10 Jun

Fake Steve Jobs and Business 2.0′s Who Matter’s Poll

How many of you have heard that song by Lady Sovereign, “Love me or hate me, it’s still and obsession. Love me or hate me, that is the question. If you love me then, thank you. If you hate me then, F you.”

Love him or hate him, the Fake Steve Jobs is gaining influence. And to all of our astonishment, the author of the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs has made the Business 2.0 “Who Matters Now” list, and has debuted at number one!

FSJ is actually ahead of Apple’s Steve Jobs – and a list of 99 powerful influencers.

But wait, there’s more. The fake Steve Jobs also sent in a picture at the request of Owen Thomas. Cool, but foolish move for Mr. Fake Jobs, as Thomas is now asking for tips based on a few key identifiers in the pictures.

Sometimes not knowing the identity allows us to read and share information and thoughts more enthusiastically than once we uncover who’s behind it. The same can me said for Skeptic and the now defunct Dead 2.0 blog. That was some good readin’.

Also see Valleywag for additional background on FSJ.

9 Jun

Guy Kawasaki, Truemors and for Everything Else, There’s Mastercard

Guy Kawasaki recently posted an enlightening story about what it took to get Truemors online. He even presented the numbers at the recent Launch Silicon Valley event in front of 150 entrepreneurs, reporters, VCs, and bloggers.

Before we continue, I need to disclose that I think Guy is one of the most approachable and personable icons in Silicon Valley.

His post’s title cleverly dropped all the buzz words to draw people’s attention and sarcasm, “By the Numbers: How I built a Web 2.0, User-Generated Content, Citizen Journalism, Long-Tail, Social Media Site for $12,107.09.”

Truemors, the MasterCard commercial:

Software development – $4,500

Legal fees – $4,824.14

Logo – $399

Domains – $1,115.05

Worldwide smackdown – Priceless

Kawasaki commented, “During the dotcom days, entrepreneurs had to raise $5 million to try stupid ideas. Now I’ve proven that you can do it for $12,107.09.”

According to his post, Guy learned four valuable lessons launching Truemors:

1. There’s really no such thing as bad PR.

2. $12,000 goes a very long way these days.

3. You can work with a team that is thousands of miles away.

4. Life is good for entrepreneurs these days.

He’s right on 3 out of 4 of these. Unfortunately, there is such a thing as bad PR. While the link love has had positive effects on Truemor’s traffic, the bad publicity fueled countless attacks on Guy’s credibility – all which will remain in the blogosphere for quite sometime.

Whether or not Truemors, or his post, were good ideas, Guy was just trying to fall on the sword with some humor, dignity, and character.

Well, at least he has 12,000 new points to spend on his Mastercard.

Other voices on the subject:

Matthew Ingram – “What he should really be saying is `How I Wasted $12,107 On a Site That Serves No Purpose.’”

Wired

Mediabistro

Tom Abate

Valleywag - “We are supposed to take from “the numbers” that Guy was just trying to learn some lessons about Web 2.0 startups, but Truemors does not reveal new lessons, it shows Guy needing to rationalize bad PR, something he hasn’t faced so acutely before.”

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9 Jun

Virtual Goods and Real Economies Discussed in First Life

Can I buy you a drink? Virtually that is. Only…using real money to buy it for you in a world where you can’t truly enjoy it, but it’s cool that way. So let’s not really get together, but still enjoy this drink, together – virtually of course – so we can contribute to the worldwide economic boom for alternative, online entertainment and live our second life to the fullest.

Now there’s a conference dedicated to tracking this rapidly expanding industry. And, companies are making bub.blicio.us profits from this ulterior economy.
Get ready for the Virtual Goods Summit! And, you can actually attend it, in first life!

Virtual goods and virtual currencies are growing beyond their original roots in online gaming and beginning to exert growing influence on the development of social networks, community sites, and casual games.

Consumers have shown a willingness to embrace virtual goods as a way to express themselves online. From pets to coins to avatars, virtual goods are becoming a real opportunity for companies who are looking to build more engaging online experiences:

  1. Neopets users have created over 206 million virtual pets
  2. Tencent has over 100 million users in China and generated $100 million in Q1 2007, driven largely by virtual item sales
  3. Nexon generated $230 million in 2005, 85% of which came from virtual item sales
  4. Habbo Hotel has over 75 million registered avatars in 29 countries

The Virtual Goods Summit will bring together leading entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and technologists to discuss the present and future of this rapidly growing market. They’ll host conversations around some of the key questions facing the virtual goods market today:

  1. How will virtual goods and virtual currencies impact social networking?
  2. Are virtual goods the next big business model?
  3. What does it take to successfully launch a virtual goods offering?
  4. Are virtual goods poised to go mainstream?
  5. What does it take to nurture and develop a successful virtual economy?
  6. Why are users embracing virtual goods?

The lineup is pretty impressive, including:

  • Ginsu Yoon, Linden Labs (Second Life)
  • Kyra Reppen, MTV Networks (Neopets)
  • Craig Sherman, Gaia Online
  • John Vars, Dogster
  • John Chi, Nexon USA
  • Amy Jo Kim, ShuffleBrain
  • Erik Bethke, Go Pets
  • Tim Stevens, Doppelganger
  • Daniel James, 3 Rings
  • Sean Ryan, Meez
  • Jim Greer, Kongregate
  • Joshua Hong, K2 Networks
  • Robert Scoble
  • Susan Wu, Charles River Ventures
  • Kevin Efrusy, Accel Partners

Virtual Goods Summit 2007
June 22, 2007 from 10 AM – 5 PM
Annenberg Auditorium Stanford University

8 Jun

Flashback – Internet Oldtimers Ad:Tech Party in San Francisco

There’s an old adage, and that’s the saying not the industry advertising magazine Ad Age, that some things are better late than never…and that’s the case with this post.

Adriana Gascoigne and the bub.blicio.us TV crew attended several of the ad:tech parties and they were able to joing the oldtimers at the swank, invite-only Spanish Suite at the Clift Hotel.

The oldtimers group is a 500 member-strong community of the online elite, usually with titles of VP or higher. It was co-produced by SocialDiva.

Interviews include:

For more ad:tech fun, visit adrants coverage.

Video Part 1

Video Part 2

 

8 Jun

Meetmoi Meets Moola

First round financing seems to be on the rise.

MeetMoi, an interesting location-based mobile dating service, announced that it closed a round to the tune of $1.5 million courtesy of Acadia Woods Partners.

Founded by Andrew Weinreich, founder of sixdegrees.com, MeetMoi puts a new spin on online dating by taking it to the streets. Literally. The company offers real time proximity search capabilities from cell phones for singles hopeful of finding someone nearby for an impromptu date.

How it works is simple: Individuals first register online or from a cell phone. When a member wants to go on a date, they simply send a message from his/her phone to MeetMoi with a current location typed in the body of the message. MeetMoi then registers the user as ‘Available’ and sends the user’s profile via text message to other users who meet his or her criteria and are also within a specified proximity preference (i.e. men aged 25 to 30 within 1 mile of the searching member).

The profiles that are sent to matches can include a picture if the recipient’s phone accepts pictures. Members can preserve their anonymity while chatting through the gateway of MeetMoi.

Seems interesting, and it definitely has a unique spin which will help them against such formidable competitors as Match, Yahoo Personals, Date.com, True, and Lavalife, and Jdate.

Follow the MeetMoi story on their blog.

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