beating out General Electric, Coca-Cola and McDonalds.

In 1999, less than half of Internet users had made even one online purchase. Today, 85% of Internet users shop online and this number is still growing.

In 2000, the Internet was seen as the cause of the recession - overvalued and unprofitable. Today, the Internet promises efficiency and profit. With dark clouds hanging around the credit, housing, food and energy markets, the Internet could be our ray of sunlight over the next year as traditional, less efficient business models are replaced with more efficient ones and more and more spending moves online.

What lessons do you think we can learn from the last recession? What will be different this time around?

Facebook says we should be friends...

I think this will be one of the new pickup lines of 2008 - "Hey baby, Facebook says we should be friends."

A new feature of Facebook and LinkedIn shows the names of a few "People You May Know" - basically the friends of your friends. This turns out to be incredibly useful and I suspect is causing significant growth in the number of connections between users. For a week now, every time I log into Facebook I add a few new friends. My network on LinkedIn is much larger than on Facebook so I don't find new friends quite as often, but it is still frequent.

LinkedIn

Facebook

Last night at the Austin On Rails meeting someone came up to me and said, "Facebook keeps saying we should be friends so I thought I would introduce myself." We had never interacted online, but when he heard my name announced to the group he immediately recognized it. How interesting that Facebook could cause offline connections to be made without any online interaction!

Now what we need is a physical device you can carry around that would alert you when "someone you should know" is nearby. This is kind of like that bluetooth dating toys that were popular in Japan and in the headlines 10 years ago.

4 free tickets to Theatre of Illusion magicians at the Paramount on Saturday, May 3

THE SPENCERS: THEATRE OF ILLUSION

Saturday, May 3
Show 7:30 pm
The Paramount Theatre

Things aren’t always what they seem, especially when the magic of illusion is involved. Master magicians, Kevin and Cindy Spencer, will bring their cutting-edge illusions, choreography, comedy, scenery, lighting and music to the stage in the tradition of Houdini and Blackstone.

www.spencersmagic.com

4 tickets available.
Email tickets@austinpreneur.com if you'd like 2 of them or all 4.
Should be great seats.
Sorry the tickets have been claimed.

4 free tickets to Leo Kottke at the Paramount on Friday May 2

LEO KOTTKE
with special guest Georgia Middleman

Friday, May 2
Doors/Bar @ 7 pm | Show @ 8 pm
The Paramount Theatre

Celebrate over 25 years of Leo at the Paramount! This acoustic guitarist is widely known for his idiosyncratic fingerpicking style, which draws on blues, jazz and folk music influences, and his syncopated, polyphonic melodies.

www.leokottke.com | www.georgiamiddleman.com

Leo is very talented. I saw him play with Mike Gordon from Phish a few ACL Festival's ago.
4 tickets available.
Email tickets@austinpreneur.com if you'd like 2 of them or all 4.
Should be great seats.
Sorry the tickets have been claimed.

Your documents are currently unavailable

Today I logged into Google Docs to print out a spreadsheet I needed to view on my flight to San Francisco today. After bringing up the page, I saw a red box at the top of the page with text that went something like, "Your documents are currently unavailable."

My heart throbbed in an instant of panic. I switched to a different computer and tried the same page and it worked fine. I went back to the original computer to take a screen shot but when I turned back the error message was gone and the page was loaded successfully.

Phew.

(it happened again and I caught a screen shot)

Hiring Developers - ROR / Java / .NET / Facebook / OpenSocial

My new startup, OtherInbox is looking for experienced Ruby On Rails developers. We're a small team working in an Agile environment on an innovative consumer service. Our development team is led by Steven Smith, founder of FiveRuns. If you know of someone to recommend, please email jobs@otherinbox.com - we'll pay you $1,000 if we hire your referral!

We also need help with web browser toolbar extensions for Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari. We'd love to find one person who can do all three but it seems more likely that we'll find a specialist for each browser. There will be a big project up front and then ongoing maintenance.

Datran Media is looking for developers who are excited about building social networking apps of all types. We need Java and .NET developers to work on our StormPost Social Connector platform as well as standalone Facebook applications. Email joshua.baer@datranmedia.com if you know someone!

Get Brian Spross while you can

Well, I've been waiting for 10 years for this to happen. Brian Spross finally went out on his own full time! Startups around Austin are rejoicing!

I have been working with Brian for many years on hundreds of deals and haven't met a more responsive, reliable, and knowledgable contract attorney. Beyond his legal expertise, Brian brings a mix of real-world business acumin and experience that allow his to easily balance and contrast the tradeoffs between business and legal risk.

I first started working with Brian in 1999 at Trilogy Software. Since then, he's helped me to start, grow and sell multiple businesses.

I can't imagine that he will be accepting new clients for long. He's already working with some great companies and when they find out he's available they will want to get more of his time. Hire him now while you can!

To contact Brian, I'd connect to him on LinkedIn

Save paper, stop getting phone books

I really can't imagine why anyone with a computer would use an old-school phone book. It kills trees. It uses lots of chemicals. It gets your fingers all dirty.

yellowpagesGoesGreen.org is a site that claims to be the "do not call" list for phone books. Submit your name and address and they will tell local phonebook distributors not to deliver to you.

PUT YOUR NAME ON THE LIST RIGHT NOW.

Now if someone would just do this for the Austin American Statesman, so they would stop throwing newspapers in plastic bags on my driveway. I'm sure this upsets me more than most people because I have a steep driveway. I've asked them to stop, but within a few months they start up again. I don't want the paper, so its just litter to me. Is this really legal?

Facebook In-Utero

Today I made a Facebook profile for Baby Baer, who is currently surfing the Internet in-utero through Mommy. Why did I do this? I had uploaded a sonogram picture to my Facebook account and wanted to "tag" the baby in the picture.

I'm sure my baby is not the first one to have a Facebook profile in-utero, but you never know... maybe at 11 weeks this is the youngest Facebook profile ever! I'll admit I had to lie about birthday... the most recent year they allow is 2006. Apparently a 2 year old can have a Facebook profile but not younger!

What else should be done for an Internet "baby starter package"? I'll admit I've looked up possible baby names to see if the domain name is available as well...

Facebook adds Instant Messaging

Stan Schroeder at Mashable questions the value of Facebook adding instant messaging capabilities. He questions if this is adding any value or just trying to steal users from other chat services such as Twitter or AIM.

What's powerful about instant messaging is not the ability to send messages - we could already do that with email. It's the buddy list and the "presence" information. It's your list of the people that are important to you and knowing when they are online or not to enable real-time interaction like actual IM messages - or audio chat - or video chat - or playing a game - or so you can walk over to their desk to talk to them.

The reason why Facebook IM is powerful/interesting is not that it gives you a new way to do IM. It's that now you don't need to maintain a separate list of your "buddies" in AIM, your buddy list is the same list you are already maintaining in Facebook.