big swinging linx.

kerr daily
Originally uploaded by benbarren

sex bloggers such as jefferson, doing his weekly fleshbot weekly update, present an (only sometimes) glamourous underbelly of east coast swinging which is a mile away from the awkward vanity meets capital of the techsugard. there is a known network of ppl who introduce + cavort in a very temporal, fluid + intimate way.

so when it comes to txtual_swinging i'm finding that my subscription (from a trusted subset of 100 people) to a range of google reader shared items, friendfeed links, parsed twitter feeds : is starting to complement my vanilla greading, with a higher signal:noise. so what really happens, i havent been to a swingers party she meekly professed.

my google reader trends tab says : "From your 1,308 subscriptions, over the last 30 days you read 43,874 items, and shared 869 items.." - let's add to that : from those 869 shared items i then posted 46 times on my blog with an average of 2 and a bit links per post : we can round it off to 100 outgoing links per month - nearly all of which i would have google reader shared. During same period 1 in 10 of these shared items was valued important enough to delicious tag too.

meaning approx 1 in 20 of those shared items becomes fodder for my blog. (or 0.23% of those i read) and my blog which the bitchesphere reminds me is my primary centralisation point of my decentralised social graph!!! hehe each of the g-shared items also automatically publishes to my blog sidebar, my friendfeed, to then float thru the world of alertthingy-ish air apps. i am building a personal brand. i am a linx swinger. (i put my linx out there, and receive them as well.)

so google did a botched and not fixed job of "your friends shared items" : its been widely noted these arent my friends, just some strange connection of people in your gmail. (alot of peeps turned off their friend settings when it all blew up, i left mine on, i like seeing what ppl share, esp as more start using google reader and friendfeed - but i dont want to see what 'everyone' shares, one look at friendfeed confirms that, and increasingly i dont care what technologists share coz im already subscribed. i place a premium on non tech discovery at moment) readburner (pictured left) is doing some kinda kewlish stuff but its still tech and a bit echochambery, really a microcosm, indie-ised vsn of techmeme, where the grandeffect in da haus : louis gees and crankn corvida talk awesomesauce about the latest air app, which is kewl, just the same way that mashable (social networking) , techcrunch (startups + bigco), and readwriteweb (quality social media) all differentiated their web2 writings circa 2005/6 by the verticals they went deep into.

what i want though is people sharing stuff in areas not covered by my 1308 google subscriptions or 75 friendfeed "friends", or the 131 ppl i twitfollow. if i never read anything about web 2.0 again that would be ok. i need an opml like approach to topics, where i could receive quality shared links in 'watches', 'jeans', 'supercars', 'miranda kerr'. this is on the inbound read side. I dont want to be presented with feed recommendations : I want links recommended, based on topics I've expressed optin interest to or shown click-reading, sharing behaviour around historically.



















then i want blog platform integration (and that doesnt mean a sidebar of shared items headlines) I need to be able to take that chunk ala clipmarks - who refer to their functionality as 'scissors for webpages'- an image webkut use/copied? too - whether it be a lambo 640 pic, embeddable video of a lohan soundbite, or arringtons $1 movie deal fiasco. i simply add my 140 characters preface, and it publishes onto the position i choose on my blog. (multiple sidebar positions, centre column, by category/tag etc ala typepad's widget positioning - google own blogger, it shouldnt be that hard, the integration y'know) so instead of reading 1,466 items per day in greader, I can cut out alot of noise, thus getting to the noice stuff easier. benefit 2 is in a couple clicks and 140 characters i also have a blog post. double productivity.

compare that to currently, where i'm reading too many feeds. too many duplicates. posting without html markups in flickr. then going into blogger, inserting cutnpaste links, its all so messy. what the readburners could turn into, and where friendfeed, socialthing, seesmic inc, as well as 6apart are trying to take themselves with blogit + actionstreams. (not to mention google reader itself being prime positioned with its share reading function within greader)

so, in the backroom of this private party with open beta-invites, at a nondescript mountain view 7 figure home, with a big waterbed filled with a river of shared hyperlink news - I'm looking for play partners that can help rss-aide'fy the discovery of better linx thru suggesting trusted swingers networks, and get me off thru microchunk publishing productivity tools where no1 is getting hurt. no animals were involved in filming. its chai latte organic. with just a touch of caffeine to get u going. it's all about consensual pleasure in a time short, information overloaded world; next gen news and ugc. The problem isnt too much information. We just need to build more tools to funnel the topical linx based microchunks to those interested in it, who can then turn others UGC into your wisdom.

scarface 2.0 : miami stylin.

Exotics Car Dealers 90.jpg
Originally uploaded by VOD Cars

I've seen alot of flickr accounts and photos in the last 3.5 years, but VODcars is by far the best. Just drooling. Seriously contemplating moving to Miami and becoming a SuperCar sales rep, just so I can see how the VODcars cru roll. Money G.

As the Blue Brothers wailed :
Got to get back now to florida
Lay out in the morning sun
Got to get back to miami
Have a whole lotta fun
Going back to miami (going back to miami)
Going back to my girl, com on (going back to my girl)
I said Im going back to my miami (going back to miami)
Going back to my girl (going back to my girl)
Look out.....

businesses given a yelp.

15yrs@VanityFair
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Good2C Yelp continuing to kick goals and starting to innovate in how businesses participate in the local user generated reviews space : Techcrunch believes Yelp is influencing businesses (and it seems especially the restaurant/cafe space?) : "as a lead generation - or degeneration - tool. Now Yelp is releasing a suite of business tools to give business owners tools to participate more directly in the conversation."

if u r going to do a startup, be very ready to manage your personal expenses and be vgood @ collecting monies owed.

Fast+Furious 4
Originally uploaded by benbarren

So yday was the coldest day on record in Victoria, thats global warming for u, summer is hotter and longer, winter bites harder and at strange times. Today my piece of crap, leftover car in the family, has to go in and get fixed. Instead of what was probably a $200 fix 6 weeks ago, if u dont have the $200 coz u r waiting to get paid, and the car is still driving, why get it fixed. No different really to when I had an S2000 (see pictured fast + furious 4 version here) and got a $12K repair bill coz I should have got it fixed earlier.

So here's hoping the bill is under $500 and it doesnt take more than the day as I've got to schedule rest of weeks meetings and being based 70 kms from Melbourne and being a 40 minute bike ride + 45 minute VLine that comes only 5 times a day + 60 minute Frankston train trip to get to city : Thats one way, so I need a functioning car. Not a tractor as it sounds now. And not a Lamborghini Tractor. My guess is $800 + 2 days which is going to bite. Over $1k + 3days Im done. Lookn4werk:S

Speaking of bills on a blog (um no idea why I am posting about this other than I guess to vent and so i can reread this in 5 years and see my real state of mind) yday I paid my Melbourne Cricket Club annual fees ($387 with country discount + $25 late fee incl) which were 9 months late and had me waking up in a cold sweat that a 15 year wait my grandma had put me down for would be put to waste and id have to wait another 15yrs coz i forgot (ie kept deferring till i had more $$$) to pay my dues. Still had to use debt to make the payment, so its my own little subprime prob, but at least Im not going to find myself ticked off the MCC, because the G redevelopment really is top notch and MCC isnow worth the dough when previously the old green wood chairs and basement bar werent worth the $550 inner city stipend. (benefit of living 60kms + from Melbourne is u get 25% off MCC fees)

Anyway, so Strawbs + I will be off on Sunday to see the Dockers beat the Dees (reverse psychology), but we'll find either the Long Room if we can snaffle a visitor ticket 1 hour before match (usually allocated 10 days pre game match) or find another bar where u can drink and watch the game. Any1 (well within reason) wanting to see their team in 08 beat melbourne in mcc long room tweet dm me. (i may as well get use of this $387 as ill have to pay same amount by the finals time again) so ill be going most weeks to the G now, and prob to some non Melbourne games eg Hawks, Pies blockbusters... (round 17 : hawks vs geelongs will be a gr8 match for example)

So advice to any1 with a good job contemplating doing a startup - dont. Unless u have lots of cash in the bank; or some tasty assets to borrow against; and You dont have thousands of dollars of monthly car, house, ccard, lifestyle obligations. OK personal expenses rant over (as I said to a family member yday im kewl with not having much income if im not doing paid work, what is tough is working hard on paid work, but not generating a solid share of the income as payback); Coz my and other founder/mgt money is covering late invoice payments to developers, designers, project ppl as well as overheads such as lawyers, servers etc.

Now this will all equal out as 6 figure accounts receivable come in and 5 figure investor cheques we have now (in our hand, how frustrating) we can bank (only) when we get signatures back, but taking a crap car into get fixed at a cost u might not even has, makes u ponder a job/freelance - till u do the sums on jobs/freelance and its an hourly business model, which is one thing I do agree with VCs on : having a personal hourly business model sux, esp if u arent banking the hour u work:)

Oh the positive : Startups are what I call my enforced savings plan. You dont blow a 6 figure salary on useless crap and have nothing to show for it. You build up asset value in your stake in the business (and dont do a dominic caruso or ABC) and aim to realise value there. But u also need to plan/assume u wont get an exit which means u need good gross margins and positive cashflow, with enough pipeline sales to pay u, so u can get you car fixed, and not worry about it... on your blog.

Update : Some of our money cleared yay, hasnt hit my account yet, but blog it and $$ will come ! ok back to ramping it up work...

Update2: Call from mechanic, car/motor is terminal. He's pulling together quote, lucky to get out of it @ $2k. I could summarise this post now as Venture Funding allows for backdated founder pay from last 6 weeks a large % of which will now get transferred into mechanics account to put money into car that should 300kms/10yrs later should be put down. Aaagh, back to work again harder. Fk. What doesnt kill u etc...

it aint poking or throwing sheep.

karma dogma
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Inside the 'it aint poking' mind of the Facebook developer @ Inside Facebook w/ one of the Scrabulous creators : "You play a word, and you stay in touch, because when you are placing the tiles you are thinking of your opponent subconsciously. It’s way more exciting than repeatedly poking someone or throwing sheep."

"We are keeping kind of a close lid on that one..."

1978vs2008_M1
Originally uploaded by benbarren

New Jobster CEO on what they intended using their latest $7m in raised finance for via SeattlePi.com : "We are keeping kind of a close lid on that one..."

Other metrics on a cold 8c Monday morn are gigaoms estimating facebook hardware : "The company is running around 10,000 servers, according to Data Center Knowledge, citing comments made by Facebook VP of technology, Jeff Rothschild, at a recent MySQL user conference. (See video of the panel.) Of the 10,000 servers, 1,800 are from MySQL and around 805 of them are memcached servers."

U R It. a game of tag.

Different levels of tagging within Flickr
Originally uploaded by Ernst-Jan Pfauth

Nice 4 level definition of folksonomy from the head of product at flickr Kakul Srivastava, who talks about using “sly Russian mathematical magic” at the web2 expo, via the thenextweb.

12 steppn on the socialnets to 100mph in 7.4 secs.

GT3_RS
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Max Levchin, the paypal/slide wunderkind, questioned by Caroline McCarthy on Webware : "If you're trying to recover as an alcoholic, there's no easy way for you to join an anonymous group on Facebook. So creating an anonymous group type on Facebook for something that people have to get off their chest but don't really want to reveal their identity (in doing so)...it's pretty utilitarian. Grim, but utilitarian." (and in other grim news amy winehouse is uk kidz under 25 via sky.com "ultimate heroine" which has been gleefully reported by all MSM as shock/horror whatz rong wit daworld! amys making the $20m dough tho!)

Public holiday ere, not sure whats opened, what isnt. In a perfect world, I'd have the choice of 5 cars today**, and I'd grab the GT3 and throw it around the Cape Schanck hills. I dont think porsche dealerships take founder stock as payment. Pity coz my real car stalled twice driving home yday (in 3rd gear at mid/high speed, bad sign)... and the mechanics wont be open for days. Hopefully it will get me to the gym if its open and back :

Paul Morgan, Cape Shanck House.

Evo's GT3 vs GTR teaser* : "Though the trip was short, it has served as the perfect refresher, reminding me just how small and sharp the GT3 feels; angry too, thanks to the 3.6-litre flat-six’s jagged rasp and razor-keen response. In short, while the Nissan has twin-turbo brawn and almost ruthless body control, the GT3 has a lightness and sinewy athleticism that should be better suited to the heavy braking and high-speed direction changes that characterise our preferred test track."

* Evo and Car magazine I buy religiously when my startup funding allows but its annoying when they put only 1% of their content online, and for what they do, like the gtr vs gt3 head2head, they dont give a result; "Just set the scene up..." instructs the editor. "We'll make em buy the mag those online freeloaders..."

** Not all of us can be Patrick Dempsey and drive the more common orange and black GT3-RS version of pictured car and get out of road tickets (which seems to happen alot in US, in Australia officers dont have discretion to decide who gets tickets or not, if u r speeding, u lose it, and u pay!) : Said the porsche track driving doc : "I got pulled over by the police on the way here today.. The cop was really cool..He said: 'At least you're driving the Porsche properly'."

The real top of 911 line Porsche, the 2008 GT2 is the true schitzoz ride. Credit where credit's due:) Check this forum reader's dads mates car (and accomplice to pictured white gt3-rs which in alpine white w/blk rims is so track-cage racing seats schweet) As Edmunds said on their first drive : "This is the first GT2 to get three-mode stability control and a limited-slip differential as standard equipment, yet wheelspin is not exactly an uncommon commodity when you're out to explore this car's limits. At 3.7 seconds, its acceleration to 100 kph (62 mph) is 0.2 second quicker than the 911 Turbo and 0.3 second quicker than the previous-generation GT2. The new car's headline performance number is its acceleration to 100 mph — just 7.4 seconds."



As Latimes.com says : "Let me unpack those numbers for you. It means that when you jump on the GT2's throttle -- something you'll be sorely tempted to do -- it practically explodes in a furious, jaw-slacking, gut-churning hullabaloo of weapons-grade torque such that accelerating from 60 to 120 mph takes one gearshift and a few scant seconds. This, to state the obvious, is kind of fun. But it's the sort of performance you dare not access on the street. Drivers a half-mile ahead can dutifully check their mirrors before changing lanes, and in the time it takes to signal and turn the wheel, the GT2 can materialize beside them like it's dropping out of hyperspace." Watch the GT2 on Youtube.

"Delicious also had plenty of messy moments in its brief period in our portfolio."

7am balnarring-ish
Originally uploaded by benbarren

4 day weeks can slam dunk u without even realising it, with my caffeinated head not believing that Friday is a public holiday here in .au land : Anzac Day. Guess I will realise when there's no morning talk, but there is afternoon football, on the radio. So fred's learnings are timely to our 4 day week as we address some build issues. Via A VC; "Delicious also had plenty of messy moments* in its brief period in our portfolio." - With our offshore developers working thru this on the weekend, they sure as heck wont be attending any IPL cricket with their wacky but fun team names. I'm sure there will be a TV on in the background tho!

Instead our not celebrating Anzac Day public holiday and work thru the weekend offshore dev team, will need to channel Kit's technology ala the Kolkata Knight Riders. And they better not be too much like the Delhi Dare Devils. I'd be happy if by the end of the weekend they were the Chennai Super Kings, but they have alot of work to do to get to that point, and at the moment are lucky to be even considered the Bangalore Royal Challengers. Although they're in Punjab so I should find out what the geo-local team there is!

* speaking of messy moments, but at a personal level, well ok not really messy in a kleenex sesnse, but still personal to me, is that my_google_reader may have imploded. I prob add 3-4 feeds a day, and am up to 1500+ feeds. Well as of yesterday it's not adding them anymore. I click the feed in the url bar, the "add to google reader" page comes up, and from there nothing, page refresh but no progression, no parsing of latest posts from said new feed...

even plan b, when i add the feed url within google reader itself it says "oops an error has occured" - thats my personal messy moment. as i said not that personal, but you are what you feed. google reader gurus, im reaching out to u.. ive tried both safari and firefox, i did go a bit overboard on adding mysocial plugin to firefox, and latest air apps in twhirl/alertthingy... but i cant see that impacting adding feeds in g-reader. help me Kitt "Knight Industries Two Thousand" In this Man vs Machine battle, so far i have tested the outer feed limits of google reader it seems and have broken my machine. My G-reader shared items btw.

Michael Knight: I need ya buddy!
KITT: Right away Michael.

Jumpedtheshark.com : "Knight Rider jumped the shark officially in their fourth season like most others agree with super pursuit mode. Something that virtually no one realizes (especially Knight Rider fanatics) is that in the second episode Devon hits KITT with a ballpeen hammer and says the car is not painted black, because black is the color of the body material, which everyone knows as KITTs' "molecular bonded shell". In the beginning of the fourth season KITT is "destroyed" yet again, then rebuilt, and then painted black-which creates a changed premise which"destroyed" the show along with super pursuit mode which helped provide the coup de grat. After this it just got increasingly stupid as went along when viewers could clearly see that the film was sped up to make KITT look like it was going faster, along with dumb plots, Hasslehoff getting sillier scripts that create unintentional humor."

breakfast metrics

vkewl zx600s
Originally uploaded by benbarren

530am start, 9c degrees, listening to Hughesy pre-show with my vegemite toast and caffeine (did u know google spend $7530 per annum per employee on food) before heading off to Melbourne for a day of structured meets unstructured search of user and professional content and commerce in said vertical. I'm watching the Mahalo audition interviews (Mahalo Vlog Idol) which JC thinx is a gr8 marketing technique. ("$250,000 investment in the Mahalo Daily a year will bring in.. somewhere between 15-30M viewers a year.") Speaking of vid, u can now leave video comments using seesmic on wordpress blogs, well there's a plugin anyways. Also looks like Podshow with its tens of millions of dollars have conceded its loss in the space to The tens of dollars Podcast Network. Podshow now has one of those 6 figure ad agency lets do an offsite and order sandwiches and regress into brand essences, the outcome of it is : Podshow is now Mevio. (Mevio is not even mentioned on curry.com with podshow mentions still front and centre) At least some domain seller got rich. Oh, and im downloading the new gossip girl for tonite, and trying to get the 1.3 alert thingy download to work. Poor Amy...

Update : Leonard Lin has provided some counterpoint numbers on google's food per FTE numbers, and posited a 50% ROI for google's investment. His model estimates the productivity gain in having people at their desks not down at jamba juice (or walking the streets at night as my ma used to call it) :

9,000 employees * 251 days * 1 hour * $50 = $113M

Via random($foo) : "If it does cost $75M (again, we'll use the worst case number, even if it's more likely 70% of that), we're talking about a 50% return on investment."

a local fireball for twitter in japan.

social 247
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Nice deal by Digital Garage to assist operate a local Japanese Twitter, thru an investment and engineering resource, schweet. From the Twitter blog : "To support continued growth in Japan, Twitter has formed a partnership with Digital Garage to create the official Twitter Japan service. As part of this arrangement, Digital Garage has made an investment in Twitter, Inc and will commit engineering and other development resources to help us bring Twitter to Japan."

Wonder about localisation in English speaking countries like Australia. I'm a broken record on believing that local matters, and for services like twitter there is awhole lot of noise reduction that could happen once it or 3rd party apps start tapping into the inherently local nature of prob 1/3rd of entries. Thats where the fireball app announcement a couple days ago was so kewl; Leverage other people's API's but build a core expertise in the glue around local social networking : A recipe perfect to bake into the iphone too. Ok back to wireframes markup.

People You Know on Facebook are not People You Want to Know.

scaryfacebook friendrecommendations
Originally uploaded by benbarren

So I was checking down a facebook sidebar looking for friend invites - but i forget which page they r on as its kinda weird the way they separate the home page, which they dont even textually name home instead its a rollover home icon, and the profile page. anyway, the invites exist on the home page. (seems a facebook redesign will take as long as it did for linkedin)

So anyway, on the homepage sidebar under requests, status updates, pokes, birthdays etc is a "People You Know" feature, which i guess is supposed to be a way to meet your other half u havent quite connected to but now u r just one clickable poke away from doing so if they accept your friend request (ignore!)

People You Know seems a frequency play*, in that the more of your f(bk)riends that have the same contact, these become profiled on your page. Unfortunately this promotes the laws of big numbers, and thus it was very scary and time for bed, when rather than be presented Wedding Crashers style with profiles that led me to believe - "True love is your soul's recognition of its counterpoint in another.." - I got Robert Scoble and Kevin Rudd. Creepy.

Facebook does have that creepy blue light disco colour scheme and happy clappy feel to it. OK, Im going to watch The Tudors and get some more medieval machinations.

* There is a whole faux viral expansion loop Valley thing (or whatever that Fast Company or Forbes article on ning called it), which it seems Mahalo's 5 yr of VC money has instigated thru the promise of (only one?) Macbook Air to those that follow Jason Calacanis, and similarly Scoble having a similarly i spent too much time in seattle stupid, A-ha breakthru moment - where he thinks following lots of people adds to the conversation or something else dumb like that. Really its link baiting and little karma back. Like the junior high disciples on gossip girl who will return books to the library for queen b's worker bees. Unsubscribe today people, rather than making us press ignore. Then the People You Know algorithm will work better, and we can create an API, network effect it, and go to bed. Coz we're printing money.

the social networking tsunami hits fiji.

diablo retro
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Silicon Alley Insider quoting an interview post acquisition with Bebo cofounder : '"Why did AOL pay $850 million for Bebo, anyway?" "Eight hundred million," Michael says, "was for Fiji.""' - I guess google already had brazil via orkut.

natural leverage.

next jeans
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Hearing stories about how entrepreneurs have scaled their business without finance, are the most inspiring. From FormatMag an interview with Jeff Staple, a designer with multiple businesses and 12 staff : "I have been working since I was 12 years old. There was no initial investment from my parents. No trust fund with my name on it. I was working as a data entry clerk in a publishing company. I used all of Parsons facilities in those early days. Parsons was paid for with some financial aid and maxing out seven different credit cards. The only thing I had to buy were blank tees on 14th Street. My first order of 12 t-shirts soon turned to 24. I bankrolled that to make 36. Then bankrolled that to make 72. And the rest is history."

2.0 architects, developers + practitioners.

speaking topics
Originally uploaded by benbarren

mmm, this is an interesting post by mike manuel : been having a parallel discussion on this same thing today; "Architects will plan incredibly cool and compelling social media strategies, but inevitably they reach a threshold, usually it’s a technical one, which forces them to compromise, shelf or trash their ideas because they don’t have the resources or the knowledge to push things forward.. On the flip side, developers can make incredibly cool and compelling tools, with all the 2.0 lipstick, but fail miserably at figuring out how to apply these experiences to broader pains and problems that might exist. It’s the all sizzle, no steak conundrum…"

$4.6B Reasons for M+A.

big sister
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Is it just me, and selective positive perception, but the pace of enterprise 2.0 M+A is increasing ? Demand buy Pluck.com for $75M; AOL buy Sphere for $25M; Now SixApart buy Apperceptive (interview here) who "develop web-based, social software and blog applications for Fortune 500 companies, small businesses, media companies and leading civil society organizations." Now part of this is the me2 glam crunchsugard federating consolidation happening in blog adnetworks, but heck according to Forrester, over on RRW, this is going to be a $4.6B industry : enterprise 2.0. How' them plastics ?

500hp+ on a sunday would be nice.

targatassie bound
Originally uploaded by benbarren

LAtimes have a funny piece on the godzilla R35-GTR : "So, what's the problem? It's not really a problem, just a matter of character. This car has been engineered to produce astonishing performance numbers, specifically around the Nürburgring, when driven by the finest drivers in the world. Driven by something less than the finest drivers in the world -- and that would include me -- the margins of safety and control are so broad that it actually makes the car uninvolving. Say what you want about the Porsche GT2: when you drive that car hard, you're in the fight for your existential soul. You are hanging on for a life made ever more dear by the peril."

Seems the melbourne demons need 500hp+ going down again, this time to carlton, after leading into the second, before judd destroyed us, oh well at least rye won by 2 points yday in the game i went to:) Also you want to see some real pimped out cars in your joe average car park, click here.

your friend is my friendfeed enemy.

coachello toobn
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Just pumped a saturday morning workout at the awesome on the water Hastings Aquatic Centre, the opposite of a poser gym. One of those lake tahoe/colorado joints with seniors, families, uni-high school students + professionals. But no muscle beefing free weight pumpers (well hardly) or step class obsessed vain salad eaters. Anyway I'm off to watch Rye play Dromana because my AFL team (Melbourne) is unfollowable this year. (even though i do have to come up with $600 for my vlate MCC fees which will be paid when i am paid!:)

But 2 tidbits caught my eyes, so i thought i'd throw a hyperlink out there, if u dont spend your time glued to friend feed (or should i say alert thingy which for me is working really well, as i'd used friend feed for about 2 weeks but pretty much stopped, but now as an air always on app in the corner of the 24" imac next to twhirl) its kewl to see people's post come by, although there does seem alot of duplication and also not sure if the indexing is superquick as tweets, posts, flickrs dont seem to update in realtime.. It will be kewl if they can speed it up a bit !

Eric Rice has written a post about a strange FriendFeed feature I had been a bit confused, altho not too annoyed about, as it does allow for some degree of serendipity : "If one of the people you follow (a ‘friend’) makes a comment on someone else’s post (who you don’t follow), you will see the other person’s post in your feed, regardless of whether or not you follow them or not."

And the other top story on techmeme story is ning's $60M 'net' raise @ $500m, the purpose of which is to "to make sure we have plenty of firepower to survive the oncoming nuclear winter." - News like this is a 2 edged sword for our business in terms of speaking to investors. Some will cite players such ning as substitutes or competition for some of the services we offer, and therefore with over $100m raised, as big potential competition - even if not one of customers or prospects has used or considered ning. (and to be honest in australia, none have prob heard of ning outside the little twitter echo chambers...) The pro side is such a large raise helps justify the space, and the competition is indirect and more theoreotical.. if u want to read something funny tho..

Marc Canter goes Michael Moore on ning : "Ning sees social networking as the latest fad - and they exploit that notion to better themselves. Now the Libertarians and Republicans out there are now saying: “what’s wrong with that? Isn’t that what it’s all about - money?” I can just visualize Jason Calacanis rubbing his grubby hands together saying “money - money - money” And since this is a free country Ning certainly has the right to do whatever they want - sort of like how the Gun lobby and Military industrial complex has the right to build arms that kill people. Only this time- the weapons are social networks. "

Anyway, Im off to the local footy and watch the demons play, while reading the Fin+Sun while listening to msport and enjoying the $3.50 cold ones and the footy club steak cooked on bbq salad rolls !!!!

"And now we’ve gotten too meta, even for us."

krazy eyes
Originally uploaded by benbarren

We've started working on some excellent videoblog stuff for some ppls, which is fun, so I thought we'd learn from the best. They say the best mentors are ones who r one step ahead in their journey. So the always excellent moblogic.tv vod' (latest episode "Outsourcing the Government" hehe, dont tell kevin rudd, he's thinking about 2020) - which is developed by the team that brought you wallstrip, have some behind the scene tips, that may be a good inspiration for us to learn from : It seems hazing, sounds effect and animation are where it's at : "And now we’ve gotten too meta, even for us."

a user is a user is a user or not.

freudian tweets
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Great short comparison by Fred asking the question about the $14.8B difference in valuation between Wordpress and Facebook when the user traffic and growth are so similar. From A VC : "It's a very similar growth trajectory, driven largely by the same phenomenon - the creation of personal spaces on the web by people who want to engage with others."

was just thinking this today.

agreed
Originally uploaded by benbarren

would be really amazed if google didnt buy friendfeed* within 12 months. they did a $5m raise, assuming investors want 5-10 times back, lets say $25m-$40m. i think twitter will stay independent longer. but friendfeed will get dodgeballed. me thinks. as scoble twittered. or maybe facebook will snipe'em.

The Deal quoting Peter Fenton : "The FriendFeed team's talent and passion for creating great user experiences distinguishes them among the very best entrepreneurs we have backed at Benchmark.."

anyway, thought i'd get a little self-referential while listening to the footy and dreaming about audemars piguet watches.

* btw friendfeed is the simplest way to auto-subscribe to all my blog posts, twitter, flickr, google reader shared items. only one click needed and u can mine my uncountable blogaflings (well google put it at 52K items read in last 30 days thru google reader! friendfeed in that example then outputs the 912 of those items i clicked "share" on because i care y'know, about the cloud up there...) Saints win over bombers....

When Your New BFF is found thru MSM pushing UGC.

MSMeetsUGC
Originally uploaded by benbarren

My day job may be selling User Generated Content Tools + Data to Mainstream Media Organisations, but Paris dont call her a dumb ho Hilton's new cross media BFF property : "I wanna be Paris new best friend" - has a classic MSM meets UGC website. Props to possibly highest traffic/most popular local (we'll claim her even tho she's a kiwi) female blogger (its not like any1 is tracking au.blogosphere traffic so if i say it, it must be true) : galadarling.com who twittered about the site a few minutes ago. I think she should apply : her 'nonpareils' could probably get the audience share needed to leverage her into a leading BFF candidate (and maybe pay for that trip to NY fashion week) unless there is a hulu.com like "you are not from the right region so f'off." Had to pass the gala' share.

Friday's Back of Envelope Valuation Assumptions : 3-10 Times Earnings or 18-25 Times Revenue : Choose Your Country.

roll up
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Have been rolling up the sleeves this week mainly on client work (one will go consumer live very soon...) while last week was mainly investor pitching, it's interesting looking at this Technorati slide from Techcrunch about Technorati's "alleged" aborted b5media merger/acquisition (Mr Feld at work again?) as every1 attacks the blog network space, to which i'm much more in the Mr Calacanis' position about what you need to control in your business : "In order to be a REAL publisher you must have control of three relationships:

1. Your writers
2. Your readers
3. Your advertisers..."

Back to Erick at Techcrunch, what I'm really interested in here isn't everyone wanting to be a blog network and get a federated/glam valuation (or meebo dressing up 2.0 chatrooms as a means to get a slither of'a facebookesque valuation) : The bulletpoint I'm into is the one on the technorati slide called 'valuation arbitrage', which states "buy 'pieces' 3-10x, sell 'whole' for 18-25x" : In Australia, that would be an earnings multiple* : In the US/Federated Media/Meebo world, that is (i assume) a revenue multiple. (if i'm wrong just disregard this whole post:)

Now if Aussie multiples could just get closer to the US, I'd be as happy as a tinfingered fantasy footballer who has shifted their google adserving division from adsense (filled) to an (agency with client-ads run) doubleclick.

*You should see the blank looks I get when I tell investors, peer companies in the space are valued on average at 7.5-10 times revenue. (unless I can focus their greed driver on their exit rather than entry price.)

** Henry Blodget says google stock is up 19% today since it's latest positive earnings are out. For additional valuation metrics : "At $530, it's trading at 35X FCF. That's a bit higher than we think it should be given then rapid deceleration of Google's US and UK businesses, but its certainly not insane. Unless free cash flow gets hammered, we continue to think the stock has a valuation floor around 25X"

iphone + realestate = gps commerce serendipity!

doin deals
Originally uploaded by benbarren

So goddamn its friday, hamish and andy have signed off from their week of broadcasting their #1 radio show from an Aussie army base in Afghanistan, and after a bit of a war-room on the beach planning session at ricketts point, with a docklands coffee, I'm back home and getting ready for a weekend of AFL and Mornington Peninsula Football League.

So there's been a bit of debate about applications, websites, and businesses around the mobile phone are mowser dead, or uber hot space. There's no doubt the iphone has greatly accelerated usage in the US anyway, as barren countries like Australia wait patiently for the official non-jailbraked versions, which hopefully will possess one benefit and go straight to cross barrier 3G or maybe even Next 3.5G with Telstra.

So I'm always interested in whats happening at the edge of classifieds and what the Dave Platters of this world and players like Realestate.com.au will do, in terms of offering mainstream users a taste of the next gen.

So what happens when the iPhone meets not just dating and social networking, but real estate, and newly listed properties meeting your pre-defined home buying/leasing filters, pop up-verbal gps alert style, that you are driving past the perfect property. Sounds like a no-brainer, which we all like on a Friday afternoon, which is the best time of the week eh.

So I'm not sure about the design, but if mobile is not dead, but at the beginning then iPhonebuzz.com are covering the start, the spec seems to write itself : "Real estate company Intero might have the answer for you. Their Terabitz property search engine is specially tailored for Apple’s handset.. Terabitz offer list and mapped ways to view the results, and can calculate driving instructions to get you to a viewing. There’s also full photo galleries, details of recent sales and neighbourhood information."

So when will my (g-i)phone/bberry tell me that I just drove past a listed today $350-$500 pw 1br 1st floor (mordialloc to frankston, preferably aspendale.edithvale) beachfront bayside rental chalet, and then ask me if I want realtime gps voice instructions to view the property : And while u r there, can u prefill the realtors' phone number so i call to get the keys to my dream property ?

definitely not a friday rant.

harderUlook
Originally uploaded by benbarren

51 slide preso done, yay.
Today is action points and followup.
More kms, and a meeting at rickettpoints, memories of scones.
Getting a plan together to close financing.
Sort the business plan tyre kickers from the people that write u a cheque, no questions asked.
Mo' Work on account receivables.
Probably a few coffees.
Some more kms.
Following da herd, Ditched twitterific for twhirl + alert thingy. Not using qik yet.
Agree with fred wilson there needs to be a multi-tab air client.
But i dont want the alert thingy and twhirl features dumbed down and merged into one.
Would be good to get rid of the duplicate tweets tho.
ok back to hunting $$$.
kinga's last day, congrats.
Watch out for Royals in da haus.
OK its friday back home, wish i was at kingas drinks but really need to get a place within a train ride from Melbourne !

brand mentions on facebook.

the monk
Originally uploaded by benbarren

I hope facebooks' new lexicon service, which will be perfect for monitoring brand mentions will have public RSS feeds and ultimately an API. From AllFacebook : "In the next hour, a post will be going up to the Facebook blog announcing a brand new service that tracks the words used in wall posts to determine what’s popular.. The new service enables users to “query as many as five strings of a single word or two-word combinations.”"

1500 Plans = 30 Investments if u r a VC.

spider web
Originally uploaded by benbarren

So John Doerr was like rockstar famous in the Web 1.0 period where VC's didnt have blogs where they talked about running 50 marathons in 50 states or going to see a Stones movie. Kleiner havent hit the social media investments that became $B exits, being over web2 pretty much before it started, preferring to think big picture and go eco via the greentechmedia blog on a recent MIT conference ; "Kleiner’s seen 1,500 plans, met with 150 entrepreneurs, done 50 visits to research labs, and put $250mm into more than 30 startups. The foci are “the 3 C’s: Cars, Coal and Conservation.”"

aol pays $25m to own the 'sphere.

redhill FC
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Some days its good to see little bits of positive news (like clients agreeing to pay u, altho paying would be better if amount is already owing) and other industry tidbits like once was blog search engine sphere that became a 'related content engine' being bought by AOL for a reported $25M. (we offer a similar product to local publishers for local content and spent yday pitching 7 VC's exactly this space.. but hey its not mountain view 'ere.)

What is interesting is the acquisition driver, which rather than being part of adding blog search to their corporate search strategy (which is unwinnable given google's market share) AOL's strategy is to use the content to complement what they already have, interesting. I wonder if AOL will continue to power all of sphere's media customers ? Or should I say Yahoo's media customers ?

TechCrunch paraphrasing AOL's relevant exec : "They are growing a number of micro/niche brands, he said, and leveraging what he calls “passion points” of small but passionate audiences. Sphere fits right into that by showing relevant content to users, and getting AOL content in front of more users."

Would love to know the revenue multiple on this deal (any1 know?) and whether its higher or lower than Demand Media's acquisition at 7.5 times revenue of Pluck.com who own the blogburst content syndication product,

OK yday was spent pitching 8 VC's on exactly this topic. Today operational client work. Open up powerpoint, create 20 slide pack, just between emails, attachments, intranets, cutnpaste. Wash, rinse, repeat.

*Legs are killing from daily continual gym punishment, but im at least in the zone in a positive way there, and may as well drive thru that lactic acid pain barrier. (sore legs really dont like sitting in front of computer at temporary work station on a bad posture seat, ok i digress... neat that sphere got bought!) Must. Punish. Legs. And. Powerpoint.

"As a recent Google employee, I would have never gotten rich there.."

book reader
Originally uploaded by benbarren

goog employees r facing exactly the same issues of size that msft ones did during the last boom, from another xgoogler (digitalhobbit): "Of course the harsh truth is that most startups fail, but at least there is that 1 in a 10 chance of being tremendously successful (and the sense of actually being able to contribute to this chance). As a recent Google employee, I would have never gotten rich there, even if the stock had doubled or tripled in price."

aussie auto industry needs to follow the lambo on itunes trail.

lambo podcasting
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Repulsed and attracted corporate ho that I am, I think its great that the Messiah of TPN and forefather of skype podcasting, the Odysseus of Brisbane, Cam Reilly did some Telstra now we are really talking Podcasting before exiting Yarraville.

But after yday being passed on the waterfront backstreets of Hastings by a 7 car strong group incl R8, F430's, Gallardo, Vantage, etc - I'm prob even more interested that Lambo with its hero brand - Reventon is offering free video podcasts on Itunes. Just downloading them now.

So how long will it be till Australian car manufacturers take $100k out of their $10m brand budgets and go a little bit viral and deliver some digital bits to the nano kids. Its alright Mr Marketing Director. It won't hurt too much. Here comes the plane, oops make that reventon, food.

was that $60K or $60m you needed ?

standrews receivers
Originally uploaded by benbarren

Just reading The Age and it appears the Tom Doak designed St Andrews Beach (who also designed the Tasmanian Barnbougle Dunes wetdream i played the other fortnight and the next adventure being New Zealand Cape Kidnappers) has gone into administration.

The course is about a 3 wood from where I used to live (10 minutes from where i am now - over the main ridge gulley in shoreham) and its also slotted between Lee Freedman Horse Training Complex (Makybe Diva anyone:)?; Moonah Links (which has had 2 Australian Opens and is my favourite course); And The Dunes (previously ranked best public course in Australia until Barnbougle came along, where btw I dislocated my kneecap a few years ago when hitting a ping 1 iron off the deck on a par 5 : where my second shot ended 10 metres off the green but the ambulance took a couple hours to arrive then get me to frankston, well at least i got a golf voucher for a return game!) - So St Andrews is on gods land when it comes to golf. I'd link to their website but it's down/turned into a landing page for their web developer. Check the tomdoakgolf link.



St Andrews Beach took the strategy of being a private club with no public play (like The Dunes, Moonah and Barnbougle), and also didnt really appear to be trying to develop lots of property like Moonah has. So I was never too sure of the business model. But Ive been hanging for the hard times to hit, so that there is discounted public pay, or ridiculously cheap memberships or some other variations. Because um, its a Doak course on some amazing land. (altho from pic below u can see why cape kidnappers is $300-$400 a round, plus a flight to NZ!)

When it was being built the marketing director and I played 6 holes using a 4WD and a basic outline of the holes developed. It was the equivalent of an alpha prototype website where prospective members were encouraged to play then spend $20k-$50k on various levels of consumer + corporate membership.













To stay open StAndrews.au needs $60K to which they're asking members for $500. Here's where my maths gets wonky : They need $60k to stay alive, but the company that went into administration burnt thru $60m. Either way, the new owner will have the choice of burning existing members shares and fees - ie members can be asked to pay for the golf they believe they have already paid for. ie members may not be members, wink wink.













My tip would be to make the course public, and get Denton Corker Marshall in there and build me a palace like the Cape Schanck one they did pictured (only a few kilometres away), that fuses into the boobesque undulating windswept tea tree, and back beach outlooks... or maybe they'll sell me a membership for $500 ! (i dont have in my pocket anyway : where's Mick Gatto when u need him. I wonder if Mick is a big blog reader, along with his short espresso - hey mick, wondering if u have a google or technorati vanity search alert)













* Onto AFL and the 12% of you readers that are Australian IP addresses, it seems The Bulldogs again have had the stamina and run over the top of the Bombers; 128 pts Dogs vs 99 pts Bombers (or similar score)