RBr

Beyond article / blog post writing, submitting quick designs to theme sites or working the affiliate game...

Have you thought about developing a few small, niche targeted for-pay lessons?

For example, a lot of people want to learn how to design and code WordPress templates to sell on theme sites. Whip up a micro site and a very complete tutorial. Buy an ad on one of the smaller template sites, do some low volume adsense and you should have a few subscribers. Keep it cheap and make sure that you get excellent feedback.

You have a good mix of skills listed above and if you identify some things that people want to learn (use some keyword tools for this), you'll likely have a good source of sustainable income.

Some people are very good at recognizing talent and using it. It is a common attribute of many top CEO's in any industry.

As an outsider looking in, I perceive Jason's value to a company may be found both in his skill to identify valuable people and to market the company he is involved with through his personal exploits. Sometimes, companies work well in spite of the leadership they have as staff comes together to form and execute ideas.

At Weblogs, Brian Alvey and a slew of talented people pushed both the platform and the content to form a successful company. At Mahalo, iteration after iteration drives the product while a revolving door of staff comes and goes. Jason's latest projects including his video podcast network and independent startup conference are further examples of time and trial. On the surface, Jason's value has been to identify the right people and use each company as a platform to market himself and then his role within the company.

This history is somewhat unusual and confusing when compared with traditional employers. Especially for those that Jason prefers to hire. Young, fresh out of school, energetic and bright, Jason leverages his abilities to identify talent in order to "scoop" people who can trade their time for the chance to work for a true online legend. In many cases, it's a fair trade. However, when looked at from afar, Weblogs, Mahalo, This Week In and TechCrunch tell an interesting story that may make those with more experience, knowledge or connections think twice. "To each his own" is a valuable sentiment conveyed well by Travis in the original post.

Beyond history, I have learned to judge powerful people with a simple measure of good vs. evil. When given the opportunity, some people unknowingly make decisions that have a positive impact on the people and processes around them. Others feel more comfortable operating somewhat negatively while justifying their path by saying things such as, "I make the hard decisions" and "I'll fight until the last breath". There is no right or wrong way to make decisions but the impact of those decisions on the people and processes around them uncover what type of person they are.

With my definition of good vs. evil above in mind, and using Mahalo as a specific example, Jason can be viewed as evil. It's not always easy to do, but I strongly believe that working with people who are fundamentally good produces happy, healthy, engaged employees who truly care about the success of their company, it's culture and their leadership. Working for people who are evil produces a turnstile of employees who typically last less then 3 years at their desk and require regular additional extra curricular motivation in order to offset their frustrations.

This has been around since at least 2006: http://crypto.stanford.edu/sameorigin/

This is a trend going through large Canadian businesses right now.

They seem to think that by outsourcing work to overseas mills that they can save money. Sales and support aside, it's the companies that are outsourcing engineering that are really hurting.

For me, maintaining focus is about planning.

I found that taking one afternoon a week (usually Tuesdays for some reason), removing all distractions and simply thinking about my big picture goals and what I need to do to get there solves a number of issues - including maintaining focus on multiple projects.

This gives me time to step back and think about the big picture. I don't often get caught up in the small stuff anymore and giving myself time to step out of the day-to-day race lets me see things a little more clearly.

Usually, what happens is that I find myself pushing back the "multiple projects" that don't contribute to my larger goals. At the same time, I've noticed that I can see where smaller projects should combine and will eventually work alongside my big lofty plans to take over the world.

It's a simple thing, but stepping back regularly for an afternoon once a week is one of the most productive things I do and one of the best ways I have to maintain focus in my own personal flurry of activity.

ISP's don't want to block Torrent traffic. They want to figure out how to make more money from it.

The encryption part of this is perhaps the most interesting. However, even without breaking the encryption, I have to think that there will be ways to identify requests base on pre and post data.

We know what encrypted Torrent traffic looks like. We don't need to know exactly what is being transmitted, only that an encrypted torrent session has been started. Similarly, I'm guessing that we would be able to draw conclusions based on size, timing and flow?

The encryption part of this whole thing is useful and very interesting.

This line of thinking is very similar to what happened when the Gnutella network itself was formed. It was created as an alternate system to the FastTrack network. Nervous of the legal system, the decentralized network was built with a (still increasing) number of clients available.

In the same way that the Gnutella network further fractured the web, alternate DNS systems have the same capability, on a much larger scale.

In my mind, there is nothing wrong with creating alternate systems that work beyond the view of government agencies and the public in general. However, every time we do this, we create yet another fracture in the Internet that we know and love.

DNS queries can be filtered, categorized and reported just as easily as any other type of traffic.

Regardless of the tech, it's the fragmentation that this sort of behavior causes that is the real problem.

This is a very interesting project. However, I think in order for something like this to succeed, it needs to be founded in a truly altruistic goal such as education, research, or some form of free information.

"By creating a .p2p TLD that is totally decentralized and that does not rely on ICANN or any ISP’s DNS service"

Sadly, the acronym p2p is tied with media piracy. If this alternate DNS system relies on the .p2p TLD, ISP's will have an easy way to filter this traffic. Beyond simple blacklist blocking, similar to what Comcast is doing to Level 3, it would make more sense for ISP's to simply charge extra (a lot extra) to access the .p2p side of the Internet.

A similar conversation was had years ago around the .xxx TLD discussion. In the end, the Internet needs to be open and priced at a level where everyone can access the information contained within it. If the US, China, etc start to impose drastic, unresonable restrictions then we will have no other choice except to create alternate systems. Eventually, this will create a fragmented, disjointed Internet completely different from the one we are using now.

This looks like an interesting app. However, the features that you have integrated are not unique or interesting enough for this app to gain a lot of attention.

If your intention is to create a niche app that solves a few problems, you've done a great job of that. The users who like your app will like it a lot.

If you are still in active development and would like to increase the number of people using your app, here are some things that might help:

1) Re-conceive both your self-hosted product page and the Apple App Store description. In short, you need to answer this question quickly and accurately: what makes your browser 100x better than any other browser out there? Currently, your "discover, read, share" sections are not compelling. Your App Store description is a little better with your quick point form feature list.

2) Your integration of Social Bookmarking is very interesting. I recently reviewed Delibar (http://robisit.com/gl). It is an app that saves bookmarks to Delicious or Pinboard. I concluded that the major flaw in this software was that it was limited to these two social bookmarking services. I think that you should integrate every single bookmarking and sharing service into your browser somehow. This is a powerful feature that is not currently being used in iOS apps properly.

3) I realize it's early - but listing real testimonials sells apps. Plain and simple, quotes such as, "I love this app, it changed my life" help people spend $2 on an App.

Without downloading your browser and testing it, it looks like you have an interesting product. The way that you have collected useful browsing add-ons and components into one iOS package might be useful. On the surface, your sales text isn't compelling and presents the biggest problem.

It doesn't need to be a full-time gig and age is inconsequential.

The idea here is two fold. First, get out and talk to people. Retreating into a cave is the single worst mistake that people make. Force yourself to get out there and talk to people.

It sounds like it might be good for you to go to a couple of local conferences / meetups in your area. Go to them regularly. Talk to people - convey your Father's advice. This way, you'll still feel connected to him.

There are likely people who will appreciate your advice. Talk individually with these people (coffee, whatever), maybe sit on a steering board - whatever works. The idea here is that in doing this, you will not only be "getting out of your cave", but you'll be helping (mentoring) others and making a bad situation (even a little bit) better by passing on this valuable advice.

Honestly though, this is the sort of stuff that a shink will help you with. Grief is 50% to 80% of a good shrink's job - you're not alone. They will be able to talk with you and give you waaaay better stuff than this to do.

1) Talk to a shrink. I'm not a big medication guy, so simply having an impartial, 3rd party can help. Plus, they know grief so they can help you find some strategies.

2) Channel your Father. I don't mean in some Psycho (movie) sort of way. I mean that likely without knowing it, you know what your father would have said for a long time. You could likely say "what would he have said" and have him there with you. Sometimes, writing questions and then answering them as if you were him can reveal the answer... and help.

3) Tell other people who your father was. Go out of your way to talk to people and when some advice pops into your head that your dad would have conveyed, relay that. If possible, mentor someone yourself. Passing on experience really lets folks live on. Even if the people you're passing stuff on to aren't related (like a son or daughter), mentoring people is as valuable for the mentor as the person being mentored.

Groupon's "flash in the pan" days are behind it. They created a new niche on the Internet and now, a very large number of clones are nipping at their heels.

Online, Groupon's business is about leadgen. Offline, Groupon's business is about selling the exposure they can give to a local business. Both their online leads and their access to offline local businesses are quickly being diluted.

If Groupon takes funding (for the right reasons), they will have thought up a great new product that contributes to the new vertical they have created in a unique, limited way. Based on their "Groupon Stores" idea, I don't think that they have have this in them.

I wrote a blog article a while ago that describes what I think is the only natural course for Groupon: http://robisit.com/idea-of-the-day-saturate-the-groupon-mode...

In my mind, Groupon needs to do what they've been doing. They need to move hard and fast as far into every hyper local market that they can. They need to refine their leadgen, their delivery and their formula for local businesses to succeed.

As an outsider looking in, I don't think that Groupon has the capability to move hard or fast enough. As a result of these things, I think that Groupon should either sell now or obtain enough funding to hire a significant number of sales people. Personally, I'd sell.

Or just build your own. It's super easy with the API's and can be customized with much better search-and-match rules than anything out in the wild.

Some of my personal favorite stats are to watch people who RT more than once over a set time period about the competition.

"Like terms" is also handy because then you can add terms that are directly related but not identical to your competitor.

I'm sure that the big brand folks are already doing this and that there are paid tools ... but on a smaller scale, it's fast and easy to whip this sort of monitoring up.

The hard part is figuring out what these people want. You really need to have an insight into the weaknesses of your competition to accomplish that.

Passively assimilating the people who follow your competitors isn't a bad idea.

However, you can quickly target people who evangelize your competitors by tracking which of those followers who re-tweet and follow competitors on other social networks.

Those are really the users that you want. Identify them and give them a reason to get behind you.

Mass following any group of people on any social network won't increase your reach. Targeting specific groups of users, identifying what they want and giving that to them will.

I figured it was because of the search volumes.

Scoble wrote about Google vs. Instagr.am. I left a comment that answers your question: http://scobleizer.com/2010/11/12/why-google-cant-build-insta...

When you consider Google, Instagr.am and now Boutiques.com, I think that each of these products serves a very different purpose. Google's scrappy startup, innovative days are (and should) be behind it. It's not that Google shouldn't make new products, it's that the products that they focus their core business on should contribute to what has made it successful.

Boutiques.com does contribute to their core product. Instagr.am does not.

In order for Google to keep pioneering, they need to increase their investment in startups. By extending the company through investment rather than core products, the company will allow startups to move quickly while improving their core product incrementally.

I don't think that Boutiques.com was a departure from what Google is already good at. Boutiques.com contributes to their core product (search).

On the surface, it looks like Google has defined a long list of fashion ecommerce sites to search. Then, they pepper in some Google Images functionality along with a base template designed to encourage engagement.

This sounds a lot a specialized, properly linked version of Google Images more than innovation.

I think that Google should be investing more in startups if they want to increase innovation. Creating products that contribute to their core product is exactly what I'd do if I was the CEO of Google.... which based on my bank balance, I'm not :)

Web and mobile apps seem to consume most of our days lately. It's nice to be reminded that there is still a lot of money in straight, simple ecommerce.

I like the way that Google is aggregating content into one shop. I've often wondered why the marketing geniuses at retail stores like Gap haven't recruited celebrities (or their stylists) to assemble groups of clothing and accessories. Brand celebrity specific micro sites, target trending celebrity keywords, show people clothes that popular people wear sort of thing.

In a different line, an interesting facebook app would allow those wacky kids to easily assemble groups of clothes that they own or want. Wrap those collections in customizable page templates (photos, colors, that sort of thing) and allow them to be shared with their friends.

Generally, I like to think about bounce rate as a measure of quality.

If your pages contain good quality content and your traffic is coming from targeted (good quality) sources, your bounce rates will decrease. On average if you increase the content and quality traffic of your website, the bounce rates will naturally decrease.

For this reason, I've often thought that Google should rename Bounce Rate to something a little less erroneous involving the word "quality".

It's always scary when a sumo sized company like Facebook enters your space. However, there are two things that this article doesn't consider:

1) People like new, shiny and cool. Facebook won't be new, shiny or cool forever. Sure, neither will Foursquare or Gowalla, but you get the idea. Out sumo the sumo and you'll win the next round.

2) Foursqure and Gowalla are interesting social networks, but they're social networks in the loosest form of the term. First and foremost, their functionality is based around engagement and motivation. Users "get something" for "doing something". This was somewhat revolutionary on the web and we haven't even scratched the surface of this.

I understand that money is ultimately the answer to my question... however...

Why haven't Microsoft or Sony, or better yet some video game maker we've never heard of, realized that building a platform to encourage "hacking" would make a lot of money. If Apple's App store has thought us anything it's that people want to be engaged on a deep level with devices such as video game consoles.

I must be missing something.

My solutions to this problem:

Stick one of your business cards in the opposite side of your name. When it gets spun around (and it will), folks will at least be able to see your card to associate the colors and logo with you. Better than nothing.

Buy a few of those super strong magnets. Like these: http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/science/770f/ Put one in your shirt pocket and put a thin one in the name badge pocket behind your name.

In the past, I used a tie clip. I didn't geek it up and put the clip right over the badge. Rather, I poked the tie clip through the back and then clipped it normally to my shirt. It went un-noticed. I just found the magnets to be a little easier.

Recognition is a function of management. If a manager is truly engaged in the day-to-day activities of a team, that manager can (and will) naturally recognize work properly.

The problem however is that for whatever reason, management isn't as effective as it should be. A function of time, burn out, or simple inadequacies, if people are leaving a job because they aren't recognized, chances are good that they would also say their manager wasn't very good at his or her job.

This goes to show you that being good at conferences isn't unique... it's a skill that is learned though experience along with trail-and-error. For some folks, it comes naturally while others need to work at it. It is a skill though and when practiced can be a lot of fun.

Here are a couple of things that I've learned specific to your questions. They're sure no book, but I don't think that a practical guide exists. Being good at conferences is as individual as writing code - it's an extension of yourself.

- how to get in and out of a conversation circle

If people are heavily engaged, this is very difficult and you can easily step on the toes of the folks engaged in conversation. Generally, as long as the conversation doesn't "feel" private, stand near the circle and nod a lot. Then, when you have something truly intelligent to add, offer that up. Instantly, you will then be part of the conversation. If you don't have an intelligent part to add, don't. Use this opportunity to break into another group by saying "Bill over there was just talking about tktkt, what do you think of that?"

- event invitations: when is it ok to go and not go

Private events are not ok. Don't show up at the bar or otherwise crash it. Get on the list and do it the right way. At some large, stupidly exclusive events such as Ted, it's ok to show up in the hotel bar and mingle with the folks who paid to be there.

- what's the appropriate amount to talk about yourself and your idea

I use personal information to engage others to talk about themselves. I don't directly talk about myself. A natural part of conversation is to engage people personally in a back-and-forth manner. However, if someone talks about their office in San Francisco, exchange a fact about yourself that involves the area. Use tidbits of information about yourself to engage, not fill conversation. When asked, answer every single personal question honestly and deeply. This goes a long way to developing a relationship. It is however handy to have a few interesting, entertaining stories about yourself. This makes for great dinner conversation where back-and-forth often turns into somewhat of a round-robin of stories.

- how to identify this conversation is going nowhere

I never assume that a conversation isn't going anywhere. One of my biggest pet peeves at conferences are folks who are only there to talk to the heavy hitters. I get wanting to maximize your time, but understand that no single group of people or individual is as valuable as the collection of people attending a conference. There are usually very large brain trusts at events and if you can get a feel for the entire crowd and even have a set of questions answered by a variety of people, this is the best case scenario. Remember that conversations have a natural arc. If you feel stuck in a conversation, you need to learn how to naturally arc the conversation earlier so that you can gracefully move without being noticed.

- how to approach FAMOUS GUY

Remember that you likely won't actually have a discussion with famous people at events. Famous folks (no matter if they're on the bill or not) talk to a lot of people at events and the chance of you gaining any insight or that they will even remember you after you walk away is negligible. My best advice is that if you have some business with someone famous to walk up to him or her after he or she is done presenting, when you notice that they have a quite moment or if all else fails after they come out of the bathroom (never while in the bathroom). Quietly but confidently say something like "Hi Jimmy, my name is John, I know this isn't a great place to talk, but I've come here just to introduce myself in the hope that we can talk again. Here's my card with a note on the back about what I want to talk about. Could you give me a call when you have time or could I call you?"

- how to appropriately ask your friend to introduce you to his friend, FAMOUS GUY

I wouldn't sweat famous people too much. Sure, they look cool and have cool people around them, but for the most part, they're just people with more money then you. The real question that you should be sweating over is, what are you going to do so that people want to be introduced to you? It doesn't matter if your friend knows a music legend or is dating a model, people are people. If you hang around the right people enough, you'll get to know famous people without trying. Specifically at conferences, I'd think carefully about how much value waiting in line (and there is always a line) to talk to someone famous is. Personally, I'd rather talk to everyone in that line and everyone else at the event and then, if need be, talk to the famous person outside of the busy event to connect some dots.

Anyone want to take a bet? My money says he either follows Stephen Elop to Nokia or competes with him at another core mobile company.

We're very advanced people :)

Ok - sure, you're right - 33 million is a bit drastic... however, consider this:

In 2009, 74.9% of Canada's population had access to the Internet. Our population is spread out across the second largest land mass in the world. Our local laws (and the evil CRTC) allow telecom monopolies to exist and maintain exceptionally high monthly rates. In some parts of our otherwise great nation, calling across the street incurs long distance charges.

VoIP let a lone a service with all of Skype's features could make a very serious impact.

With these things in mind 33 million may be a stretch... but the potential number of Skype In users far exceeds 5000.

Without Canadian Skype in phone numbers, this still isn't a must-need application for 33 million folks.